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Tuesday, April 15, 2014
MARK INDIA, Hyderabad
MARK INDIA Flat No. 106, Block - A, Archana Apartment, East Marredpally, Secunderabad 500 - 026.
Have poll manifestos lost their sheen? How relevant are election manifestos? Going by the casual manner in which some political parties have been treating their manifestos and the scant attention the media has so far paid to what they promise to the voters, such scepticism is understandable. The major Left parties have released their manifestos focusing on the need to launch a more effective attack on poverty. Some regional parties too have unveiled their manifestos highlighting the need for decentralised governance. The Congress party has released a detailed manifesto, which is claimed to be the longest ever and produced out of a series of meetings with people at grass-roots level to understand their concerns as well as aspirations. Significantly, the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, which claims to be the strongest contender to form or lead the next government at the Centre, is yet to bring out its manifesto even though the first phase of the 2014 general elections is less than a week away. While the BJP’s apathy towards declaring what it stands for and what it wishes to promise to the voters is a disturbing sign for any democracy, the virtual absence of public debate over even the few promises that different political parties have made in their manifestos is a cause for deeper concern. One reason for the lack of seriousness about election manifestos is the nature of governments that have been formed at the Centre since 1996. Each of them has been a coalition government with support and participation of at least half a dozen political parties. In a coalition government, the role and importance of individual party manifestos get diluted, if not completely devalued. Indeed, in some coalition governments of the past, the pre-poll manifestos of individual parties gave way to a post-poll common minimum programme. And in some coalition governments, even a common minimum programme was given a go-by and governance followed neither the manifestos of the coalition partners nor any mutually agreed action plan. The next government after May 2014 is also likely to be led by a coalition of parties. That perhaps explains why both political parties and even the voters have turned indifferent -- even agnostic -- towards the promises made in manifestos.The Congress manifesto, however, is a little different and needs to be judged by another yardstick. This is because an election manifesto from a ruling party is not just a statement of intent.
Western nations line up at U.N. to slam Russia’s moves on Ukraine Western nations on Sunday accused Russia of massing tens of thousands of wellequipped troops near the Ukrainian border in preparation for a Crimea-style invasion, while Russia denounced what it said was Ukraine’s Russophobic, anti-Semitic leadership. “Satellite images show that there are between 35,000 and 40,000 Russian troops in the vicinity of the border with Ukraine, equipped with combat aircraft, tanks, artillery and logistical support units,” Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said. “This is in addition to the 25,000 Russia troops based illegally in Crimea,” Lyall Grant added in his speech during an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Ukraine. French Ambassador Gerard Araud echoed Lyall Grant’s remarks. The meeting of the 15-nation council, the first emergency session on the Ukrainian crisis in weeks, was convened at Russia’s request. Council diplomats said Moscow wanted it to be a closed meeting by France and other Western insisted that it be a public session. The council has held numerous emergency meetings on Ukraine but has been incapable of taking concrete action
because of Russia’s sharp disagreements with the United States and Europe. Last month Russia vetoed a Western draft resolution that would have condemned Crimea’s referendum on secession from Ukraine, held when it was already occupied by Russian military forces. As expected, the council took no action on Sunday. Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin dismissed the criticisms of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, telling the council, “Many inaccurate accusations were made against Russia.” He blamed the Kiev government for the unrest across southeastern Ukraine and described its threatened military operation in the region as a “criminal use of force.” He was referring to Ukraine’s ultimatum to pro-Russian separatists to disarm by Monday or face armed force. “Things might take an irreversible turn for the worst,” Churkin said about the ultimatum, without elaborating. “The authorities (in Ukraine) do not want to listen to those who do not accept the imposed dominance in Kiev of national radicals and chauvinists, Russophobic, antiSemitic forces,” he said. “The grotesque
