📰 A remote U.P. village shines the torch on a lurking virus
Pahuli in Bijnor district has emerged as a hotspot of hepatitis C infection and dozens of patients wait for a treatment policy to get costly drugs
•In January 2016, 40-year-old Wardhan was rushed to a private hospital near Pahuli village in Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh, to treat a ruptured appendix. While preparing him for surgery, doctors found him positive for the hepatitis C virus (HCV), an infection that causes chronic liver disease.
•The doctors advised him to get his family members tested, a desirable practice when a patient tests positive for HCV. Within a week, seven of the 10 adults in Wardhan’s family tested positive.
•Hepatitis C affects the liver, and has the same mode of transmission as HIV, spreading through blood, injecting drugs, blood transfusion and sexual activity, and from mother to child during pregnancy. Although data on HCV is weak, the Central government estimates that about 1.2 crore people are positive for hepatitis C in the country — six times the number of people living with HIV/AIDS.
Community in fear
•There is no vaccine against the disease, and while it is curable, the Indian government is yet to announce the much-awaited hepatitis C policy to advance treatment.
•When this reporter visited Pahuli, tracking a community of some 200 families that are at the centre of a hepatitis C hotspot in Uttar Pradesh, Wardhan’s emerged as one of the first families that were “out-of-closet”. He was diagnosed on January 10, 2016. “Within days, my brother, father, uncle, wife and cousins in the extended family... every one was positive. We were so scared. Treatment seemed impossible, the entire family was affected, and our neighbours knew,” he says.
•As Wardhan’s family tried to cope, Girdhari, his immediate neighbour, decided to get tested. “I was positive too,” he recalls. By August 4, 2016, an unsettling fear of mass infection emerged, prompting Girdhari and a few men to visit Chief Medical Officer Sukhbir Singh, since retired. They told the officials that most families had identical symptoms — bleeding easily and wounds that did not easily clot, swelling in the legs and serious weight loss. Based on this, between 70% and 80% of the families seemed to be HCV-positive. The same month, 100 samples from the village were collected in three batches and sent for testing. The results confirmed the villagers’ fears: 73 out of the 100 samples were positive. But the government did not give them the results.
•“When they saw an overwhelming number, they refused to give us our medical records. No one has visited the village since August 2016,” says Girdhari.
📰 We’ll be sherpa to help Nepal climb to success: PM Modi
Modi lauds Kathmandu’s journey from bullet to ballot
•India is ready to be the sherpa to help Nepal scale the mountain of success, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday, hailing the Himalayan nation’s successful journey from bullets to ballots.
•Addressing a civic reception in his honour at the Nepalese capital, Mr. Modi stressed the special relation shared by the two neighbours and admired Nepal’s spirit of resilience and commitment to democracy.
•“Nepal has covered a long journey from Yuddh to Buddh [War to Peace]. You have left the bullet to opt the ballot way... But this not the destination. You have to go a long way,” he told the gathering.
Towards the peak
•“You have reached the base camp of Mt. Everest, and the main climb is yet to be done. As the sherpas [guides] help mountaineers to reach the top of the Everest, India is ready to help Nepal like a sherpa to achieve development,” he said.
•Earlier in the day, in a joint statement, Mr. Modi and his Nepalese counterpart K.P. Sharma Oli agreed to maintain the momentum generated by the visit by taking effective measures for the implementation of all the agreements and understandings reached in the past.
•They also agreed that effective implementation of the bilateral initiatives in agriculture, railway linkages and inland waterways development, as agreed upon by the two sides during the recent visit of Mr. Oli to India, would have a transformational impact in these areas, the statement said.
•The Prime Minister said Nepal must identify its needs and priorities to deliver results. “India will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Nepal in its development journey. Your success is our success and your joy is our joy,” he said.
•The Prime Minister said his party’s slogan, Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, was as much about global well being as it was about India’s growth.
📰 Odisha plans seven barrages on Mahanadi
State locked in a dispute with Chhattisgarh over water share
•The Odisha government on Saturday said it has plans to construct at least seven barrages in the downstream areas of the Mahanadi river, an apple of discord between the State and neighbouring Chhattisgarh.
