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Issue 8 Vol I, January 31, 2006 features SAFTA:
Between Hope and Despair
SAFTA agreement among India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives has the potential to bring prosperity and wipe out dismal poverty in this underdeveloped world that for over two centuries suffered worst colonial exploitation and then destabilised these countries with insurgency and wars. SAFTA opens a new way to a healthy bilateral trade regime that could take the countries to new prosperity and some of the advantages could flow to the poor. Under the new arrangement, SAARC members shall cut customs tariffs to levels between zero and five per cent over the next seven to twelve years. Whereas the comparatively more developed countries like India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka will cut their tariffs to these levels by 2013, the four less developed countries , Bangladesh, Nepal, Maldives and Bhutan would reduce customs rates to between zero and five per cent by 2018. This in turn could increase economic growth. There has been long struggle and initial hiccups did cause real trouble. But the experience of the European Common Market and later the creation of European Union and world trade negotiations under WTO forced these countries to keep negotiating. The idea of a trade pact among the SAARC countries was first pushed nearly a decade ago and, an agreement on the SAARC Preferential Trading Arrangement (SAPTA) signed only in 1993. It was at its annual summit at Islamabad in January 2004 that free and open trade was promised. At the SAARC summit at Dhaka in November 2005 which was postponed twice, the member countries signed four protocol documents that eliminated most of the legal and administrative hurdles. This paved the way for the SAFTA agreement. This surely is the most momentous decision taken by the SAARC since it inception in 1985. These have the potential of not only remove trade barriers and push up development, but bring the countries and the people closer politically and culturally. This would remove cobwebs that have held peace as hostage for long time. India’s trade with the six other SAARC countries is roughly 5.2 billion dollars, while total intra-SAARC trade is estimated at over seven billion dollars. By size and as economic power India dominates the region and Pakistan is the second most important country. Indian industrialists feel that the share of intra-SAARC trade in world trade is today at 5 per cent and should grow to at least 10 per cent by 2008. Let us look at the advantages in real terms to all the countries. In the past there used to be intense competition among the SAARC countries to export more or less the same set of goods, mainly primary agricultural commodities like jute, tea and cotton, besides handicrafts, textiles and garments. This is not the position now. Pakistan imports iron ore from Liberia in Africa that can be obtained from India. Electric arc furnaces located in Punjab and Haryana that import scrap from all over the world as raw material could easily import from close by Pakistan. India produces long-staple cotton whereas it does not have adequate supplies of medium- and short-staple cotton grown in Pakistan. When India and Sri Lanka signed a free trade agreement in 2001, there were fears that tea plantations in India would be adversely impacted. But two countries grow different varieties of tea that can be blended before being marketed. Trade between the two countries has grown threefold in the last four years and Sri Lanka’s trade deficit with India has come down by 50 per cent. Take another example. India and Bangladesh compete in exporting garments and textiles to developed countries. During the negotiations Bangladesh was not pleased with India keeping a large number of items related to garments on its "sensitive list" thereby protecting Indian producers of these items. Finally, a "tariff rate quota" system was worked out. Under this system, six million fabric pieces can be sourced from either India or Bangladesh while two million pieces do not carry any conditions on sourcing. So complementarities can enhance the scope for more intra-SAARC trade, especially with India emerging as a major producer of pharmaceuticals, automotive components and information technology services. There are many ways provided the countries shed their old mindset. Here India, the largest and most economically developed has to remove apprehension that it would act as a "big brother" or worse, a "bully", with its smaller neighbours. This Big brother has more recently displaying a grandfatherly approach, otherwise there was no way for the negotiations to succeed that went for two decades. SAARC countries import crude oil in large quantities and the sudden increase in international prices of petroleum products in 2005 has made it all the more important for these countries to cut transport expenses. Similarly the discovery of large reserves of natural gas in Bangladesh should spur the establishment of energy-intensive industries manufacturing steel and fertilizers and generating electricity. The Tatas have already announced investments worth three billion dollars in Bangladesh. Same way negotiations are going on to build a gas pipeline grid that runs through Bangladesh, India and Myanmar. Iran, Pakistan and India have agreed to lay gas pipeline, provided the big bully America permits it. Some points of conflict have not yet been resolved. Pakistan is yet to sign the SAFTA and has been making all kinds of noises to stay away. It is once again Kashmir that becomes the stumbling block. Ratification of the agreement by Islamabad would mean that Pakistan has opened its border for all kinds of tradable items with all SAARC member countries, including India. This would automatically grant MFN status to India. Pakistan’s longstanding position that talks with India on trade could progress in tandem with progress on Kashmir question would thus stand dissolved. Over the last two decades as some experts argue that SAARC had been held hostage to political differences between India and Pakistan. The proceedings have tended to be dominated by political