Russophobia and embedded hatred has become the norm in the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) as well.” CHOREOGRAPHED IN RUSSIA? Kiev has repeatedly said the rebellions across Ukraine are inspired and directed by the Kremlin. But action to dislodge the armed militants risks tipping the stand-off into a new, dangerous phase as Moscow has warned it will protect the region’s Russian-speakers if they come under attack. One Ukrainian state security officer was killed and five were wounded on the government side in Sunday’s operation in Slaviansk, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said. U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power suggested that Russia was dissembling about its true intentions in eastern Ukraine, where many Russian-speakers live. “You have heard these last weeks Russia disclaim any intention of occupying or invading,” she said. “You have heard it publicly, and we have heard it privately.” “Unfortunately, the fact is that the armed seizure of buildings in six eastern Ukrainian towns yesterday and several more today mirrors the tactics Russian forces used in the early stages of the Crimea invasion,” Power
said, adding that the instability “was written and choreographed in, and by, Russia”. Ukraine’s envoy, Yuriy Sergeyev, echoed the remarks of Power and other Western envoys, noting that the troops massing near Ukraine were “obviously the professional special forces”. He also said, “We don’t want any clashes.” Lithuanian Ambassador Raimonda Murmokaite spoke of Russia’s “unending provocations” and attempts to dismember Ukraine. “Where there was no unrest, unrest and chaos are being created by pro-Russian militias, again anonymous without insignia, again carrying the same modern models of assault weapons as seen in Crimea,” Murmokaite said. “Again the external anti-Ukrainian and antiWestern propaganda machine is in full swing, inciting suspicion, mistrust and hatred waiting to explode,” she added. No country on the council spoke out strongly in Russia’s defense. Moscow’s traditional ally and fellow veto power on the Security Council, China, merely called for all parties in Ukraine to “keep calm and exercise restraint.”
India is in a timidity trap with China The unofficial release of some parts of the Henderson Brooks Report on the untold story of the India-China war and the flurry of commentaries in its aftermath illuminate a tragic irony of India. While the Indian government, wielding pernicious laws and rules, shields its culpable acts and omissions, including those bearing serious consequences for India's national security, from scrutiny behind a deliberately created smokescreen, concerned Indians are left to speculate until an enterprising Neville Maxwell casts some fortuitous light on them. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, a well-known crypto-Anglophile, in his zeal to promote his anti-imperial image among the newly liberated countries, went overboard, undid India's historical relations with Tibet forged over centuries, and sacrificed India's special geo-political interests earned and accrued therein over a long period of time with a stroke of pen (Panchsheel Agreement, 1954). He did it wilfully, ignoring the ominous rumblings from the border since 1951. While Nehru basked in his image in the high-sounding empty preamble of the agreement, China swallowed Tibet and made India dismantle its long established diplomatic and operational infrastructures and beat a quick retreat from Tibet. This agreement is unique in the annals of international relations as it stands out as a bizarre illustration of a
prime minister trading his country's crucial national interests solely to buffer his personal international image. When China published its maps in 1957 showing large chunks of India as its own, causing commotion in Parliament, Nehru downplayed the concerns and called it a 'small matter'. Having already taken over Aksai Chin and built a motorable highway across it, China began baring its fangs on India's border claims. Nehru underplayed Chinese belligerence and dismissed any possibility of a conflict with China, calling it 'preposterous'. In the winter session of 1957 he told the Rajya Sabha: 'I am convinced that that there is not the remotest chance, or if I put it more strongly, not the remotest chance of a remote chance of India coming into military conflict with China.' Two years later, Nehru was proved vehemently wrong when Chinese troops inflicted heavy casualties on unsuspecting Indian troops at Longju in the east and Kongka Pass in the west in 1959. Nehru sought to calm an outraged nation with an air of injured innocence and false bravado. He misled the country, apparently on the advice of his cronies, into believing that India had superior military advantages over China in the eastern sector. The ground truth was just the opposite. Disregarding contemporary geo-political imperatives and the honest professional advice of field commanders, he made a se-
