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Even as enemy from across the border continues to occupy some heights this side of LoC and security forces are engaged in do and die battle, Hurriyat once again displays its anti-national credentials in more sinister form. They have given call for Kashmir bandh to protest against air strikes launched to flush out foreign militants from Kargil sector. And they do it when tourists in large number are present in Kashmir quite undeterred by the fireworks in Kargil. Even closure of airport has not affected their enthusiasm to stay on in the Valley and enjoy its serenity and beauty to the full. On Thursday alone another 1300 tourists have reached Valley. This.....more The trio expelled from Congress namely Sharad Pawar, Tariq Anwar and P A Sangma have christened their new party as ‘Nationalist Congress Party’. It will also have its flag, the tricolour with Charkha as the emblem. Tricolour now represents three different aspects. First, it is the national flag with Ashoka emblem. It also is the flag of ...more |
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Water pollution Water, which constitutes about 75 per cent of earth's surface, is a prime natural ....more Men, Matters, Memories The obvious point to make
about the state of Indian politics is that it is going to
the dogs. ....more If the history of modern India is conceived in terms of human values, Jawaharlal Nehru who ....more |
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EDITORIAL Even as enemy from across the border continues to occupy some heights this side of LoC and security forces are engaged in do and die battle, Hurriyat once again displays its anti-national credentials in more sinister form. They have given call for Kashmir bandh to protest against air strikes launched to flush out foreign militants from Kargil sector. And they do it when tourists in large number are present in Kashmir quite undeterred by the fireworks in Kargil. Even closure of airport has not affected their enthusiasm to stay on in the Valley and enjoy its serenity and beauty to the full. On Thursday alone another 1300 tourists have reached Valley. This exactly is the time chosen by the Hurriyat to give bandh call so that tourists are made to run away from Valley. This means they hate Kashmiri people to earn their livelihood as tourism remains the mainstay. Hurriyat is also quite unmindful of what happens to average Kashmiri household with such type of anti-people calls. By doing so they are directly hitting the people below the belt, obviously on instructions from their mentors from across the border. If they had even slightestconcern for the good of people who have borne the major brunt of ten year long insurgency, they would have not resorted to such paralysing tactics which also creates fear psychosis amongst the visitors. It is well known that Pakistan has not liked revival of tourism as it deprives them of propaganda leverage to project Kashmir as ‘flash-point’. If tourists continue to flow in large numbers and life moves on as usual, it disturbs Pakistan and its cronies operating in the State. One really does not understand why such organisations and its leadership continue to be given such a long rope by the State Government. One is sorry to comment on the mental calibre and mind-set of these people who represent Hurriyat amalgam. Kargil town has been blasted by Pak gunners and it presents a picture of destruction. All the residents of this district town have run away or shifted to other places, many of them braving the extremities of weather almost in the open. Same is true of Drass which is fully deserted with entire population of 12000 moved to safer places. Hurriyat has not uttered a single word of sympathy for such large number of refugees who belong to their own fraternity. None of them has been remotely condemned Pak firing on these peaceful citizens. If Hurriyat indeed represents people of the State their hearts should have bled with such gory sight of destruction at the hands of Pakistani gunners. This is another proof that Hurriyat only looks after the interests of the enemy and have nothing to do with the miserable plight of people of J&K. Contrarily, Hurriyat's heart starts bleeding when IAF launches air strikes against foreign intruders as if they are their real kith and kins. This is most sinister form of anti-nationalism and secessionism that cannot be allowed any more latitude. Inaction against them keeps the insurgency alive and hopes of Pakistan materialising one day. One wonders why they have not been proceeded against even when they violated Forex norms and Income Tax laws. And now that they dare condemn even the air strikes against mercenaries sent from across the border to cause further destruction and mayhem, Hurriyat feels quite concerned and registers their protest by giving bandh call. This happens when entire nation is solidly behind strong action to eliminate