 |
Friday,
December 14, 2001, Chandigarh, India
   |
No
agriculture policy Criminals in
legislatures? |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Hari Jaisingh
Self-help,
rail style
Learning
the hard way
Ushering
in a culture of peace
Millions
of children in commercial sex trade
1948 Literature: THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT
|
No agriculture policy IT is sad to say that India has no agriculture, actually foodgrains production, policy. Really there is an unfinished conflict between the Agriculture Ministry now headed by Mr Ajit Singh and the Consumer Affairs Ministry looked after by Mr Shanta Kumar. The former is a self-proclaimed champion of the cause of farmers, particularly of the Jats dominating western UP, Haryana and Punjab. Do not forget that there is an election in UP and Punjab early next year. But Mr Shanta Kumar hails from Himachal Pradesh and the Assembly election is far off. So the tussle is on. Mr Kumar wants to end the three-decade-old system of minimum support price (MSP) and procurement of every grain offered in any mandi. Mr Ajit Singh wants to continue the practice so that wheat and rice growers are insulated from rapacious middlemen. This policy difference has affected the most the Government of Punjab. Early this month the Badal government has written a strongly worded letter to the Centre, demanding that it should lift 6.5 million tonnes of foodgrains valued at slightly less than Rs 13,000 crore because the wheat and paddy are rotting and will soon become unfit for human consumption. But Mr Shanta Kumar is content to point out that the Centre is reimbursing the annual interest of nearly Rs 1600 crore and the state has nothing to complain about. The issue is not as simple as this. A part of the grains stored in the state is more than two years old and alarmingly becoming unfit to eat. In other words, they are turning out to be just waste. Mr Shanta Kumar wants to get out of the MSP and procurement plan so that the government, to be precise the FCI, is relieved of the responsibility of storing a huge stock of foodgrains, several times the need of the buffer stock and operational requirements. Today the FCI has 65 million tonnes of foodgrains, and at the current rate of lifting it will take nearly seven years to remove the stock. By then six years of procurement would have added to the storage problem. This is a gigantic dilemma and the Centre has no clue to overcome this. It laid much emphasis on the Prof Gopal Naik report and wanted to introduce an income-insured scheme (IIS). But this was shot down by a high- level committee headed by Prof Abhijit Sen. A basic problem of agriculture is the absence of reliable marketing mechanism. A number of studies have shown that the grower receives a fraction of what the consumer pays. The cumbersome structure of middlemen eats away a big part. Before asking the farmers to shift to pulses and oilseeds, Mr Shanta Kumar should restore their confidence in the government’s capacity to ensure a remunerative price and timely procurement. |
|
Criminals in legislatures? IT has often been alleged that criminals have joined the ranks of politicians, defiling the holy precincts of legislatures. UP, politically the most significant state, has provided fresh proof to substantiate the claim. Minister of State for Institutional Finance and Trade Taxes Amarmani Tripathi, has been sacked by Chief Minister Rajnath Singh for his involvement in criminal activities. His tainted background has been exposed by the revelation of his role in the kidnapping of a Basti businessman's teenaged son. The criminals caught in the case have admitted to the police that the Lucknow house where they had kept their victim was provided by the dismissed Minister. This is a matter of grave concern and the Chief Minister should explain how Mr Tripathi, belonging to the Loktantrik Congress Party, a constituent of the BJP-led ruling coalition, could continue in the ministry till Wednesday. Instead of feeling ashamed of his failure to initiate a move against Mr Tripathi after reports appeared in the Press about his questionable past, Mr Rajnath Singh says that he had such information but acted after "obtaining documentary proof". This is no way to "cleanse the administration". He took over as Chief Minister over a year ago but could collect sufficient proof to act against Mr Tripathi only now when Assembly elections in the state are a few months away. Whom is he fooling? The public today understands the gameplan of politicians. Mr Rajnath Singh can say that he is sparing nobody to demonstrate his commitment to a clean administration. Earlier he sacked Power Minister Naresh Aggarwal (Loktantrik Congress) on corruption charges and Tourism Minister Ashok Yadav for indulging in acts of indiscipline. But why has he rejected the Opposition's charge without proper investigation that as many as 20 members of his Ministry have a "criminal" background? It is alleged that some of these "criminal" Ministers have links with gangs operating at the global level. Is the Chief Minister waiting for some major crime to be committed by these worthies to warrant action against them? Most of these people have been in the BJP-led Ministry ever since Mr Kalyan Singh, no longer with the ruling party, engineered a split in the Congress and the BSP to form a coalition. Are there no means to verify the antecedents of the tainted Ministers? Mr Rajnath Singh's action has come too late in the day, unjustifiable by saying that it is better late than never. It appears to be part of his strategy to refurbish the BJP's image with an eye on the coming election. His sincerity will be on test when his party finalises its list of candidates to contest the poll. If the BJP is serious about giving the lead in cleansing politics of criminals, it should thoroughly screen the background of the party ticket aspirants. But it would be better if there is a law to prevent bad characters from entering the legislatures. |
