Daily Excelsior... Editorial

EDITORIAL

By Dr R L Bhat

By Jyotsna Pandit

Males never had it this bad. In the genomic world, they were seen as bums; a wasted effort of evolution that was headed only one way – the junkyard of genetic oblivion. Why were males needed at all?........more

Pakistan backs Kashmiri 'Intifada'

By Allabaksh

According to a newspaper report, a Kashmiri 'Intifada' is Pakistan's new strategy to keep Kashmir on the boil. That should not really come as a surprise and there is no doubt that the Indian ....more

EDITORIAL

Dropped chances

Trust this enthusiastic Indian fan during the India-Australia cricket Test in Chennai. Smiling as if with tongue in cheek he quietly raised a placard in the stands: ‘India can drop catches and win matches’. He did so as poor Parthiv Patel let one go easily out of his hands in the first over of Zaheer Khan. One can only salute his confidence in cheering his country’s team. It takes guts to swim against the current. In this instance he had challenged the widely held and time-bested belief that one drops catches to lose matches. In old days when the Indian fielding was not as sparkling as it is these days it was taken for granted that they would lose the encounter even before it could actually begin. One can’t afford to be casual on the field. The younger players have taken extra care to hone their skill to perfection in this department of the game. That is why the Yuvraj Singhs and the Kaifs are considered among the most alert and mobile fielders. The best of the batsmen will not hit the ball in their direction if given a choice. Any ball going past them has to be invincible. Therefore, to imply in any way that the loose fielding will not affect a team’s chance is misplaced confidence verging on audacity. As in cricket it is in every sphere of life that one can see that once a person misses an opportunity he is left to regret it or is called upon to make a gritty attempt to salvage the situation. In politics too we will find examples galore in this behalf.

Our own State has many instances of top politicians either creating or seizing openings to fritter them away in a cavalier fashion. The conditions were in favour of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad in the fifties but instead of ushering in a just and beneficent regime he followed a counter-productive ‘gun or gold’ policy and paved the way for his own downfall: he allowed himself to be ‘Kamrajed’. Shamsuddin as sort of his protégé got a least expected breakthrough as the Prime Minister to guide the destiny of the State. He instead had fallen by the wayside even before he could realise what hit him. Mr G.M. Shah plotted a coup in the mid-eighties but could not quite succeed in converting his power aspirations into a lasting dream. On his part, Dr Farooq Abdullah staged a grand comeback in 1996 helped by a combination of circumstances but despite exhausting full term in office he could not really cash in on the occasion to prove that not for nothing Sheikh Abdullah had personally appointed him his political heir. In sharp contrast, Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed is perhaps the only politician to have along with his daughter Mehbooba seized authority from the jaws of the Congress and made good use of it. He has so far managed contradictions well.

At the national plane too one has witnessed a string of short-lived glories. Mr Chandra Shekhar, Mr H.D. Deve Gowda and Mr Inder Kumar Gujral all were the creations of the environment not of their making. One after the other they had to leave the Prime Minister’s chair as if they had never occupied it. Dr Manmohan Singh himself is holding the top slot courtesy Ms Sonia Gandhi. His twin advantage, however, is that unlike many others he has no illusion on this count and both his leader and the party desire that he should excel in his office. It is now up to him to make use of the historic occurrence or cast it away. If we take an overview we will thus find that the dropped catches are indeed like the lost opportunities. They don’t help win a race. At the same time, however, we wish to make it clear that we have no intention of ridiculing the Chennai fan who raised the banner in the spirit of telling the fielders to let bygone be bygone and just one mistake should not make them lose their concentration.

