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| THIS
OUR NORTH AMERICA |
| Swine Flue-Another epidemic
gripping the world |
Khushwant
Singh writes from Toronto
SIX years ago it was SARS virus and now
it is the SWINE (pig) flu which is turning into
a wide spreading world wide epidemic across at
least 9 countries so far. Swine flue which originated
from Mexico has already claimed 159 lives in the
country and has put officials across its borders
especially in the U.S. and Canada at a very high
alert. Swine influenza (also known as swine flu)
refers to influenza caused by any strain of the
influenza virus endemic in pigs (swine). Swine
flu is common in swine and rare in humans.More
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| To the most powerful
woman of India |
Gurpreet
Singh
 KINDLY
accept my heartiest congratulations for running
a minority government in India for its full five
year term. As India is heading for another election
and your party hopes to be reelected to power,
let’s accept that you were running a coalition
government with the help of several other secular
parties and yet were unable to keep up its commitment
to protect secularism.More |
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| ANALYSIS |
| Drug
addiction: Causes and the way out |
Vinod Anand
DRUG addiction is both a psychology and pathological
condition. The disorder of addiction involves the
progression of acute drug use to the development
of drug-seeking behavior, the vulnerability to relapse,
and the decreased, slowed ability to respond to
naturally rewarding stimuli. There are three stages
of addiction: preoccupation/anticipation, binge/intoxication,
and withdrawal/negative effect.More |
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| Obama to change American
policy toward Latin America |
Dr Sawraj Singh
AFTER Europe, Obama seems poised to change
American policy toward Latin America. He emerged
as the most popular leader and center of attraction
at the summit of the Americas in the island nation
of Trinidad and Tobago. This was quite a contrast
to President Bush’s performance at the previous
Americas’ summit. Hugo Chavez called Bush
“Devil”.More
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| ART, MEDIA & LITERATURE |
| Transcending borders
at the Jaipur literature festival |
| Steven
P. Kerchoff
PICO Iyer personifies
the concept of a writer without borders-born in
England to Indian parents, raised in the United
States and the United Kingdom, and now living
in Japan. For Iyer, the whole world is equally
alien or equally home. His writing explores the
space between cultures, and the people who inhabit
that space.More |
| Pioneesr of Dhrupad based
Gurmat Sangeet |
Harjap
Singh Aujla
 BHAI
Avtar Singh and Bhai Gurcharan Singh, formerly
of village Saidpur near the holy town of Sultanpur
Lodhi in erstwhile Kapurthala State (presently
Kapurthala district of Punjab) are considered
a live-wire between the music of the era of the
great ten gurus and the modern day Sikh community.
Worthy sons of Late Bhai Jawala Singh ji (an accomplished
Kirtania of his time), they started learning vintage
“Gurmat Sangeet” from their iconic
father.More |
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UP govt challenges revocation of NSA against Varun
| Pak troops attack Taliban stronghold: Army |
Congress, BJP make last attempt to woo Sikh voters
| Markets shrug off weak IIP data | ITF suspends
Gasquet after positive cocaine test
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| UP govt challenges revocation
of NSA against Varun |
| The
Uttar Pradesh government has challenged the revocation
of NSA on Varun Gandhi. An application has been filed
regarding this. The matter will come up for hearing
on May 14 along with the main petition, which Varun
Gandhi had filed.More
Updated on May 12, 2009 at 01:00 p.m.
|
- Pak troops attack Taliban
stronghold: ArmyMore
- Congress, BJP make last attempt
to woo Sikh votersMore
- Markets shrug off weak IIP
dataMore
- ITF suspends Gasquet after
positive cocaine testMore
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| E D I T O R I
A L |
| Punjab: The land of drugged
youth |
| NEARLY
three decades away we visited the inner Malwa
of Punjab to find out the level of drug addiction
in Punjab. Village after village we went, we heard
shocking tales of how the youth was getting hooked
to opium, bhuki, all kind of narcotics and worse
even those pharmaceutical combinations meant to
treat diseases were being consumed to get kicks.More |
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| FOCUS |
| Political
entrepreneurs: Changing constituencies, but why?