Beyond the uneasy Afghan setting IN the face of growing violent tendencies, intolerance and conflicts, the collapse of the Taliban regime, symbolically speaking, is a landmark development in the history of human civilisation. The issue here is not of a clash of civilisations. The challenge before world leaders is whether the existing order based on democratic principles, mutual understanding, tolerance, respect for human values and decency should be allowed to be destroyed by highly motivated terrorist groups fed a on distorted version of Wahabi Islam. To say this is not to deny that we are living in an unjust and unequal global setting. But this does not justify "change" by violent destruction of the established edifice of human hopes, aspirations and prosperity. The World Trade Center was a symbol of global economic advancement. It was a place where some of the brightest persons drawn from as many as 88 countries were working. To have destroyed it was nothing short of crime against humanity. Interestingly , the happenings of Black Tuesday had been graphically visualised in a joint paper written by John Deutch along with Ashton Carter and Phillip Zelikov way back in November, 1998. It categorically stated: "An act of catastrophic terrorism would take place which would be a watershed event in American history. It could involve loss of life and property unprecedented in peacetime and undermine America's fundamental sense of security. Like Pearl Harbour, this event would divide our past and future into a before and after. The United States might respond through draconian measures, scaling back civil liberties, allowing wider surveillance of citizens, detention of suspects, and use of deadly force. More violence would follow. Belatedly, Americans would judge their leaders' negligence for not addressing terrorism more urgently." (Ashton Carter, John Deutch and Phillip Zalikow, Catastrophic Terrorism, Foreign Affairs, Nov-Dec, 1998). How prophetic! Americans will have to rediscover themselves and recast their priorities and responses without diluting their basics which have made the USA a symbol of liberalism, civil liberties, democracy and growth opportunities. Learning from their failures apart, the real challenge for the American leaders is one of seeing themselves rationally in an enlightened manner so that America remains the Mecca of new global hope, notwithstanding innumerable aberrations in their thinking, the system and actual operations. Be that as it may. First the recent events and immediate strategies. It is true that only a diamond cuts a diamond. So, terrorism has to be countered by adequate forceful action. This counter-action may be misplaced or equally ruthless as events in Afghanistan suggest in the aftermath of the September 11 air-strikes. In this battle of terrorism and counter-terrorism, human values suffer. So do human rights. What is important in countering the spectre of violence, justified in the pursuit of narrow sectarian and distorted religious goals, is the genuineness in search for larger goals of wellbeing of humanity. All religions are equal. They are all based on lofty ideals and principles with due stress on love, understanding, tolerance, compassion, kindness and charity. The applecart of civilisational values was very much threatened by the terrorist acts of Osama bin Laden and his followers in Afghanistan and beyond its frontiers. The collapse of the Taliban regime should be seen as one part of the job. It will take years before the problem of terrorism can be effectively tackled. It cannot be countered by the gun alone. The problem is deep-rooted in the psyche of the people under the influence of Osama. President George W. Bush has played his role in the present crisis sharply and decisively. He has shown rare qualities as a leader. Some aspects of his responses may be controversial. But he has been able to convey the message to Osama bin Laden and his supporters that terrorism does not pay and will not pay. However, what the Taliban have stood for is not the mere physical occupation of Afghanistan. They have thrown up a new class of hate brigades — call them jehadis if you wish — that thrive on medieval-type fanaticism and feeling of oppression. They have penetrated deep into the mindset of young persons in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other parts of the world who seem to be totally sold out to Bin Laden's distorted concept of Islam. How India too had to pay a very heavy price for this terrorist campaign and operation in Kashmir and beyond has been discussed in my earlier columns. The military regime in Islamabad has blatantly used this militant Islamic thrust to sow seeds of communal discord in an otherwise secular Kashmiri society. This has thrown up a number of issues which have to be addressed to. The moot question is: what next and where do we go from here? First, having achieved