•Besides, 22 other projects would also be constructed on the tributaries and distributaries of the Mahanadi, Water Resources Secretary P. K. Jena said at a press conference.
•“The State government has been working on a road map and a master plan to put a check on water of the Mahanadi that is getting drained into the sea by constructing barrages and anicuts downstream,” Mr. Jena said.
Drinking water
•He said the proposed projects were aimed at meeting the drinking water, irrigation and other requirements of the people.
•An estimated 52% of Mahanadi water is flowing down to the Bay of Bengal, official sources said.
•Mr. Jena’s statement is significant in the wake of Odisha government’s opposition to the Chhattisgarh government constructing projects on the upstream of the Mahanadi river.
•The dispute between the two States is now pending before a tribunal.
•The Water Resources secretary did not divulge much about the proposed master plan of the government. The sources said the seven major projects would include barrages and anicuts at Boudh, Sambalpur, Subarnapur and Munduli areas.
📰 India, Nepal to increase people-to-people contact
Kathmandu to get greater access to markets; Modi sets September 2018 deadline for officials to resolve outstanding bilateral issues
•India and Nepal on Saturday expressed common intent to revise key trade and transport agreements that may allow Kathmandu greater access to the Indian market.
•The bilateral understanding came during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s two-day visit to the Himalayan country where he held discussions with all sections of Nepali politics and set a September 2018 deadline for his officials to address bilateral issues.
Comprehensive review
•“... the two Prime Ministers welcomed the outcome of the recently held Inter-Governmental Committee meeting on Trade, Transit and Cooperation to control unauthorised trade to jointly initiate a comprehensive review of the bilateral Treaty of Trade, and to consider amendments to the Treaty of Transit and related Agreements with a view to further facilitating Nepal’s access to the Indian market,” a joint statement said.
•The understanding came days after a senior diplomatic source in the External Affairs Ministry indicated that the treaty of transit would soon be modified to make it more business-friendly. In bilateral discussions with Prime Minister Modi, his Nepal counterpart, K.P. Sharma Oli, sought steps to correct his country’s trade deficit with India.
•Both sides agreed to intensify land, air and water connectivity and increase people-to-people contact, the declaration said.
Greater connectivity
•“The two Prime Ministers directed the respective officials to expand cooperation in the civil aviation sector, including early technical discussion on additional air entry routes to Nepal by respective technical teams,” the declaration said.
•Nepal has been demanding a change in the way it conducts its diplomacy and trade with India and the common understanding reached during the visit indicates a forward movement in these matters.
•Both the Prime Ministers set a deadline of September 2018 for officials to address outstanding bilateral issues in all areas.
•The highlight of the visit was the joint inauguration of the 900-MW Arun-III hydroelectric power project, which was jointly attended by the two Prime Ministers. In this context, both leaders welcomed the meeting of the Joint Steering Committee on cooperation in the power sector held on April 17.
•Senior officials earlier had informed the media that Nepal had been negotiating with India the terms of energy trade issued by India’s Central Electricity Regulatory Commission.
•The focus of Prime Minister Modi’s latest visit to Nepal was more on connectivity and trade, in comparison to earlier emphasis on ensuring relief and rehabilitation of the people affected by the devastating earthquake of 2015.
•The joint statement described connectivity as “catalytic” in triggering economic growth.
📰 Resenting Rahul Gandhi
Not only does it present a destructive kind of nationalism, it often verges on racist prejudice. Politicians who capitalise on this feeling are doing India a big disfavour
•As far back as the ascension of Sanjay Gandhi, much before the coming of the (more likeable) Rajiv Gandhi, I felt that the Nehru-Gandhi family ought to graciously retire from politics and let the Congress proceed on its own. I was very young then, probably not even in my teens, and I belonged to a family of staunch Congress supporters, but I recall feeling distinctly uncomfortable with the notion of Sanjay taking over from his mother.
•I have not changed my basic position on this matter, and yet I have to say that much of the current ‘opposition’ to Rahul Gandhi has a disturbing and dark side to it. While opposition to ‘dynasty raj’ is offered as an explanation, what really exists, more often than not, is a mix of envy, resentment, neo-casteist sentiment and a disturbing kind of racism, most of it indirectly supported by major BJP politicians.