|
Vinod
Anand
IT is a common practice that in all the elections,
the politicians (who are also termed as political
entrepreneurs in the terminology of the ‘New Political
Economy’, an offshoot of the conventional economics),
change their constituencies from one area to another,
essentially with the advice of their leaders.More |
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| India:
Tax haven loot turns election issue |
|
 Ranjit
Devraj of the IPS writes from New Delhi
GENERAL elections currently being contested in India
have brought an unusual issue to the fore - the
repatriation of more than a trillion dollars believed
to have been stashed away in Swiss and other tax
havens.More |
| FEATURES |
| Rising tension in the
Korean Peninsula
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| Dr
Sawraj Singh
 NORTH
Korea has announced that it will withdraw from
the six party talks and it will restore the
nuclear facilities that have been under
disablement process. This is in response to the
United Nation Security council’s resolution on
its rocket launch. The resolution criticized
North Korea and recommended sanctions.More
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| Charm
and warmth hand in hand |
|  Jyotika
J. Thukral writes from Singapore
MANY a times the bounty of nature gets spoiled
in human hands. Modern industrial complexes, concrete
jungles, hurried highways and speeding traffic, all
add to woes and are a solid proof of what man has done
to nature on his way to ‘progress’. Then
we seek out solitude, somewhere in a corner and take
respite from the humdrum life. At times we succeed and
at times we fail.More |
| Bailouts
may render WTO principles inoperable |
| An interview
with Julius Sen
The midst of the current financial crisis, many
developed and some developing countries have turned
to bailout packages to resuscitate stricken businesses.
These government measures could potentially violate
the World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules on subsidies.More
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| Women's
struggle for equality |
| Sonia
G Handa
 WOMEN
have been struggling for equality and justice and the
discrimination against them for centuries. They have
succeeded to an extent but there is s along way to go.
The formal struggle started with the formalizing a day
for women to mark their struggle for justice and
equality all the way back in early part of 20th
century.More |
| LAW & JUSTICE |
| Culture, Custom and Law |
|  Joginder
Singh Toor
CULTURE as encyclopaedia Britannica explains is the
quality in a person or society that arises from an interest
in and an acquaintance with what is generally regarded
as excellent in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits,
a particular form or stage of civilization or that of
a certain nation or period. It is sum total of ways
of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted
from one generation to another.More |
| COMMENT |
| In solidarity with angry
journalists
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| Gurpreet
Singh writes from Vancouver
 THE
recent incident involving a Sikh journalist who attacked
Indian home minister P. Chidambram at a press conference
has sparked an interesting debate in the Punjabi media
of Metro Vancouver. Jarnail Singh of Hindi daily Dainik
Jagran copied Muntadar al Zaidi, the Iraqi reporter
who threw shoes at former U.S. president G.W. Bush for
attacking his country.More
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| Obama
wants the US to accept the new global realities |
| Dr Swaraj
Singh
 AFTER
100 days in the office, President Obama came out very
well as far as approval of his policies is concerned.
President Bush left the office with one of the lowest
approval ratings, less then 30%. President Obama has
about 70% approval ratings. Bush and Obama represent
two opposite extremes of philosophy.More
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| Senate
report casts grim light on Bush era
Shocking unending
tales from the ruthless Bush regime |
| William
Fisher writes from New York for IPS
PENTAGON interrogators continuously ramped up
their abusive techniques against prisoners at Guantanamo
Bay and in Iraq and Afghanistan in a vain attempt to
establish a link between the former Iraqi dictator Saddam
Hussein and the al Qaeda attacks on the U.S. on Sep.
11, 2001.More |
| Krishna
Iyer’s plea on behalf of Binayak Sen |
 THE
text of a letter written by Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer,
former Supreme Court Judge, to Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh, dated April 17, 2009: I would like to bring to
your attention a case of grave injustice which is a
cause of much shame to Indian democracy: that of Dr.
Binayak Sen, the well known paediatrician and defender
of human rights.More
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