wrangling between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, though relations have improved in recent years. It is the time when economic interests should take precedence over political differences in SAARC as it has happened in other parts of the world. This would bring prosperity and peace. Tarun Das, a former secretary general of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) feels strongly for an open trade. "The countries of the region need to think in terms of a collective South Asian market, collective regional endowments and combined growth. The heterogeneity factor, in development levels within the region has its own challenge.... Most of us fail to look at ourselves as a single community of South Asians, and are often oblivious of our regional identity. The countries of the region need to think in terms of a collective South Asian market, collective regional endowments and combined growth. Opportunities are unlimited, resources are in plenty, but there are constraints of free mobility and connectivity. There are several disconnects at work in South Asia. But this is what underlines the need for faster and extensive cooperation." political masters should listen to the argument of the trade even when they ignore the aspirations of the people for peace and development. Regional cooperation in South Asia will not only help increase the level of intra-regional trade among South Asian economies and also integrate smaller economies into the larger regional economic space, thereby expanding the size of the market and facilitating cost reductions. Greater interaction is needed between civil society and the political class across the different countries of South Asia. This would contribute to a quicker settlement of the differences and a greater South Asian solidarity, which is essential for the progress and prosperity of all our people. South Asia has been occasionally described, in the words of Raju Kothari, as "a loveless hothouse where member-states feed on each other’s fears." If our people’s destinies are to be changed, we need to exploit each other’s strengths, feed on trust rather than fear. Or, as Field Marshal Slim said in his book Unofficial History, "Do not take counsel of your fears. From text Noting that the Agreement on SAARC Preferential Trading Arrangement (SAPTA) signed in Dhaka on the 11th of April 1993 provides for the adoption of various instruments of trade liberalization on a preferential basis; Convinced that preferential trading arrangements among SAARC Member States will act as a stimulus to the strengthening of national and SAARC economic resilience, and the development of the national economies of the Contracting States by expanding investment and production opportunities, trade, and foreign exchange earnings as well as the development of economic and technological cooperation. Allaying fears that free trade agreement could hurt smaller countries of SAARC, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said implementation of South Asian Free Trade Agreement is expected to enhance trade in the region to $14 billions from six billion in the next two years. | |||||||||||||||
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Poverty
Syndrome ONE of the serious outcomes of the failure of the trickle down effect, essentially because of the ‘vested’ role of the State, is poverty. The extent of poverty, as we know, is both severe and staggering all the world over. According to many research reports, (a) there exists an overlap between poverty and inequality, and that they are closely related, and (b) incidence of poverty correlates with low levels of health, education, and nutrition, inadequate shelter and other unsatisfactory social conditions. It is also an accepted fact that poverty in most of the developing countries, despite being urbanized, still remains overwhelmingly a rural phenomenon. It is baffling to see that the poor are not only concentrated in countries with low rates of GNP and per capita GNP levels, but also in fast growing countries with relatively high rates of GNP. The impacts are:
There is another dimension of Poverty that is emerging in certain countries which we term as “concealed poverty”. It is hypothesized that in countries, where poverty-alleviation programmes consistently fail, poverty starts getting ‘concealed’ or ‘disguised’ through various legitimate and illegitimate means with the result that poor do not appear to be poor. In essence, there exists an intriguing and also paradoxical situation in certain countries where there are high poverty levels based on macro indices and survey data, but where poverty, somehow, is not visible to the casual observer. The dynamics of this process works like this: poverty, amongst other things, leads to loss of self-esteem in the eyes of the richer class. Various manifestations of such marginalization (also called social apartheid) of the poor by the ricer class become increasingly extreme, especially in the urban areas, thereby challenging the fight against poverty, and even threatening democracy. This in turn motivates the poor to protect this loss through borrowing and crime-related activities. Poverty, thus, gets concealed and the pattern of consumption distorted towards visible and conspicuous items to restore their self-esteem at least in an extremely short period and not in a sustained way. Beyond that the fallouts of this dramatized behaviour are highly damaging both for the poor and for the economy as a whole in terms of reduced gross domestic savings, which exercise their adverse impact on investment and growth. No matter how we define poverty it is seen as a curse, and a vice, and poor people are looked down upon with disgrace (which gets accentuated by a number of social factors like racial in South Africa and caste-based in India) by the rich, who have no real feelings, whatsoever, for the pain and suffering the poor undergo through every moment of their existence. But then, one has to live with whatever it is, given the natural instinct to survive, and that too at a heavy cost of self-esteem, especially in the present-day materialistic and self-centered world. In this kind of a backdrop, any