ries of moves detrimental to India's interests. A sequence of civil and military miscalculations resulted in India's humiliation in the war. The Indian National Congress, steeped in the Nehru cult and tradition, blanches at the mere prospect of facing the bare facts of the biggest self-inflicted disaster of post-colonial India -- its defeat and humiliation by China in 1962. The Congress recoils at the facts as it unveils the ugly warts on the assiduously chiselled and polished profile of its icon. However, for India's sake, the truth must be told and lessons learnt as it is the only way to redemption. The 1962 war is not yet history for India though the Congress party and the Chinese would like us to believe so. India's continuing acquiescent compliance to the terms of defeat, including humiliating stringent Chinese strictures on Indian armed forces venturing within 20 km of their line of control, and intermittent low-intensity aggressions causing progressive loss of Indian territory, do not let 1962 and its shame slip into a dead past. So long as India cringes from the truth of 1962, a war that was the inevitable culmination of Nehru's schizophrenic China policy, and shies away from looking squarely at it, it will remain caught in its self-created timidity trap. Such an approach may help endure the 'clean' image of a dead man, but its enduring invidious legacy under-
mines India's future story. It stunts India and casts pernicious shadows over its legitimate regional and global ambitions. India's perception of China and its policy to it, consciously or otherwise, underpin its broad geo-politics and its international standing, more pronounced in the immediate and extended neighbourhood. The ghost of 1962 haunts the Indian establishment so much so that, as a matter of policy, it maintains a meek military profile in the border areas. It shies away from letting its army go anywhere in the proximity of the Line Of Actual Control and instead has entrusted the border guarding responsibility to a quasi-armed force, the IndoTibetan Border Police. It does so in deference to Chinese strictures laid down in its 'ceasefire' declaration of the midnight of November 20-21, 1962, warning India not to let its armed forces venture within 20 km of its LAC in the middle and western sectors and similar distance from the 'illegal McMahon Line' -- as it calls it -- in the eastern sector. China made the warning explicit, saying that it 'reserved the right to strike back' should India ignore it. Much to China's delight, the Indian establishment has taken the warning to its heart and has been diligently complying with it. Since China has mischievously refused to specify the alignment of its LAC, a humbled India, fearing an accidental face-off, has set
a strict limit for its border patrols, calls it the Limit of Patrols (LOP), far inside Indian territory, way behind what it claims is its own LAC, and leaves vast tracts of Indian land for Chinese troops to roam around freely and advance at will. China keeps its LAC dynamic and shifting forward in areas of its strategic interests in the eastern as well as western sectors. The war had decisively altered the India-China strategic equation in China's favour. With the air of a victor China made it explicit that for a border settlement it was not in a hurry and would 'wait with patience' (Chou En-Lai's letter of April 20, 1963, to Nehru). China's 'wait' is not static. It keeps making incremental advances in the sectors that are of its strategic significance, mainly in the sub-sector north in Ladakh and tri-junction east in Arunachal Pradesh while mounting diversionary strategic pressure on all other sectors to keep India off-balance. It took 30 years for India to see through the Chinese deception of 'status quo'. Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao took a unilateral initiative in 1993 to engage the Chinese and sought to reduce the asymmetric disadvantages to India accruing from the 'status quo'. Through a treaty he sought to contain China's belligerence along the borders and made an attempt to broadly define the 'Line Of Actual Control', an essential
prerequisite for any eventual honourable settlement. However, Chinese apathy did not give the desired traction to Rao's initiative. The official-level dialogue for a decade made no headway. The officials were limited in their mandate and constricted by bureaucratic rigmarole. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee understood the Chinese game of 'wait with patience' and assessed the need to upgrade tack. He succeeded in persuading the Chinese in 2003 to raise the dialogue to the political level with a broader mandate and greater flexibility. The two sides appointed special representatives. It was indeed an astute move by Vajpayee. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, however, with his little understanding and appetite for geo-politics, soon after assuming office in 2004, decided to rely more on trade and commerce to improve the relationship and resolve the outstanding issues with China. Greater emphasis on trade diluted the strategic resolve of Vajpayee's initiative. With the change in thrust from strategic to trade and commerce, the special representative mechanism became routine, repetitive and trapped in inane diplomatic rituals. It gives India an illusion of motion in stasis. Eleven years and 17 rounds of tete-a-tete between SRs did not serve India's interests. Ironically, the period of trade boom also witnessed enhanced Chinese belligerence at the border.