global acclaim, President Bush has to pause, think and reflect on his future operations and strategies so as not to repeat innumerable mistakes and blunders of the past which, I must say, were the offshoot of wrong American policies. I have pointed out a number of times that the Taliban regime was the illegitimate child of Pakistan's ISI and the USA's CIA. What havoc has created in this part of the world is now history. The US authorities have to think on new lines and see whether they should continue to follow the old path of backing military, monarchical or dictatorial regimes in Pakistan, West Asia and other places or evolve a new response system over a period which could help democracies to flourish in genuine conditions of fearlessness and people's participation. Second, President Bush has to give a serious thought to several global issues that have given birth to the flashpoints in West Asia, Indian subcontinent and elsewhere, not for direct intervention but to help the process of reconciliation and restoration of a peaceful civilised order. Third, it is necessary for the American authorities to understand Kashmir in a new perspective. Appeasement of the military regime in Pakistan and religious fundamentalist groups cannot help solve the problem of terrorism we all are confronted with.. For India, Kashmir is not a mere piece of territory. It is very much linked with the broad concepts of secularism and human values which hold India's civilisational roots. I hope President Bush will understand this after closely examining what perverted moves in the name of religion can do to all that humanity stands for. If the US message is that terrorism does not pay in Afghanistan or elsewhere, it should be made clear to the Pakistani authorities that it will not pay in Kashmir or any other part of the subcontinent either. Afterall, whatever has been happening in Kashmir is nothing but terrorism sponsored by Islamabad's military authorities and the ISI. The time has come to put the Pakistani Generals in their place with a clear message that illicit drug money and sponsored rule of the gun in the valley and beyond will not pay. If anything, it will boomerang on them, threatening the very existence of Pakistan. Peace in South Asia will depend on how the USA helps India achieve its anti-terrorism goal. This country has suffered severely for nearly two decades at the hands of trigger-happy militants from across the border. They have exploited the people's sentiments by their malicious propaganda in the name of Islam. What the world leaders have to understand is the Pakistani mindset that thrives on terror and subversion in South Asia. Let me just give one example in this context. During a three-day annual congregation of the members of the Markaz Daawa-al-Irshad at Muridke, near Lahore, on February 6, 2000, the Amir (chief) of the Markaz, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, declared that Kashmir was a "gateway to capture India" and that it was the aim of the Markaz and its military wing, the Lashkar-e-Toiba, to engineer India's disintegration. Saeed added that his organisation's campaign in Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh) and Junagadh (Gujarat) were among the highest priorities. Abdur Rahman Makki, the LeT's ideologue, expanded on this theme, and declared that the group had opened a new unit in Hyderabad to liberate the Indian city from "un-Islamic Indian rule". These declarations are apparently an expression of pan-Islamic ambitions shared by all militant Islamic groups operating in the region, and a reiteration of Pakistan's larger strategy of destabilisation beyond what it calls the "core issue" of Kashmir. It is for India's Muslim leaders to assert themselves and confront these elements. What the world has to understand is that India has the largest concentration of Muslims, after Indonesia. No country (Pakistan included) has the right to point an accusing finger at this secular and multi-ethnic country where Muslims and other minority groups enjoy equal rights and privileges as free citizens. And this point needs to be appreciated. In fact, India could have emerged as a model nation of the 21st century had it not been confronted with sponsored terrorism from across the border and, unfortunately, with the overt or covert support of the western world. It is, of course, for India to play its role effectively and intelligently. It should not expect Americans to fight its battle and fight for its causes, including the elimination of terrorism. However, what it must seek is the support from the USA and other countries. But much will depend on how our rulers conduct themselves and how effective they are able to convey the message. The Indian leadership must realise that ultimately the strength of the people and the country as a whole will have to come from sound governance, fairplay a corruption-free system and the military and economic muscle of the polity. And in this endeavour, there are no short-cuts to find India's legitimate and rightful place in the comity of nations. |