one who is poor naturally has a strong desire to conceal one’s poverty, no matter how he does it, to meet his basic survival needs, and also to protect thereby his self-esteem. This desire, somehow, is also intensified by consumers’ tendency to imitate, called the demonstration effect or neighbourhood effect, especially in countries where poverty is compounded by worsening distribution of income. This is highly immiserizing for the poor, and victimizes them in many ways. The initial impulse to shed off this mental and physical torture and stress, as caused by the loss of self-esteem, and demonstration effect, is to shift from the consumption of ‘inferior’ goods to that of ‘normal’ goods. The idea of this shift to conspicuous consumption places the poor in a state of acute dilemma, where they have to make a difficult choice between two courses of action, both of which are equally undesirable in their own ways. It is unfortunately the society and its economic and social fabric and also its attitude, that encourages a majority of the poor to get motivated towards the second option of moving away from poverty artificially, and, thereby, publicly concealing it. There are two possibilities, not necessarily mutually exclusive, open for such a course of action, and each one is capable, in its own way, to add to the command or entitlement of the poor, not necessarily over basic consumption needs of ‘inferior’ goods, but also beyond them over ‘normal’ goods. The first possibility is legitimate, but may be unethical and is concerned not only with spending a major part of one’s income on ‘normal’ goods but also through self-borrowing in the sense of spending one’s future income in the present, and this leads to a vicious debt-trap for the poor. The second possibility is both illegitimate and unethical, and beyond that it is also immoral and dishonourable, and is concerned with crimes, which bring in easy money. In fact, hunger linked with poverty begets crime, and crime begets ‘unearned’ income. But these two possibilities are not only exclusive to the poor and used by the rich to enhance their prosperity with highly disproportionate effort. Every country, therefore, needs to ameliorate the lot of the proletariat keeping in view the wider connotation of poverty as enunciated by Amartya Sen. There is a need to have fresh programmes to encourage self esteem and community solidarity, to eliminate discrimination against poor, and to increase the empowerment of the underclass. The author is a former Fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla. He was earlier Professor of Economics at the University of Allahabad and at The University of North West in South Africa |
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Police
and Minorities United Nations observed a Decade for Human Rights Education from 1995-2004. Asia and Pacific Regional Conference on the subject of Human Rights Education held at Pune in 1999 had emphasised on the need of a comprehensive, integrated and holistic approach to popularise such an education. The conference had affirmed that all human rights- civil, social, political, economic, cultural- are universal, inter-related, indivisible and inter-dependent and should be treated on same footing with the same emphasis. It rightly advocated a multi-disciplinary education starting with family. The goals of education for human rights could be ensured only through active co-operation and participation of those who have the duty and obligation to promote and protect human rights. A common allegation on human rights front that is leveled against the police forces all over the world is that of discrimination by them on ethnic and communal grounds. Adverse relations between Police and Minorities have figured prominently in most countries. "Racism is a blot on humanity that infects virtually every country in the World. Governments must actively tackle racism and ensure that justice is administered on the basis of human rights,” Amnesty International has been observing often enough. It is a fact of daily life that the police are the most visible governmental institution, a sort of cutting edge that citizens are bound to come across and be in direct contact on a regular basis. To civilians, the police represent "government in action" and thus may influence their overall opinions on and perspectives of the larger government, its philosophy and applicability to their daily lives. The police and their actions are therefore of central concern for a government of a country. The actions of the police may strengthen or weaken the public support necessary to sustain a viable democracy. America whose political credo is based on the premise that all men are born equal is a good case study as it has been widely alleged that there is a wide gap between their belief and practice. Their police forces functioning under different sets of laws have come under severe attack for a strong bias against the Blacks and the Hispanics. Countries in Western Europe and East Europe, in Middle East and else where are all concerned with protection of their racial, ethnic and religious minorities as we are in India. They are trying to develop programmes to identify the sources of social conflict and tensions and develop public education and community partnership programs to involve police and civilians in joint efforts to identify and resolve problems. There is a good U.S. Department of Justice definition on racial profiling, "Any police-initiated action that relies on the race, ethnicity or national origin rather than the behavior of an individual or information that leads the police to a particular individual who has been identified as being, or having been, engaged' in criminal activity". An important contribution to public credibility is the manner in which the police respond to civilian allegations of police misconduct, abuse, and corruption. Issues related to professional ethics and the manner in which police agencies enforce professional standards of conduct were introduced in the police-management seminars. As a follow-up, Police took part in a series of seminars that addressed issues of police accountability and internal affairs