•This is barely camouflaged in many online cartoons and ‘jokes’ about Rahul Gandhi, which often refer derisively to the Italian side of his family. Frequently, he is dismissed — unfairly — because he has a parent who came to India from elsewhere. This dismissal is in tandem with the dismissal of Muslims and Christians by the same elements.
•Not only does this present a destructive kind of nationalism, it often verges on racist prejudice. The perpetrators of such jokes — and I use the word ‘perpetrator’ on purpose — seem to relish degrading Rahul Gandhi. Very often this is done literally, for instance in cartoons of doubtful humour that place Rahul Gandhi in an abject ‘Baba-like’ position against a ‘towering’ BJP politician. Hence also, the ‘language’ jokes about him by people who speak fewer languages than him.
The case with Nehru
•This drain of resentment runs a long way. Jawaharlal Nehru encountered it too, but in more restrained ways. And for similar reasons: in his writing and lifestyle, Nehru repudiated the entire structure of upper-caste prejudices. He also repudiated the strong structure of endogamy that still sustains the caste system, and not just within Hinduism. Elements of these prejudices are visited upon Rahul Gandhi too.
•But there are other elements too, of which one was probably less of an issue with Nehru: Nehru appears to have faced far less envy for his personal, educational and class advantages. This might seem surprising; after all, Nehru was a more cultivated and talented person than Rahul Gandhi or, for that matter, any other major national leader today. And yet, Nehru’s difference was largely respected by the voters then.
•Some of it had to do with the person: Nehru had spent years in jail and organising for independence among ordinary people. Some of it had to do with the age: Nehru lived in a less envious age, perhaps because the discourse of easy riches and the magnifying glasses of TV and such media — which take us into houses we cannot enter in reality — was not prevalent in the period.
•And yet, some of it probably has to do with character — or lack of character. No, I am not talking of Rahul Gandhi. I have no reason to suppose that he has less character than any other national leader. Actually, he seems to have more than most. I am talking of people who obviously envy him, his exposure to the world, his space of living, even (subconsciously) his lifestyle.
•This is the taluk middle and lower middle class to which I belong. These are people with education and at times professional careers whose formative years were spent in small towns of India, or who are still based there. It is among these people that you find the greatest resentment of Rahul Gandhi, not among farmers or workers or born metropolitans. I have spoken to such people. I am convinced that what they unconsciously resent in Rahul Gandhi is the structural lack that keeps them where they are.
Mores in taluk towns
•A taluk town has never been cut off from the rest of India, but it is now wired not just to India but to the entire world. On the other hand, the mores and social skills that prevail in taluk towns are not those that enable its denizens much space in the world. To take just one example: English. Every time I visit my home (taluk) town, I am asked not about my books, but about how to become fluent in English. This is the genuine concern of people who have English, but not sufficient fluency in it to capitalise on their other talents and skills in the world. For people like this, the easy access that Rahul Gandhi has to the world — perhaps without even the kind of hard work they have put into their own education — is deeply galling. The best among them overcome it, but the worst simmer with envy against all the Rahul Gandhis of India.
•Given the sharp educational and social stratification of India, and the vast chasm between not just the rich and the poor but between metropolitan/international education and taluk education, I suspect that Rahul Gandhi has a far steeper mountain of resentment to overcome than Nehru ever had. I can understand the resentment, but I cannot accept it, for it brings out the worst in us. Politicians who capitalise on this are doing us — and India — a disfavour.
•As far back as the ascension of Sanjay Gandhi, much before the coming of the (more likeable) Rajiv Gandhi, I felt that the Nehru-Gandhi family ought to graciously retire from politics and let the Congress proceed on its own. I was very young then, probably not even in my teens, and I belonged to a family of staunch Congress supporters, but I recall feeling distinctly uncomfortable with the notion of Sanjay taking over from his mother.
•I have not changed my basic position on this matter, and yet I have to say that much of the current ‘opposition’ to Rahul Gandhi has a disturbing and dark side to it. While opposition to ‘dynasty raj’ is offered as an explanation, what really exists, more often than not, is a mix of envy, resentment, neo-casteist sentiment and a disturbing kind of racism, most of it indirectly supported by major BJP politicians.