Partially correct

For a change Dukhtaran-e-Millat chief Syeda Asiya Indrabi has made a first-class suggestion. Her reported advice to the Kashmir Bar Association not to defend those involved in the flesh trade speaks of her concern and maturity. She has left no doubt that she wants the lawyers to ‘fight this curse while rising above religious affiliations’. No sane person will disagree with her. In fact not only the advocates but also the entire society will do well to heed to her suggestion. It is a blot on our society that women should be compelled to take to the most contemptible profession. It is only too well known that they are driven to this wicked activity either out of extreme poverty or by unscrupulous elements always trying to revel in human miseries. In either event those patronising it deserve no sympathy. One and all must pat Ms Indrabi on the back for calling a spade a spade. Having expressed these sentiments one can’t help but notice that the blunt woman leader has not been logical in her subsequent arguments. It makes little sense, for instance, when she blames the ruling People’s Democratic Party for promoting this evil occupation in the name of tourism. How can she expect the others to overlook the fact that the PDP has a woman as a chief who is as honourable as she herself is as one of the members of the fair sex? Similarly, one can’t agree with her when she criticises the Government for efforts to draw the Bollywood back into action in the Kashmir Valley. One is constrained to say that Ms Indrabi has weakened the thrust of her basic argument by beating about the bush. Let’s talk only about the Valley in this instance although we hate to do anything that does not take into account the State as a whole. What is this enchanting place without Habba Khatoons and Lal Deds? How can one ignore thousands of women working in agricultural fields throughout the day while singing melodious songs? What is Kashmir without them?

If one were to follow the illogical course set by Ms Indrabi the women should be just like statues. She wants all of them to be dressed in burqas and concede that they were unequal so far as their status vis-à-vis men was concerned. How is that possible in any age and time? Long before she or all of us were born we have been known by the images of our mothers and sisters who have done the Valley proud? It is not for nothing that even the secessionist spectrum to which Ms Indrabi belongs is in sharp disagreement with her. A visit to Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Yasin Malik’s house in Maisuma Bazaar will lead one to see a picture of the women leading an agitation. The highly talented and intelligent Hameedas of the Kashmir University will be in the forefront of opposing the likes of Ms Indrabi in caging their ilk. Ms Indrabi must realise that she can’t hinder for long the race that aims at the emancipation of women.

Red in tooth and claw!

By Dr R L Bhat

Secularism and tolerance are virtues if they do not remain halfway creeds. Secularism is a thorough concept that must apply all along. So must tolerance and respect for the other views be universal not selective. The moment they become selective and unfair they loose their virtue and become positive hindrances. Vote politics has already reduced secularism to a mere tool. Now tolerance is under serious attack from a sectarian group that loves to masquerade as the only option. The recent dictat of the nonagenarian leftist Harkrishan Singh Surjeet that the Government pointedly remove persons marked out by him for their sin of having being appointed by the previous Government to various constitutional and high-powered posts is one case in point. It is designed to ensure that persons as do not subscribe to the communist ideology and agenda are good only to be turned out. That the detractors of Left deserve only to be punished out is an intolerant mode that leftists have never desisted from. Now they do not try to hide it as the modus operandi.

The question, however, is whether pluralist ethos can accept dictatorship of an ideology which at best is only one of the ideologies in the market. At the very least it is an alien formulation which has spent out its logic and time. At worst it is an avowedly anti-Indian stance that once hoped to rise to power on systematic erosion of the Indian values, traditions and practices. To a level headed person it is a scheme for grabbing the fonts of power through calculated manipulation using infiltration and inundation of the institutions and bodies to subvert the body politick. One should call it the old imperial route. Few would deny that it is a privilege the left has managed to appropriate by staying out of the power. It has traded workers and committed cadres for loaves and fishes of office. That way it is able to wield tremendous power over the crucial decision-making bodies in the Government. This is amply illustrated by the recent episode where all the 450 consultants with the planning commission came to disbanded because the left was uncomfortable with some 14 economic experts who it perceived would not allow their peculiar agenda to get into the planning process of the country. The bogey then was that they were 'foreigners' when in fact only one of them was non-Indian.