infiltrators and recover the territory which they have occupied this side of LoC. No further proof of their secessionist activities is needed. The challenge to Pakistan with air strikes and other ground action would defeat the purpose unless those present within the State and spreading venom of secessionism are dealt with under the law of the land. There ought not to be any witch-hunting but those actively engaged in undermining Indian cause must be shown their right place. Any dilly-dallying on this would create insurmountable problems for the State as also the country. The trio expelled from Congress namely Sharad Pawar, Tariq Anwar and P A Sangma have christened their new party as ‘Nationalist Congress Party’. It will also have its flag, the tricolour with Charkha as the emblem. Tricolour now represents three different aspects. First, it is the national flag with Ashoka emblem. It also is the flag of the Congress (I) or call it Indian National Congress. Now Pawar & Co like to own the same except the change in emblem. It was bad on the part of Congress Party to have tricolour as the party flag because it resembled materially and otherwise the national flag. But Congress persisted with it for obvious political gains that would confuse the voters and treat the Congress as the sole messiah of the national cause or the cause of the people. Now that Sharad Pawar also does the same thing, confusion becomes more confounded both in terms of nomenclature of the party as also the flag it would wield. In fact, the intention indeed is to confuse the gullible electorate which would find it difficult to discern Nationalistic Indian Congress from the Indian National Congress. Likewise, tricolour sans emblem also results in confusion. But the EC has allowed the name because there have been so many splits in the Congress after the famous 1969 split. It was Congress (S) represented by Sharad Pawar, Congress (J) of Jagjivan Rama's brand, Congress (I) of Indira trait. So on and so forth. Likewise there have been multiple splits in the Janata Dal, each one of them claiming to be the sole arbiter of nation's destiny with identical name and flag with minor change that is difficult to differentiate. So the Nationalist Indian Congress takes birth with Sharad Pawar as the President. It claims secular credentials and is quite near to Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh. Uptil now there is no indication of mass desertion from Congress (I) to Sharad's group even in his own bation of Maharashtra. Same is true of PA Sangma in the north eastern States. Tariq Anwar has not shown where his sympathisers are and to which State they belong. No parallel State units have been formed so far although the position may crystalise on June 10 when mega event of formation of Nationalist Indian Congress is going to be dramatised with so-called massive participation. As on now Sonia's Congress appears to be in firm control in all the States ruled by it and other places where it has marginal influence. Mulayam supports Pawar. CPI keeps the option open. BJP allies namely Lok Shakti, DMK, Trinamool Congress, Samata Party, HVP and others are cool to calls and overtures from Pawar & Co. Even Telugu Desam finds the game more beneficial while remaining in the BJP camp as Andhra is being exposed to assembly polls, perhaps alongwith Lok Sabha polls. One really wonders who is more secular. Nationalist Indian Congress, Samajwadi Party or the Sonia Congress. And if all of them are secular what prevents them from espousing the common cause of minorities and the backwards from a single platform. It seems the trio has left the Congress in a huff because they had been marginalised by Sonia. They felt suffocated and thus came out on a pretext which was supported by the trio just a month back. |
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Water
pollution Water, which constitutes about 75 per cent of earth's surface, is a prime natural resource. It is the basic necessity of all forms of life after air and a precious national asset. "No water no life" has been proved scientifically. However, it sustains life when is pure, but becomes poison when gets polluted. Presently only 3 per cent of the world's water is fresh and 75 per cent of that is locked away in glaciers and the polar ice caps. The main sources of water are oceans, seas, rivers, streams, lakes springs and wells. They have been of special significance and interest of man owing to their multipurpose uses and benefits. But with the advancement of industrialisation, the demand of water is augmenting day by day. As per the present day calculation, India will require about 4,400 billion litres of water in 2000 A.D. which is now, 2,600 billion litres. This calls for effective and careful planning and management for use of water i.e. all strenous efforts must be made to save water sources from being polluted. Extent and sources of water pollution Water pollution is an old problem. In