procedures, such as a civilian complaint process. The topics in these seminars included professional ethics, public accountability, internal professional accountability systems, and the investigation and prevention of police misconduct, abuse, and corruption. In a recent report to the UN Commission on Human Rights it was observed that prevention could be ensured mainly through the establishment of a culture of tolerance, notably through education. It was added that it is essential that special attention be given to traditional activities, namely, in most cases, follow-up action on human rights violations. However, in countries where religious discrimination permeates the laws and institutions including the educational system, where religious discrimination is systemic and endemic to every aspect of life for minorities, what is required is effective and concerted action on the part of the international community and the governments concerned to remedy the situation, the report suggested. Police forces all over the world are becoming increasingly aware of the need to reorient them to conform to the needs of Human Rights. Here I quote a newly framed Police Code by the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, which I find of great relevance: "I will enforce the law in a humane and adequate manner, without any fear, corruption, or bad intent and I will never use any unnecessary force or violence." After the September 11, 2001 attack in New York and Washington, Muslims or even Muslim looking as a group became a target of discrimination in several countries of the world. Under the new sweeping security regime in USA, photographing and finger printing has been introduced at the airports for most Asians and Africans and even in some cases Europeans. It is a clear case of profiling of a community. In some other countries they have been practicing blatant discrimination against Muslims as a community like prohibiting their entry into the army, for a long time, which is unimaginable in India. India has the traditions of great tolerance and harmony, which have stood the test of time. Resilience and a spirit of accommodation in our Heritage is the secret. Framers of the Indian constitution were persons of vision. They saw to it that the pluralistic society of India was governed by an egalitarian system under equitable laws. But, we do have our problems. In India the police generally do not intentionally discriminate against the minorities, though on several occasions, they have come to adverse notice for their alleged failure in protecting them. In this context, what lacks is the environment for independent functioning of police on professional lines. If apolitical and professional character of the state police forces is maintained, they could be a positive force in delivering justice. Political and social ethoses in the country have come to be governed by partisan considerations. Police forces have not remained untouched by this phenomenon. Their professional character has suffered due to politicisation of the rank and file. Processes of recruitment, appointments and promotions have been seriously subverted. Expediency rules, where administrative propriety should. It is not uncommon to find extra-constitutional forces playing havoc with police morale. Unless the fundamentals are set right it is too much to expect from police to discharge their duties fairly. Concern for human rights is the need of the time. Concern for the morale of police forces should also be a matter of equal concern. Sir William McPherson who had conducted an enquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence, a Black, at the hands of police in England in 1999 made 70 recommendations to improve upon the police functioning. The report came under criticism in that country, as it would lower the morale of the police forces. A corrective approach calls for a strong proactive role on part of the entire society and institutions. A vigilant society is a safeguard against the abuse of civil rights. Police forces reflect the ethos of their times. A holistic approach is called for. Accountability should be universally enforced among all those whose responsibility is to protect human rights. Finally, what is required is the transformation of the entire social ethos on human rights and evolving a national consensus on the need to maintain social harmony. We have our grand heritage of tolerance and harmonious living to fall back upon. The last hymn of the Rig Veda has a universal message: Sangachhadhvam samvadaddhvam / samvo manamsi jantam. Samano mantrah samiti somani! Samanam manah sahchittamesam.It can loosely be translated to mean: May mankind be of one mind! May it have a common goal! May all hearts be united in love! And with the mind and the goal being one, may all of us live in happiness! [O.P.Sharma is former Governor of Nagaland and former Director General of Police, Punjab] |
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How
Real is the Property Boom? Property owners never had such a good time. Fast urbanisation has sent land prices zooming, touching dizzy heights each passing day. India was always in the need of more houses for its shelter-less masses. However, building a house was not within the reach of the common man and only rich could afford to raise houses or bungalows. Even now owning a house is beyond the reach of the majority of the people in India. More than one million people in the national capital alone have absolutely no shelter and no hope of getting it. Countrywide, it could be half the population without proper houses. Until ten years back when the ever-expanding middle class with its insatiable demand for houses and property backed by solid policy initiatives changed the real estate scenario in the country. The policy interventions brought the lending rates of the banks down, tax breaks made the raising houses profitable ventures and solid security to meet exigencies added another advantage. The real estate sharks through their speculative measures made it more attractive and foreign investment; largely by the Non Resident Indians was the cherry on the pie. And the industry had never witnessed a boom of this nature.