Today the refrain is that they are 'RSS men'. How? The proof that is offered is interesting as well as classically insufficient: one eminent journalist there has been a columnist with the Organizer; another is alleged to have campaigned for the BJP which she has denied; the rest have been appointed by the last Government! That make them all 'RSS - men'. The media has called it 'vendetta', though the old man of India left would, probably, like to call it 'leftist correction' in Indian governance. Now, whence did the left, which is today in the danger of losing its status of a national party much less a party with majority support, get the mandate to thrust its ideology over the nation and dictate to the decision making bodies. Harikrishan Surjeet's article in CPM mouthpiece People's Democracy is clear in its dictatorial tone and tenor. It does not even try to rationalize its claim but presumes, matter of the factly that Left has the pre-eminent right to put in its men and women in all fields, bodies and institutions while other ideologies must be turned out to make room for them. This brings in the communist revolution into India through the backdoor after it failed to enter through bullet and the ballot. Clearly Communism has not progressed from Bolshevik-Menshevik-Manipulations of rubbishing the majority opinion. Nor has it learned from its experience with the tactic. All along, principles are trashed as if they were mere alibi.

This is what reverend Surjeet does in the PD article. He begins by saying that Romila Thapar and Rajinder Yadav were ousted for being leftists. Of course that is not exactly true, but loyalty to facts is not a strong point of propogandists. Next he invokes 'principles' saying that he two were qualified for the posts and that their being leftists should have had nothing to do with their appointment or ouster. So do we apply the same yardstick of 'qualifications' to the BJP appointees? Of course, not! Here the mere fact that they sat with the BJP top brass, were on friendly terms with them or wrote for their paper is reason enough to throw them out. For, none asks the great ideologue about principles or applying the criteria he sets for the left-leaning people to persons of other leanings. Now it is a fact that scholars who lean towards one of the poles are away from the center. But the blemish applies as much to Leftists as to Rightists. If the impartiality of a rightist can be questioned so much a Leftist be suspect. If being a rightist is bad, so is a leftist tainted.

If a leftist is to be accepted irrespective of his/her leanings the rightist too deserves to be judged on merit. If Romila Thaper's alleged 'ouster' was bad Anupam Kher's actual dismissal is worse. Vendetta is bad irrespective of who becomes vindictive, for whatever reason. It trashes the principle of merit and suitability. And that at least in the theory is the only criterion for appointment under the Constitution of India. Appointments made by the Government in India are not the same as those made by, say, the US president. Somehow, in India the Left has succeeded in projecting leftism as synonymous with being 'impartial'. But that simply is not true. Leftism is a leaning one way, just as rightism leans the other way. The rightist, however, has the saving grace of being committed to this land and ethos while the leftist is practically opposed to the very nationhood of India not to speak of its culture and traditions. The nation has seen that during the China war the Maoists in CPI had no love lost for their nation under attack. Even if one accepted neutrality in this matter as being right and proper — though it is hard to see how nationalism can take a backseat in the commitments of a person— the commitment to an ideology and dispensation cannot be called impartiality. It makes the leftist partisans. Partisans are always squinted in eye and unequal in dealings.

Partisans have no right to call the partisanship of others into question. Yet that is exactly what the left has been doing. For fifty years of independence it did it with impunity. The scientific, historical as well as the literary circles have come to to be ruled by a gangism of left which is crassly intolerant of the other people and viewpoints. In the official and demi-official bodies ruling these arenas, the left is a virtual mafia, ever ready to hound all opposition out, to trash all claims contrary to their ideology and commitment. Often that translates not active opposition to the culture, creed and ethos of this land and nation. Many people believe that it has been one of the stumbling blocks in evolution of nationalism in this nation. Hence it is only when nation is in dire straits that Indians come unto their own. Like the Chinese aggression. like the fundamentalist attack in Kargil, when even Laloo Prasad got out of his illusions. Rest of the time, India and Indians are busy trashing their image and expression under this illusion and that delusion. Much of that comes courtesy the Left which calls its partisanship impartiality and advocates active intolerance of other creeds and views. It also threatens to rubbish the constitutional primacy of merit and suitability. By refusing to see the merit of other views, by refusing space and say to them it is violating the pluralism it often swears by. But then principles have ever been only tools wth the partisans of the Left. They do it with alibis that have lost their theme and relevance the world over.