ancient times, however, the effects of water pollution were mainly felt under local conditions. But with the availability of clean drinking water through water supply schemes and elimination of an old traditional demand of drinking water from ponds has effectively checked the once rampant tapeworm disease in human beings. This dreadful disease was in vogue in whole of the sub-tropical region of Siwalik Himalayas locally known as Kandi extending from Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir State to parts of Himachal, Punjab and Haryana. However, now a days, water is polluted directly or indirectly as a result of man's activities, so much so that about 70 per cent streams and rivers of India contain polluted water. It has been estimated that presently there is about 7 times more pollution in rivers, lakes and streams than 70 years ago. Today we are reaching a stage when the water pollution effects are globe based. Almost half of the rivers and lakes are so polluted that they no longer can be processed for drinking water. This is due to the over population, the phenomenal advance in industrialisation, agricultural operations, illiteracy and domestic activities. The main reasons of water pollution are deforestation, domestic waste and sewage, indiscriminates use of insecticides, fungicides and herbicides and chemical fertilizers, industrial effluents, nuclear weapon testing. Pollution of ponds, lakes and rivers is due to washing of clothes, bathing of cattle etc. besides run off from house drains and street disposals. Deforestation is a consequences of increasing pressure on the land as with population explosion the land remains no longer sufficient for meeting day by day requirement of man. To make land available for agriculture, people resort to clearing of forests on a large scale. Secondly, due to their dependence on fire wood from the forests nearly, they resort to felling of trees. Deforestation is also a consequence of industrial activities and indiscriminate quarrying in the hilly areas. An increase in population beyond the carrying capacity of the environment results into air, water, noise and soil pollution, over exploitation of natural resources, scarcity of food and poor living standards. Rural population in our country is by and large uneducated and very poor. It is more so in hilly remote areas. They are completely ignorant about the water pollution and its ill effects on the health. Hazards of water pollution The water polluted with domestic sewage spread a number of epidemic diseases such as cholera, typhoid, dysentry, diarrhoea, jaundice. Due to pollution of industrial wastes, there is depletion of oxygen supply in water which kill the living fishes and other aquatic animals. The poisons carried away by various industrial wastes kill the bacteria and other micro-organisms amenable for bio-purification of water. Heavy metallic ions such as mercury, can cause irreversible brain damage and even death in human beings who consume fish containing mercury. Lead is also a poison that affects a number of enzymes and impairs cell metabolism. In Japan, the marine pollution in the coastal areas due to industrial discharge has become so acute that fishermen living on contaminated fishes have developed serious diseases. The birds preying on fishes and other acquatic animals are dying and are in peril of extinction. The insecticides which accumulate in the body of fish are a source of potential danger to man. Their consumption may cause cancer, nerve disorders, leukimia and other serious diseases in man. Radio - active materials also cause very serious damage to quatic plants and animals and a number of diseases in man. River water pollution River pollution near big cities is on the increase and several cases of mass scale death of fishes have been reported in our country. Pollution in the Himalayan region of the Yamuna river, that is near its originating point, is almost negligible. However, in 1969 this river near Okhla in Delhi was contaminated to such a large extent that hundreds of thousands of fishes died and floated on the water surface of the river for several days. In July 1974, water of the river Gomati near Lucknow was severely polluted from the effluent discharge of sugar mill. The water turned deep yellow due to increased acidity which in turn caused death of thousands of fishes. The oxygen is in the Yamuna river water is badly affected as most of the wastes of Delhi contain lot of carbon ingredients. The amount of the latter increases so much that the amount of oxygen in the water remains negligible. Besides, when Yamuna water enters Delhi the number of bacteria causing water borne diseases is about 75 ml-1 but when it reaches Okhla the number shoots upto 0.24 million against the permissible limit of 50 ml -1. According to a study of the central pollution control Board, wastes from Delhi, Agra, Mathura and Allahabad contribute to the most to pollution of the