•This is barely camouflaged in many online cartoons and ‘jokes’ about Rahul Gandhi, which often refer derisively to the Italian side of his family. Frequently, he is dismissed — unfairly — because he has a parent who came to India from elsewhere. This dismissal is in tandem with the dismissal of Muslims and Christians by the same elements.
•Not only does this present a destructive kind of nationalism, it often verges on racist prejudice. The perpetrators of such jokes — and I use the word ‘perpetrator’ on purpose — seem to relish degrading Rahul Gandhi. Very often this is done literally, for instance in cartoons of doubtful humour that place Rahul Gandhi in an abject ‘Baba-like’ position against a ‘towering’ BJP politician. Hence also, the ‘language’ jokes about him by people who speak fewer languages than him.
The case with Nehru
•This drain of resentment runs a long way. Jawaharlal Nehru encountered it too, but in more restrained ways. And for similar reasons: in his writing and lifestyle, Nehru repudiated the entire structure of upper-caste prejudices. He also repudiated the strong structure of endogamy that still sustains the caste system, and not just within Hinduism. Elements of these prejudices are visited upon Rahul Gandhi too.
•But there are other elements too, of which one was probably less of an issue with Nehru: Nehru appears to have faced far less envy for his personal, educational and class advantages. This might seem surprising; after all, Nehru was a more cultivated and talented person than Rahul Gandhi or, for that matter, any other major national leader today. And yet, Nehru’s difference was largely respected by the voters then.
•Some of it had to do with the person: Nehru had spent years in jail and organising for independence among ordinary people. Some of it had to do with the age: Nehru lived in a less envious age, perhaps because the discourse of easy riches and the magnifying glasses of TV and such media — which take us into houses we cannot enter in reality — was not prevalent in the period.
•And yet, some of it probably has to do with character — or lack of character. No, I am not talking of Rahul Gandhi. I have no reason to suppose that he has less character than any other national leader. Actually, he seems to have more than most. I am talking of people who obviously envy him, his exposure to the world, his space of living, even (subconsciously) his lifestyle.
•This is the taluk middle and lower middle class to which I belong. These are people with education and at times professional careers whose formative years were spent in small towns of India, or who are still based there. It is among these people that you find the greatest resentment of Rahul Gandhi, not among farmers or workers or born metropolitans. I have spoken to such people. I am convinced that what they unconsciously resent in Rahul Gandhi is the structural lack that keeps them where they are.
Mores in taluk towns
•A taluk town has never been cut off from the rest of India, but it is now wired not just to India but to the entire world. On the other hand, the mores and social skills that prevail in taluk towns are not those that enable its denizens much space in the world. To take just one example: English. Every time I visit my home (taluk) town, I am asked not about my books, but about how to become fluent in English. This is the genuine concern of people who have English, but not sufficient fluency in it to capitalise on their other talents and skills in the world. For people like this, the easy access that Rahul Gandhi has to the world — perhaps without even the kind of hard work they have put into their own education — is deeply galling. The best among them overcome it, but the worst simmer with envy against all the Rahul Gandhis of India.
•Given the sharp educational and social stratification of India, and the vast chasm between not just the rich and the poor but between metropolitan/international education and taluk education, I suspect that Rahul Gandhi has a far steeper mountain of resentment to overcome than Nehru ever had. I can understand the resentment, but I cannot accept it, for it brings out the worst in us. Politicians who capitalise on this are doing us — and India — a disfavour.
📰 The art of headless living
Those with their heads on their shoulders can expect to feel lighter by 2019
•Contrary to popular belief, beheading is not always a bad thing. Before you think I’ve lost my head, let me assure you that I’m not talking about beheading cattle, only humans. And if you’re a true liberal, instead of trying to outrage me into silence, you will calm yourself down, and allow me to make my case through reasoned argument.
•I am not proposing some Islamic State-type barbarism. If you happen to be a Tamilian whose parents were also Tamil-speaking, you may be familiar with the concept of a ‘mundam’. I heard the word for the first time as a 10-year-old when I asked my father to sign my report card. Just to be clear, he didn’t call me a ‘mundam’. He was calling himself one for paying my school fees year after year, despite getting nothing in return except more pain, more debt, and more uncertainty about his post-retirement future. In my defence, I want history to record that I never promised to give him ‘Achhe Din’ in exchange for funding my education.