Cheers to the great macho survivor!

By Jyotsna Pandit

Certain feminists weren’t the only ones asking this question. Even gene researchers were.

But things have changed. The full sequencing of the Y-chromosome, the long signature of manhood in our genes, reveals that scientists had underestimated the male’s powers of self-preservation.

The Y has long been considered a vestigial chromosome, a dilapidated repository of genetic material with an ever-dwindling, tiny collection of about 40 genes. Scientists said, the reason for the genetic attrition was the Y’s inability to pair and swap genetic material with any other chromosome. Human chromosome pairs swap genes to minimise bad mutations.

Y, which has no partner, faced being whittled away by mutation. Some estimate that the chromosome could be complete junk in about five to 10 million years.

But the international consortium that sequenced the Y in June in this year had found that the male chromosome, instead of doubling up to protect its genetic cargo like other chromosomes, safeguarded its genes by having sex with itself. What’s more, there are a greater number of useful genes in Y – 78, almost double the number that was previously estimated. The males aren’t all that evolutionarily vulnerable, after all.

Chromosomes are the microscopic, threadlike part of the cell that carries hereditary information in the form of genes. In humans, there are 23 pairs of chromosomes, of which only one determines the sex of the individual. These sex chromosomes are designated as X and Y. The other 22 pairs of chromosomes are called autosomes. Individuals having two X chromosomes (SS) are female; while those having one X and one Y chromosome (XY) are male. The X chromosome resembles a large autosomal chromosome with a long and a short arm. The Y has a long arm and a very short second arm.

The path to maleness or femaleness originates at the moment of meiosis, when a cell divides to produce gametes, or sex cells having half the normal number of chromosomes. During meiosis the male XY sex-chromosome pair separates and passes on an X or a Y to separate gametes; the result is that one-half of the gametes (sperm) that are formed contains the X chromosome and the other half contains the Y chromosome. The female has two X chromosomes, and all female egg cells normally carry a single X. The eggs fertilised by X-bearing sperm become females (XX), whereas those fertilised by Y-bearing sperm become males (XY).

"We’re on a quest to bring respectability to the Y chromosome," geneticist David Page of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and leader of the sequencing team, said.

The team’s findings contained major surprises. Scientists are now calling the Y-chromosome a genomic ‘crystal palace’ because of vast stretches of mirror-image genetic sequences, called palindromes. Apart from palindromes, the chromosome also contains genes that impact male fertility and an assortment of functional and vestigial genes.

However, the study’s most significant finding is the startling mechanism that the Y-chromosome uses to maintain its functionality. It appears that the Y protects its genetic integrity by swapping multiple copies of the same gene within its own structure. The Y is unique among chromosomes in that it bears long stretches of palindromic DNA sequences that nearly thwarted sequencing efforts.

"Nobody has seen palindromes of this scale and degree of precision anywhere in the genome," said Page. "The Y literally is a hall of mirrors that disorients you."

About six million of its 50 million DNA letters reside in sequences that read the same, in opposite directions, on both strands of the double helix. The longest is nearly three million letters long.

These palindromes house many genes, which mean that there is a copy at each end of the palindromic sequences. These provide back-ups should harmful mutations arise. The mirror-image structure also allows the arms to swap position when DNA divides. Genes are shuffled and bad copies are purged. Page’s team estimates that every man’s Y contains 600 DNA letters that differ from his father’s. This is thousands of times more than the normal mutation rate. Ironically, the very areas of the Y that help it salvage its genes from genetic annihilation, are especially susceptible – due to their repetitive nature – to deleting themselves out in individuals.

This leads to infertility. The Y’s evolutionary survival trick, it seems, is a double-edged sword as good genes are just as liable to be lost as the bad ones.

The major impact of its study will be on male infertility. Many scientists are of the view that the impact of environmental toxicants and the innate inadequacy of human spermatozoa are compounded by the advent of effective contraception and the introduction of assisted-conception technologies.