river water. In between 1982 and 1986, the four cities contributed 1067, 70, 51 and 155 million L-1 day. Water of the river Ganga that takes its birth at Gangotri in Garhwal region of UP Himalayas (4 100 m amsl), was thought to be pure unadultrated and unpolluted upto Haridwar. But presently, it is not the case. Even at Haridwar it is being polluted by the discharges of number of industrial wastes. At Farukhabad water of the river Ganga becomes red due to discharge of industrial effluents. These effluents have toxic heavy metals such as chromium, led, arsenic, copper, cadium, nickle and cobalt. At Kanpur, the river is worst affected by organic and inorganic chemicals from 55 tanneries 15 textile mills, 2 jute mills mills and number of other drug and chemical factories are discharged into it. In Allahabad, fertilizer Industrial Complex and other industries discharge about 0.750 million L of effluents in this river. The domestic sewage and effluents from printing and metallic industrial in Varanasi pollute this river to such an extent that its water becomes even unfit for bathing. Ocean water pollution Marine pollution is an imminent ocean disaster. The oceans covering two-thirds of earth's surface are vital for life on land. They are assets of valuable resources like food, mineral chemical, petroleum, gas, pearl etc. The seas have been used for dumping ground wastes from ancient times. But today the seas are heavily loaded with a number of pollutants like industrial wastes, poisonous gases and other wastes. These pollutants destroy marine life and other resources of the sea by reducing the availability of oxygen. Polluted and poisoned fish consumed by man may cause a number of fatal diseases. Recently Indian Shrimps have been found contaminated with cholera germs. Unless steps are taken to meet the challenge, it is feared that pollution may endanger the existance of life on earth. |
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Ah ! Moti Lal Saqi is
dead........... Life, said Sigmund Freud, is ever longing for death. Life is, ever, haunted by the fear that it may cease to be before its ripened grain has been well garnered. Life remains an ephemerality that has the whole reality wrapped upon itself. Life and death, the fever and the fret, the enigma of being and non-being has chased the humanity along muddled paths of reality prodding it to enquire and explore, perchance to unravel the confounding mystry of life itself. Perchance, to overcome death. That is the civilizational quest. Or, a trajectory down the mundane turret of causeless biology, signalling at each lighted nook the futility of the effort ? Here is something that may never be pinned down,rather something that none may wish to pin down, for with reality with the truth, the sweet fiction of human worth is washed out. And, you have a bland vegetable on your hands : man the super-creature, the peak of evolutionary effort, the primal object of nature's persistance, is nothing more nothing less than a lowly potato. Man, certainly, can't be as banal as a carrot cone right ? Man, unfortunately, is as insignificant as a carrot cone, in the basket or in its bed. Yes, human worth is a sweet fiction. That fiction may be music divine to human ears, but it is a fiction all the same. Man struggle and strives to strut upon the stage of the world. It would be hard, may cruel, telling him that the effort is a waste, that it is not needed; all that the nature calls its human component for, is a transience without striving, without strain. The permanence, the delight of men hearing each other groan, is a human invention. And after many a summer, dies the swan, wrote Tenny-son; he would have been more accurate had he added just the definite article. But, he would thereby have robbed human race of a goodly comfort. That comfort comes from an air of uncertainity; delimit the years, postpone death, perchance take the sting, stricture and finality, of death away. Does the death actually go away ? Ask the carrot cone. But the carrot cone never cares. Nor does the rose, of whatever name. Save for man, death for the creation is a thing in its course ; a step in the stride that a tiny seed takes on its first sprout. A step that ensures a wider propagation, a more certain immortality. But seeds are conscienceless things, - conscienceless triffles you would say, - that can't countenance anything beyond the moment. Human have a conscience, a memory too and a mind on the top, to contemplate and cringe, to fear and fret on each ingress of death. Death that bereaves and leaves humans bereft of all hope to get the better of death. How truely human ! How truthful an error ! This error, called human, death stalks ceaselessly. Now goading it to greater achievements, now propping it to envision lofty realms, now pushing it over the brink to disappear into a clueless abyss. The effort, enterprise and endeavour, the mad rush to pile fact figure and finding, the