Self-help, rail style INDIAN Railways, faced with an acute resources crunch, is engaged in an exercise to think of ways and means to raise the wind and one of the ideas that is receiving close attention at the highest ministerial level is to ask bulk customers to provide their own goods wagons. Will the idea catch on and extended to fare-paying passengers and will they be required to bring with them second class, three-tier sleeper coaches when they arrive at a railway station to commence their journey? I have been talking to Member (Coaching) of the Railway Board. “Yes indeed”, he said “there’s a distinct possibility that the next railway budget will contain provisions making it mandatory for passengers to bring with them three-tier sleeper compartments but no final decision has yet been taken as the matter requires further study.” “As you know, the railways had almost finalised a deal to import from Japan bogies and wheel-and-axle sets but because of resources constraints, it had to be cancelled at the last minute and, therefore, we’re thinking of asking passengers to bring with them bogies and wheel-and-axle sets on which they can perch comfortably and commence their journey.” “What about the improved amenities for passengers that the Railway Minister is talking about?” I asked. “That’s receiving our topmost priority,” said the Member (Coaching), “after all, passengers are our bread-and-butter. We will be detailing our gangmen and labourers to help passengers to unload the bogies and wheel-and-axle sets as they alight from their taxis and place them on the tracks. Our station masters have been given standing instructions to provide all the help they can to the travelling public. We’re committed to providing all reasonable amenities to the passengers.” “Yes of course” I said. “Because of labour unrest and power shortage industry has failed to supply the railways heavy-duty, buffer couplers and air and vacuum emergency brakes and we’re thinking of asking passengers to lug with them these equipment also, apart from signalling gear.” “Many of our airconditioned chair cars and coupes are running without airconditioners because of the financial constraints and we might ask people to strip their homes and offices of five-ton room airconditioners and bring them along to be fitted to their compartments.” “I hope you’re not thinking of asking passengers to bring with them 56-kg long welded rails” I said. “Don’t be too sure,” cautioned the Member (Coaching), “our present thinking calls for asking passengers to carry with them long welded rails and place them on the permanent way as their journey progresses.” “I’m glad that passenger amenities are not being given the go-by despite the difficult financial position of the railways” I said “but one last question. What about passengers travelling on your prestigious long-distance superfast express trains like Rajdhani and Shatabdi? What would they be required to bring with them besides bogies, wheel-and-axle sets, air and vacuum brakes, signalling equipments and long welded rails?” “Just one thing,” said the Member (Coaching), “Engines.” |
Learning the hard way WITH Begum Zia back in power, the Hindus are on the run in Bangladesh. At this rate, there will be no Hindus left in that country. The Begum denies every charge. She puts the blame on her rival, Sheikh Hasina. But Qazi Farooq Ahmad, President of the Association of Development Agencies, has confirmed “pre-planned attacks and repression on minority communities” by BNP activists. We have a more authentic source of information — the Chief Minister of West Bengal. According to Buddhadev Bhattacharya, illegal immigrants from Bangladesh (i.e. both Hindus and Muslims) have reached “intolerable proportions”. There was a time when Jyoti Basu would have dismissed this as “Hindu propaganda” of the BJP. But no more. Even he can see that the voters are turning against the CPM, especially in the border districts, where Muslim influx is the maximum. The Central Government refuses to react, for any sharp reaction, it says, will go against the interests of the Hindu community. This is what the Congress governments also used to say of the Hindu community in Pakistan. Today, there are no Hindus left in Pakistan except for a few in Sindh. There was a Hindu population of about 10 million in Bangla. No one knows how many are left. A study done by a professor of economics of Dhaka University estimated that on an average 500 Hindus had been leaving the country daily between 1964 and 1991. This is about five million people in all. During the last one decade, more than a million must have fled the country. The present rate of exodus is put at a thousand daily. Thus, in a total population of 120 million, Hindus are no more than three-four million! And the more they come away, the rest are seized with panic. It is true the Hindus have been supporting Sheikh Hasina. Perhaps they are paying a price for it. Or, a price for the excesses of the Hasina regime. But we are also told that these are not the real reasons for the Hindus being terrorised. It has to do with their property. The properties (land and buildings) which the fleeing Hindus leave have come handy to buy votes. Thus, there are at present 702,335 acres of land and 22,835 houses with the government for distribution. These are leased out against votes. So, terrorism has its uses. While Hindus are being driven out of Bangla, Bangla Muslims continue to enter India in a steady stream. They number today about 20 million. Eight million are in West Bengal alone. If more and more Hindus are driven out, there will be a backlash against these Muslims. In the meantime, the business community in Bangla is putting pressure on Begum Zia to normalise relations with India and conclude the gas deal. It is true the people are not in favour. A survey