This lifting of the natural selection pressure on fertility means that those endowed with genes for high fertility have lost their advantage over those without. AS a result, future generation will experience a further decline in semen quality and, ultimately, human fertility. Researchers hope Y sequencing will help combat this scourge.

Genetic testing is already used to diagnose male infertility. A fuller understanding of the Y’s make-up will help refine these tests, and improve doctors’ advice to couples.

Another of the study’s revelation is that the Y chromosome may indeed carry important genes. This could also shatter the conventional wisdom that many differences between males and females in susceptibility to disease – like women’s higher likelihood of getting osteoporosis – are due to differences in sex hormones. Instead, it could be that genes on the Y-chromosome, which women do not have, are to blame.

As the finer details and fallouts of the Y-chromosome sequencing are being worked out, millions of males would be clinking their glasses in pubs around the world. Cheers to the great macho survivor! He may be the weaker sex, but is far from being an extinct one. INAV

Pakistan backs Kashmiri 'Intifada'

By Allabaksh

According to a newspaper report, a Kashmiri 'Intifada' is Pakistan's new strategy to keep Kashmir on the boil. That should not really come as a surprise and there is no doubt that the Indian security apparatus will deal with it adequately. But it all fits into a pattern.

The fact is that Pakistan's Kashmir policy, working in perfect unison with its diplomacy, has generally managed to stay a step ahead of India. India always seems to be defending or taking some retaliatory steps in relation to Kashmir, but has almost never been able to deal a pre-emptive and crippling blow to Pakistan. In the last 57 years perhaps the only time when New Delhi could outsmart Islamabad was the occupation of Siachen heights which, going by present indications, may soon be vacated by the Indian army for a reciprocal step by Pakistan on the other side of the glacier.

In recent months, India and Pakistan are supposed to have made some significant progress in ending their traditional hostility, which is, of course, to be welcomed. Despite wavering and conflicting statements from various sources in India, it would appear that infiltration, or Pakistan's export of cross-border terrorism to India, has been on the decline.

From the time the NDA Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, did a U-turn to talk peace with Pakistan because troop mobilisation on the border had failed to intimidate Pakistan, 'cross-border terrorism' has been held out by India as the major hurdle in starting a serious bilateral dialogue with Pakistan. With the onset of winter, nature also intervenes to check infiltration.

Now we have to get ready to face a situation where Pakistan would be shouting from house tops that infiltration has dropped to a trickle so India should talk with focus on Kashmir, which, as everyone knows, is Pakistan's way of asking India to hand over to it the Muslim-dominated areas of Jammu and Kashmir.

India will certainly not do so. Pakistan will then launch a global campaign against India, with overt or covert US support, to paint India in poor light for its 'obduracy' and dishonouring its own word that Kashmir would be discussed seriously once cross-border terrorism is brought to halt. India will be made to look like defending a weak case and a country that does not honour its words. Pakistan would have once again drawn the first blood.

Islamabad has been working on a different strategy for Kashmir for quite a while, even as it pursued 'peace' with India. Peace between India and Pakistan is definitely welcome. But it should never be forgotten that no matter what Pakistan says publicly its obsession with India would never end, nor will its desire to gobble up Indian territories in the name of religion.

The military ruler, Gen Pervez Musharraf, whose dislike for India can hardly be hidden behind his occasional smile and his strange love for talking 'peace', has worked methodically to work out a strategy to outfox India when he saw that New Delhi would not talk about Kashmir unless cross-border terrorism was brought to a halt, or reduced to an insignificant trickle.

On reflection, his strategy has been masterly.

After years of vigorous export of terror to India, not to mention unlimited quantities of arms and ammunition, and running round-the-clock training camps for the 'freedom fighters', Pakistan now feels it has enough of well-armed and trained 'loyalists' in Kashmir who can continue the 'freedom struggle'. Musharraf feels confident that Pakistan need not be so obtrusive in exporting terror to Kashmir where there are now enough homegrown terrorists to carry on the 'freedom struggle'. And if Pakistan's patrons in Washington and other western capitals do not approve of the appellation 'freedom struggle', let it be called 'Intifada', the name by which Palestinian's home-grown uprising is known.