restive soul flying with larks, perchance to enlarge humanity's understanding of itself, perhance to give truth a space, perchance to open new conduits for the imagination to flow - is as much to deceive death as it is driven by death. Call it a motivation to live. Call it an attempt to defeat death. Call it a purpose, a divine ordination. It adds up to the same : death chasing life, life renewing itself, succumbing anew, again and again, infinitely. The comfort is the fiction. The fiction is also the escape. And escape is the biggest fiction ever devised. Life goes on. Goes on to die. Dies to arise anew. The posterity remembers. The predecessors have no inkling of the remembrance. The deceased, perhaps, never care. But humanity is enriched. Enlarged. Englightened, with a fictitious brilliance. It helps keep the fiction alive. The fiction of life, living and longevity. A longevity of deeds, not days. For after "the" summers, the swan dies. Every swan. mar-ne-chi ka-thi no mu-ruth kh-or zin-da zoo-vus oo-sui y-oo-t pa-daa-sh (From death you did not shy ; Was life a torture so nigh ?) Padma Shri Moti Lal Saqi, doyen, depository, encyclopaedia, a living legend of history, art, culture and ethos of Kashmir a poet, a pleasing soul, passed away on 20th May, 1999 away from Kashmir, away from Jammu, talking, joking, in a jiffy. Om. Shantih. Shantih. Shantih. |
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Jawaharlal
Nehru the humanist If the history of modern India is conceived in terms of human values, Jawaharlal Nehru who died 35 years ago, on May 27, 1964 would occupy a prominent place as he strove for a new India based on equality and social justice, an Indian where the "mind is free and the head is held high." "Nehru", said Norman Cousin "Is not one man. He is a procession of men". In this series of men, Nehru emerges as a freedom fighter, a historian, a statesman and above all a humanist, a liberal, a modernist who perceived every Indian to be recognised by his nationality and not by his religion. He was confident that India would play a major role towards a new international order and world peace. On the road to freedom and for the onward march of India he will be long remembered as a pillar of a new society bereft of superstition and sham and of a new social order based on scientific temper and rational being. It was because of these qualities that Gandhi said, "He is pure as crystal, he is truthful beyond suspicion. The nation is safe in his hands." Nehru was an evolved mind, a contemplative mind. In an epilogue to the ‘Discovery of India’ (1946), he said, ‘What have I discovered’ ? ‘It was presumptuous of me to imagine that I could unevil her and find out what she is today and what she was in the long past. Today she is four hundred million separate men and women each differing from the other, each living in a private universe of thought and feeling. If this is so in the present, how much more difficult it is to grasp that multitudinous past of innumerable successions of human beings. "... Yet something has bound them together and binds them still. India is a geographical and an economic entity, a cultural unity amidst diversity, a bundle of contradictions held together by strong but invisible threads. "Overwhelmed again and again her spirit was never conquered, and today when she appears to be a plaything of a proud conquerer, she remains unsubdued and unconquered. About her there is an elusive quality of a legend of long ago. Some enchantment seems to have held her mind. She is a myth and an idea, a dream and a vision - this lady with a past. But she is very lovable and none of her children can forget her wherever they go." This is the India which Nehru discovered. Asked what Nehru would think of himself in the story of mankind with particular reference to the freedom struggle of India, he replied, "I like to think of myself as a pilgrim with millions of people. And it is the destination that is important and the movement of 40 crore people in that direction." If Nehru were alive today he would have only changed the figures. The concept remains the same. For Nehru ‘Bharat Mata’ (mother earth) represented the people of India. This is what he writes about ‘Bharat Mata’ : "Sometimes as I reached a gathering, a great roar of welcome would greet me : ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ (glory) be to mother India’. I would ask them unexpectedly what they meant by that cry ? Who was this Bharat Mata, Whose glory they sought ? My question would amuse them, and surprise them, and then not knowing exactly what to answer, they would look at each other and me. I persisted in my questioning. Once a vigorous jat, a true son of the soil for generations, said that it was the dharti (earth), the good earth of India, that they meant. "... they would ask me to explain what is meant by Bharat Mata. I would explain to them that it was much more than what they thought. The mountains and