showed that 60 per cent are against. But is there an alternative before Dhaka? There is none. And the financial difficulties of Bangla are growing. India is the largest user of gas in South Asia. It has four sources: its own, Gulf and Central Asia, Myanmar and Bangla. So, while India is not without an alternative, Bangla has none. Again, only American companies have the capital and technology to exploit the Bangla gas. But UNOCAL, the US company, which has already a stake in Bangla gas, wants to sell the gas to India so that it can recover its investment fast. The American government is involved in this deal. President Clinton made a trip to Dhaka to put pressure on Sheikh Hasina. But if the carrot does not work, America has the stick. About 66 per cent of the Bangla expert revenue comes from export of readymade garments to America. Ever since September 11, there is a substantial fall in Bangla exports. And now that China is a member of WTO, Bangla will have to face stiff competition from China. But the US authorities are reported to have assured Dhaka that they would protect its garment trade, but at a price. The price is: Dhaka should agree to export gas to India. With a thousand garment units already closed, Begum Zia hasn’t got much of an option to say nay. If she says yes (she should because her credentials are better than that of Sheikh Hasina), I can see a new dawn in India-Bangla relations. A realistic dawn. |
Ushering in a culture of peace WARIS SHAH speaks vigorously for peace: Sahj wasdian jed na bhla koi, bura nahi jo kum factoor jeha To understand the necessity of peace we must understand the structures of war and conflict. In a sort of moral shorthand, greed is the mother of imperialism. That is how the New World was conquered and its indigenous population was decimated. It gave birth to the institution of slavery. The next step was colonialism. In the year 1800 the developed world was richer than the underdeveloped world by two to one. Today the ratio is 60 to one. Economic changes produce inequality between regions and communities. The richer parts produce argument to legitimate their disproportional share of wealth; the poorer regions are never short of information to bemoan their backwardness, called oppression in politics. Yet it is the “hidden hand” of divine economics which plays the tricks. After the collapse of the Soviet Union there was a noisy celebration of the end of the Cold War. The elder Bush spoke of “peace dividend”. Peace dividend was never to be realised. Today the USA spends more on arms than it did during the Cold War. Greed, especially on the scale of globalisation, needs to be protected by Star War armaments. Economic structure can be countered only by political institutions. But political institutions in the world today are on the brink of collapse. More than 50 per cent of the electorate does not bother to vote in the country leading the Free World. The people of Europe are skeptical about the European Union. The World Trade Organisation decides who would eat or starve without a mandate from the mankind. Political states are more interested in ruling over the people than representing them. They practise realpolitik i.e. politics without principles. The state gets its own functionaries killed in national interest i.e. the interest of the political leaders. During the six-day war (1967) Israel destroyed US spyship Liberty but President Johnson said: “He didn’t care if the ship sank, he could not embarrass his allies”. Britain let the IRA kill its soldiers if it had to protect his “informers” in the IRA. Our own country first supported the
LTTE with arms only to fight not very successfully against it. Anyway the volte-face led to Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. Today fight against terrorism is all the hallyboo. You can kill only those who want to live. Who would hobble the state terrorists — individual assassinations planned, organised and authorised by the President or the Prime Minister? India needs a culture of peace. We have gone to war against our neighbours, including China. It would be a waste of time if our writers kept on advancing second-hand political or economic arguments for peace. The failure of progressive literature should be a warning. Moreover, politics is not a creative writer’s metier, imagination is. The analogy of religion is more useful. Religion appeals for peace on the basis of spirituality, not worldliness. Whether an imaginative reconstruction of world peace can be carried on is a question which can be answered post facto. But there are a number of dilemmas in working for peace. First, the ordinary people are the ones who get killed in war, who pay for it, and yet they can turn out to be the most vociferous supporters of war. How to deal with the paradox? With sympathy, sarcasm or generosity of spirit. Second, the middle classes are the chief exponents of war, they don’t fight in it, they are the ones who gain most from it, especially the media and the political class. Lastly, the leaders and the commanders. It is tragic to have a coward send thousands of brave (wo)men to death. Ushering in a culture of peace is a business to be taken up by prophets. Prophets are seldom honoured in their own country. Sometimes prophets get killed. The fact is indicative of the imaginative dimension of the undertaking. Shah Mohammad bemoaned Anglo-Sikh War in his “Jangnama” but he could not have prevented it. Huong, the Vietnamese authoress of Novel Without Name” is one of three survivors out of a band of 40 volunteers who fought the war of national liberation. She has been disillusioned but disillusionment does not prevent wars to usher in a culture of peace. John Mulligan of “Shopping Cart Soldiers” is emblematic of hundreds of US veterans of Vietnam to be homeless beggars. What can be homeless beggars do to usher in a culture of peace? |