Potential hepatitis C cure found in Chinese herb In what could revolutionise treatment of patients infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV), scientists have isolated a new compound from Chinese herbal medicines that can inhibit HCV activity by approximately 90 percent.The new compound, SBEL1, was extracted from a herb found in certain regions of Taiwan and Southern China.In Chinese medicine, it is used to treat sore throats and inflammations. The function of SBEL1 within the plant is unknown and its role and origins are currently being investigated. Recent advances means that we can now virtually cure HCV without unpleasant side effects, said Markus Peck-Radosavljevic, associate professor of medicine at University of Vienna in Austria.In the past, less than 20 percent of all HCV patients were treated because the available treatments were unsuitable due to poor efficacy and high toxicity, Peck-Radosavljevic said. For the research, scientists pre-treated human liver cells in vitro with SBEL1 prior to HCV infection and found that SBEL1 pre-treated cells contained 23 percent less HCV protein than the control, suggesting that SBEL1 blocks virus entry. "SBEL1 has demonstrated significant inhibition of HCV at multiple stages of the viral lifecycle, which is an exciting discovery because it allows us to gain a deeper understanding of the virus and its interactions with other compounds, Peck-Radosavljevic noted.There are an estimated 150 million to 200 million people living with chronic HCV and more than 350,000 people die annually from HCV-related diseases. HCV is transmitted through blood contact between an infected individual and someone who is not infected.This can occur through needlestick injuries or sharing of equipment used to inject drugs.
Control pregnancy weight to avoid obesity in kids
Gaining both too much or too little weight during pregnancy appears to increase the risk of having an overweight or obese child, a study involving an Indian-origin researcher finds. Gaining either too little or too much weight in pregnancy may permanently affect mechanisms that manage energy balance and metabolism in the offspring, such as appetite control and energy expenditure, informed studys lead author Sneha Sridhar from California-based Kaiser Permanente. The stronger association we found among normal weight women who gained too much or too little weight during pregnancy suggests that perhaps weight gain in pregnancy may have an impact on the child that is independent of genetic factors, added senior researcher Monique M. Hedderson.Researchers reviewed the health records of 4,145 racially diverse female members of Kaiser Permanente in northern California who had completed a health survey between 2007 and 2009 and subsequently had a baby. The analysis of medical records of children between ages two and five years old and found that among all women who gained more than the recommended weight during pregnancy, 20.4 percent of their children were overweight or obese. This figure was 19.5 percent in women who gained less than recommended weight and 14.5 percent in women who gained weight within the guidelines. Women with a normal Body Mass Index (BMI) measurement before pregnancy who gained less than the recommended amount were 63 percent more likely to have a child who became overweight or obese.Women with a normal BMI before pregnancy with weight gain above recommendations were 80 percent more likely to have an overweight or obese child. "This could potentially have long-term effects on the child's subsequent growth and weight," Sridhar added.The study was published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Galaxy S5 joins race to monitor heart rate Smart phones are increasingly becoming more than just phones and assuming bigger roles in users lives. The latest on the block is Samsungs new flagship Galaxy S5 smart phone with heart rate monitor that would track your motions and monitor your steps. The innovation comes after Samsung introduced eye-tracking technology last year to pause your phone when you looked away. Samsung's new Gear smart watches would also measure your heart rate and order you to step up the pace when out for a run. The other tech innovations include a mini-robot printers and smart hearing aids connected to iPhone, The Guardian reported. A little bot from Zuta Labs looks like a small puck shuffling across a piece of A4 leaving a trail of ink, but will autonomously print a full page in about 40 seconds.The ReSound Linx hearing aids hooks up to an iPhone and would not only pipe the phone's audio from calls, music, navigation and videos to the hearing aid, but also allows users to tweak their audio settings. Bass, treble and volume can be altered and associated with a specific location so that it automatically adjusts to the right settings as a user enters their favourite coffee shop, the report added.