However facts indicate a different picture. In Punjab for instance, two-three years back, the land used for the cultivation in the urban pockets or on the main roads is now up for sale for those keen on investing. The past three months have witnessed mega deals that too above Rs 50 billion ($1.14 billion) in Kharar Tehsil of Punjab –one of the nearest towns to the capital. Data points out at least 30 to 40 registries are carried out in a single day. As per the survey, the cost ranges between Rs 10 to 11 million per acre. The partial rise in the land price in the city of Patiala, towards the end of year 2002 stands nowhere now. The real estate pundits in the city revealed to SOUTH ASIA POST that during that period the people went on to the purchase of property because of the rumour of counter magnet town in the city. The city had seen 100 percent hike, from Rs 1,500 per sq yard to Rs 2,000- Rs 2,500. In comparison, land prices in some pockets of Amritsar are the costliest in the state with prices as high as Rs 7,000 per yard. According to a city based property dealer, “Land close to Zirakpur town falling under the Notified Area Committee [NAC] is benefited for the location on prime Delhi-Shimla & Chandigarh –Ambala- Patiala highways. When we compare it within Chandigarh Capital Region, this area is only second in league after Chandigarh in the real estate business. It ranges across Rs.22 to 25 million per 500 square yard area, a ten-time hike within one and a half year. Interestingly, taking note the Punjab government’s local bodies department has decided to merge three more adjoining villages - Peer Muggla, Nagala’s hundreds acres land into the Zirakpur NAC to cater to the rising demand. Similarly, Dera Bassi – an industrial township on Delhi-Chandigarh national highway has shot up from Rs. 10 million per acre [4840 sq. yard] within a few months. Bannur, Rajpura, Fatehgarh Sahib, Morinda, Patiala, Samana, Anandpur Sahib, Dhannaula, Sunam et al assembly segments echo a similar trend. While Sangrur, Mansa and Bathinda indicate a unique trend. According to Mohinder Singh Sidhu, a local politician: “Almost every village in this area got some new families from Patiala, Chandigarh and other main cities. While larger villages like Chhajli, Cheema Mandi and Sheron [all in Sunam area of the state] have seen 10 to 15 new families each buy land holding in last few months and this process, is never ending. Meanwhile, the original landholders are pushed back to the more remote area. Apparently as Sidhu said he himself sold his farmhouse and purchased almost double the size at a cheaper price. The prices are on a constant rise and go up by a 100,000 rupees every fortnight for an acre. Two years back, the maximum rate was Rs 450,000 per acre, which rose to Rs 1.0- Rs 1.1 million in December and is expected to go up further. Small land holders from Khanna area are selling their Lands and moving to Uttar Pradesh and some even to Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh where land prices are yet to low. There also these are rising, but not to those dizzy heights. Coming back to Chandigarh, estate agents point out that there is a huge demand as against minimal supply. Old 10 Marla houses or plots are available for Rs 12.5 million to 15.0 million. However, in the posh areas the cost of the property is directly proportional to the people residing in that locality. Interestingly the satellite town of Mohali offers property nearly 25 per cent cheaper than what it is in Chandigarh. The property rates in several areas of the state have boiled up to three to ten times in the closing year. What is driving this real estate mania? While globalization is one major reason, shift from villages to cities due to lack of adequate facilities in the rural regions Could be another important factor. Impact of globalization based policies and rotation of black money adds invisible complications in it. There are many farmers in the state, who do up-down from their urban base to the rural `native` agricultural land. A deprived agriculture sector, which was referred as a backbone of rural and state economy also responsible far pushed up to those poor working classes, which were depended on the landlords. Actually, Punjab has lost its image of a rich state amongst other states in the country. In per capita income capacity, now it is on fifth number, while its successors state Haryana is ahead. Every Punjabi landlord is under an average debt ranging from Rs 200,000 to Rs 2 million amounting to more than Rs 240 billion on the agriculture sector in the state. According to economist and adviser Punjab Farmer Commission Dr PS Rangi rich Punjabi farmers chose the terrible way of suicides, but this `Bhumi Boom’ may stop this. Such types of symptoms come to see in recent cash recovery by co-operative, Agriculture Land Mortgage and other banks against loans to agriculture sector. Interestingly, the Kharar Land Mortgage Bank has maximum loan repayment in comparison to the loan advancement. Dr Rangi has reacted to this trend positively and said that this could release the loan drenched smaller landholders out of trouble. But where do they go. No one has any answer. It may be the return of the investors to the state after the good environment in the post terrorism era. The circulation of `black` money in the business has pumped up the business work. Property dealers’ cartels have come up and are cornering most of urban and prime rural properties. Instead of keeping money with the middlemen and moneylenders known as `artyiyas`, those farmers who can afford are entering the business. The easy loan facilitation from private banks is very helpful in the process. The failed policy and corruption of the state government and failure to safe guard the interest of the industry has also added to this phenomenon. Also many cases are reported where some people end up losing money to cheats. It is boom time indeed and the trend may last longer than some fear. |