Millions of children in commercial sex trade AN 8-year-old girl in a Thai village raped by a man in her grandmother's garden is among the grim accounts in a new U.N. report on Wednesday, part of a global effort to end the sexual abuse of children. "Millions of children around the world are exploited for commercial sex," Carol Bellamy, the executive director of the U.N. Children's Fund, UNICEF, said in the report prepared for the Second World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation from Dec. 17 to 20 in Japan. "Bought and sold like chattel, trafficked within and across borders, thrown into such situations as forced marriage, prostitution and child pornography, many suffer profound and sometimes permanent damage," Bellamy said. In India alone, there were 400,000 to 500,000 child prostitutes, the report said. In the USA, one in five children who went online regularly were approached by strangers for sex and 100,000 were victims of sexual abuse every year, according to UNICEF. In Pakistan, based on reported cases only, a woman or child is raped on average every three hours. About 40 percent of reported rapes in South Africa from 1996 to 1998 involved girls 17 or younger. Sri Lanka's estimated 20,000 to 30,000 prostitutes are mostly boys. The report cites testimonials from boys and girls like Rachel, a 12-year old Albanian girl who was working in a cigarette factory when she agreed to marry a 29-year-old man after he promised her a better life. The abuse often involves a close relative or friend and victims are at high risk of violence, unwanted pregnancy, drugs and sexually transmitted disease like AIDS. Their physical and emotional development and self-esteem can be impaired. Sexual abuse makes children more vulnerable to being drawn into the sex trade as does poverty, discrimination against women, family breakdown, war, and political instability. Education is vital to efforts to eradicate the problem, the report
said. Reuters
Iran groom chokes to death on bride’s finger nail An Iranian bridegroom bit off more than he could chew when, according to custom, he licked honey from his bride’s finger during their marriage ceremony and choked to death on one of her false nails. The Jam-e Jam newspaper said on Wednesday the 28-year-old groom died on the spot in the northwestern city of Qazvin while the bride was rushed to hospital after fainting from shock. Iranian couples lick honey from each other’s fingers when they get married so that their life together starts sweetly.
Reuters Chinese universities ban marriages among students Many Chinese universities bar their students from getting married, lest the joys of wedded life distract them from their studies. A survey in the major education centre of Wuhan city revealed all universities but one there opposed their students tying the knot. “Even though university students are mature in a biological sense, they are not yet mature members of society,” said Peng Xiaohui, a
Professor. AFP |
|||||
|
|
Man alone has the capacity and the privilege to realise God. That is why the Muslims have called man the ‘noblest of all creation’. The Hindus have called the human body ‘the form divine’. Christ has referred to it as ‘the temple of the living God’. The Holy Granth Sahib states that out of the eighty-four lakh species of living beings man is at the top. Man’s uniqueness lies in his ability to realise God within Himself. Neither gods nor angels can do so and have necessarily to be born in a human form to reach Him. It therefore behoves us to utilise this opportunity for God realisation. — Maharaj Jagat Singh,
The Science of the Soul. *** He who sees that the Lord of all is ever the same in all that is — immortal in the field of morality — he sees the Truth. And when a man sees that the God in himself is the same God in all that is, he hurts not himself by hurting others. Then he goes indeed to the highest path. —
The Bhagavadgita, 13.27-28; 16, 2-3 *** Harming others, even enemies who harmed you unprovoked, assures incessant sorrow. The supreme principle is this; never knowingly harm any one at any time in any way. *** It is the principle of the pure in heart never to injure others, even when they themselves have been hatefully injured. *** What is Virtuous conduct? It is never destroying life, for killing leads to every other sin. — The Tirukural, 313, 317, 312, 321 *** If you plant egg plant you can pluck eggplants. if you sow goodness you can reap goodness. If you sow evil, you will reap evil. Do good to all. God is there within you. Do not kill. Do not harbour anger. — Yogaswami,
a Siddha of the Nandinatha Sampradaya’s Kailash Parampara (1872-1964) |
 |
| Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir | Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs | Nation | Editorial | | Business | Sport | World | Mailbag | In Spotlight | Chandigarh Tribune | Ludhiana Tribune 50 years of Independence | Tercentenary Celebrations | | 121 Years of Trust | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