The 'Intifada' in Kashmir will in reality be sustained by Pakistan's ISI. Notice that in the top military reshuffle in his country, Musharraf has promoted either ISI top guns or those officers who are known to be loyal to him. To deflect international pressure from Pakistan, the ISI is now largely using its Bangladesh 'branch' which has grown in size and influence under the benign rule of Begum Khaleda Zia whose dislike for India-and Sheikh Hasina of Awami League-matches Musharraf's.

To keep the 'uprising' in Kashmir going, three things are required.

One, a continuous supply of 'freedom fighters', who are ready to die on suicide missions. Pakistan obviously feels that years of its anti-India propaganda have ensured that there will no shortage of manpower for this 'cause'.

Two, arms and ammunition. This is again no problem because they can be exported through various routes, including India's porous borders with countries in the east and north-east, while the western and north-western border is still a long way from being sealed.

Finally, the easiest thing for Pakistan will be to ensure constant 'guidance' and flow of money to the Kashmiri terrorists with the help of electronic gadgets, ranging from cell phones to ATM machines. These efforts are now supplemented by Pakistanis' frequent contacts and meetings with Kashmiris in and out of India.

Visiting Pakistani leaders generally make it a point to contact the pro-Pakistani 'leaders' from Kashmiri before they call on Indian hosts. The Pakistani diplomats and ISI agents masquerading as chancery employees-one senior diplomat was once caught red-handed handing over a briefcase of currency notes for of the Kashmiri 'leaders'-have free access to all and sundry in Delhi, Kashmiri terrorists included.

All that Pakistan has to do is to manipulate enough publicity globally that what is being witnessed in Kashmir is a local uprising in which it has no hand. As a proof of this, it will quote high-ranking Indian sources as saying that infiltration has indeed dropped drastically.

The Pakistani attempt will be to place the Kashmiri uprising on the same footing as the Palestinian's 'Intifada' so that it attracts world, particularly Muslim, attention more closely than it has so far. In its efforts to see that the world does not see the acts of violence and killing of innocents in Kashmiri as acts of terrorism, Islamabad will seek diplomatic support from Washington.

It is an entirely different matter that the years of 'Intifada' have failed to bring to fruition the Palestinians' dream of driving away the Jews from occupied territories and getting an independent home-land. Many Arab commentators have begun to express dissatisfaction with the second round of Intifada, launched in September 2000 when the present Prime Minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon, then the Opposition leader, had visited the al-Asqa mosque in east Jerusalem only to see an orgy of violence.

The Palestinians today feel they are alone, facing a huge military with little outside help. The Palestinian authority is in disarray and their leader, Yasser Arafat, faces increasing challenge to his authority. There is certainly no political solution in sight for Palestine and nor are any fresh visible initiatives to end the long cycle of violence and hate in that part of the world.

On the other hand, the response from Israel to suicide bombs and other acts of killings by Palestinians has been growing stronger and stronger. It is no secret that even those who are critical of Israel for occupying Arab lands and who support the Palestinian cause see most of the acts of violence perpetrated by the Palestinians in Israel as acts of terrorism.

After 9/11, countries in the West take a dim view of 'terrorism' irrespective of the appellation given to it by anyone. The 'liberation' of a Palestinian homeland is nowhere in sight. 'Intifada' has not exactly proved to be such a smart tactic.

There is little to doubt that should Pakistan project the Kashmiri violence as 'Intifada' it would only further reduce the chances of India adopting any 'flexible' attitude in dealing with the Kashmir issue.

But maybe, it is not in the best interest of the Pakistani army to see a happy end to the Kashmir 'dispute'-with or without an Islamabad-inspired 'Intifada'. (Syndicate Features)