the rivers of India, and the forests and the sprawling fields which gave us food, were all dear to us, but what counted ultimately were the people of India, the people like them and me, who were spread out all over this vast land. "Bharat Mata, was essentially these millions of people and victory to her meant victory to these people. You are parts of this Bharat Mata, I told them, you are in a manner yourselves Bharat Mata, and as this idea slowly soaked in their brains, their eyes would light up as if they had made a great discovery." This is Jawaharlal Nehru. Never before had the meaning of Mother India been explained to the people in such simple words. He considered India as a civilising force with millenia of human endeavour behind it. Nehru was sensitive writer, he wrote profusely and abundantly. His writings include ‘Autobiography’, ‘Discovery of India’, ‘Glimpses of World History’ and ‘A Bunch of Old Letters’. He stood for freedom in learning and freedom of expression. His famous remark that as a President of Sahitya Akademi he would brook no interference from the Prime Minister of India is often quoted as bedrock of Indian letters. Yet writing for Nehru was incidental, not a means to an end, but a way of implementing a life of action. The problems of style and other literary niceties which interest creative writers were not his main concern. "My main concern is causing things to happen. It is hard for me to think of making a career for myself just of philosophy or writing", he said. "I enjoy it, to be sure, but I would not wish to make a life of it." Similar is case with his histories. Nehru was not a historian in the technical sense of the term. He was interested in the movements of history, the historicality of events, which caused things to happen. Thus in the ‘Glimpses of World History’ he talks of the ‘Conceit of Constantinople’, the ‘Pain of Pompeii’, ‘Anguish of Ajanta’, ‘Visibility of the Romans.’ Nehru was not interested in the facts of history but the sense of the fact of it. According to him empires have fallen more because of internal decay than because of foreign aggressions. A stage came "When the holy Roman empire was neither holy nor Roman nor empire, like the Indian Civil Service which was neither Indian nor civil nor service". ‘Rome fell’, he says, ‘not because of barbarians. They merely knocked down something which was already dead. The heart of Rome had ceased beating when its arms and legs were cut off. But I am afraid I am a little hard on Rome. I am a little too fond of running down kings and princes. I see little in their kind to admire’. "Rome civilisation", he says, was a richman's civilisation and those rich were not the artistic or the keen-witted rich of the ancient Greece but a rather commonplace and a dull crowd. Emperor followed emperor and some were bad and some were very bad. There was a crowd of them and barring a very few they were bad enough’. Nehru was a civilised man, his satire was polished, his humour was warm. Basically he was a thinker, a radical thinker, an intellectual. During the freedom struggle he was known as Veer Jawahar, the beau-ideal of the children who called him ‘Chacha Nehru’. His sense of humour was urbane. He would throw a pilow to a sleeping delegate at the AICC session, give a lift to a peasant who had waited for hours on the roadside, ask for a sugarcane stick from an unknown farmer, buy a baloon from a wayside stall and look for his purse which he never carried, give a personal letter to a lady doctor on duty to give a proper treatment to a shivering woman on a wintry night across the hospital. But the way he introduced humour in history was superb. His estimate of the position of Indians during the British rule is interesting. For many generations, he wrote, "The British treated India as a kind of enormous country-home (after the old English fashion). "We developed the mentality of a good country-house servant, sometime we were treated to a rare honour. We were given a cup of tea in the drawing room. Greater than any victory of arms or diplomacy was this victory, psychological triumph of the British rule. The slave began to think himself a slave as the wisemen of the old had said." When in 1942, Sir Stafford Cripps, after the rejection of his proposals by our leaders, made a special request to Nehru for a smiling hand-shake and a photograph, Nehru whose quick tongue was well-known snaped back, ‘Handshake, yes but smiles and these proposals do not go together’. As a public speaker he got unsual applause. He spoke extempore. Even on formal occasions he often departed from the text. He had a charisma about him, an essential grace, a culture of mind, besides the culture of letters. He loved India with all his mind and heart. He loved Indian people who, to use his words, "In turn were indulgent" to him, and gave him their love most abundantly and extravagantly. PTI Feature |
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