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Media
as a Scarecrow: News Search Redo MANY things plague the world. One of the cornerstones of the media’s quest to scare the public is the Ebola virus. The Ebola virus as described in the best selling book HOT ZONE is not a huge threat to the world as the media portrays. Its true, however, that the Ebola virus is brutal if you contract it, but people infected with the virus usually die so quickly that they cannot spread it beyond their villages in Africa. As we all know the press especially like to get their hands on a story that will increase their TV ratings, but you cannot believe everything you hear or read! The history of the Ebola virus goes back to the African jungles where the host animal, Alouatta Seniculus, or red Howler Monkey contracted the virus through unknown sources. The tribal men that went into the jungle unfortunately contracted the virus when the monkeys bit them for intruding their territorial space. From then on the virus traveled through the other tribal members and was discovered by outsiders when missionary trips were made there. Many times the media likes to inflate a headline. The Ebola virus is a perfect example of the media making headlines that scare the public into buying more papers and perhaps more medicines too. Ebola kills a very small number of people every year. The press also likes to exploit people of the central African plain- the same people that are affected by the disease. I have seen show after show on television about the primitive people in Africa. I have noticed that when the media has nothing more to report about they try to conjure up a headline or two by reporting that the bushman of central Africa are dying of a mysterious disease. The word mysterious itself will stir up a weeks worth of questions and not to mention the primitive bushman that could be dying of something as simple as eating bad berries. The press is one of our worst enemies and also our best friend. The media has the power change millions of people’s minds and affect each one of their decisions. Remember the Anthrax scare of 2002. It turned out after a nine-week frenzy that the Anthrax is extremely hard to maintain in toxic state and most of the postal offices that were suspected of having the deadly toxin were checked to be negative. This is in the same case of the Ebola virus in the neighboring rest on county. Sure enough the government took care of the problem, prevented any fatalities and also destroyed the virus. At the end of the day most people like being assured that they know what’s going on all around the world. They feel comfortable when they think about the world’s issues and how they are safe in their homes away from the African witch doctors that are using voodoo to treat a man-eating virus. But the same people that read the headlines can feed the media into giving them more headlines that fuel the ongoing circle of silly assumptions. In conclusion the view of the Ebola virus has not changed much in the last fifteen years. Though researchers have been working around the clock to find the cure to the Ebola virus many tribal leaders do not believe in conventional methods of dealing with this small time epidemic. Much like the H.I.V virus tribal medicine men do not believe in conventional medicine but more in cleansing ones self through intercourse. However for those who are unlucky enough to contract Ebola they would not have time to have intercourse as the Voodoo doctors insist. Though the future may bring a brighter prospective to the African tribes plagued with Ebola. [Amrit Chahal a class XII student in a Fairfax school, USA and is a budding writer.] |
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SOUTH ASIA POST INC. |
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WILL
economics outclass politics in South Asia? This question has assumed
greater significance with South Asia Free Trade Area [SAFTA] coming into
existence from January first. Will the seven countries of the South Asian
Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) be able to unshackle themselves
from the insufferable past and narrow their yawning differences over political
issues and enhance trade relations? The seven countries of SAARC which have an
eighth partner, Afghanistan mean nearly one-fifth of humanity or 1.5 billion
people, occupying barely three of the world’s geographical area. Some of
the world’s poorest; 400 million survive barely on one dollar.
Yet there are no
convincing reasons to explain this steep (almost 200 per cent) hike in property
prices in the past one year alone. Despite the erect graph on the real estate
business, many believe that the process is plastic and can bust after reaching
saturation point, they say, it is near.