The headless chicken
•For the benefit of provincials who only speak north Indian, ‘mundam’ is what you call someone who tells you, in May 2018, that demonetisation was a stroke of genius. Literally translated, the word means ‘headless body’. I was inspired to consider the headless body as a solution to India’s problems by the chicken that recently made the headlines for living without a head for nine days. I don’t know if you saw the pictures but the image is still stuck in my head, and laying an occasional egg.
•If you missed the story because you were busy sharing question papers, here’s what happened. In late March, in Thailand’s Ratchaburi province, a chicken riding a bike without a helmet had an accident and got decapitated. A female vet who was passing by was distressed to see the headless chicken running around — and I don’t mean to trivialise the issue here — like a headless chicken. She took the bird to her clinic and treated it with antibiotics.
•The chicken recovered fast and, last heard, was happier and more self-confident without its head. There is a video of it online, where someone asks the bird a pointed question. The headless bird responds using an alternative orifice, and proclaims, in a resounding chicken voice, “Na khaunga, na khane dunga!”
•This is not fake news. Check the video if you don’t believe me. But I must caution you that a headless chicken walking the talk on camera is not as easy to digest as a fully furnished one on your plate. I watched the clip only because of my passionate commitment to solving my country’s problems.
•Having spent the past fortnight pondering the pros and cons of mass beheading, I am convinced that the efficiency gains from it would create unprecedented economic value and win the UNESCO Genius Prize for our Prime Minister.
•Think about it. Does India really need 130 crore heads? No one in their right mind would say yes. Yet we carry them on our collective national shoulders. And because we are a democracy, for every issue, there are 130 crore opinions on how to resolve it. As a result nothing ever gets done. A systematic nation-wide beheading — we can do it digitally and avoid physical bloodshed — of all those whose opinions don’t matter would make our democracy infinitely more cost-effective, both by saving decision-making time and by eliminating excess processing capacity.
An Indian Brain Template
•Fortunately, India already has the basics in place to implement a national beheading policy. Scientists at the National Brain Research Centre have already created an Indian Brain Template (IBT). With the IBT, we no longer need every one of India’s 130 crore citizens to apply their brains to every problem. One brain, or its AI equivalent, will solve everything.
•A scientist associated with the IBT project told me that the 150 brains which were scanned to create the national brain template belonged to members of ‘Super 150’, the high-performing team of a high-performing political party’s IT cell. The larger plan, according to the same source, is to reprogram the IBT into a powerful AI known as HBT (Hindutva Brain Template). Once everyone has linked their brains to Aadhaar, the government will, through a mass software update (which will be purely voluntary), replace all Indian brains with the indigenously developed HBT. This top secret project, if implemented with even 10% less incompetence than the GST was, could solve every one of India’s problems — from JNU and Babri Masjid to Kashmir and Kerala.
•The good news is that the HBT project has already had a successful pilot run on social media, where its lab-made headless chickens rule the roost. As and when it is rolled out for the rest of the population, the official term they will go with, I am told, is “headfree”. Indians who still have their heads on their shoulders can expect to become headfree latest by 2019.
📰 The fort that withstood 52 attacks
Jahangir finally conquered Kangra fort. Nature then destroyed it
•I had read many times about the oldest documented fort of India and its near impregnability, but it was only on a recent trip to McLeod Ganj that I was able to visit it.
•Located on a steep hill which accords a sweeping view, about 20 km from Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh, the Kangra fort occupies a narrow strip of land between the the Banganga and Majhi rivers. Its unique position gave it many advantages, as the vertiginous cliffs made the fort mostly inaccessible — the only way in was from the land side of the town. The Shash Fat’h-i-Kangra,which was written in the 17th century says of the fort: “It is very lofty and stands on a very high hill. It’s buildings are very beautiful. It is so old that no one can tell at what period it was built. This fort is very strong, insomuch that no king was ever able to take it. And it is unanimously declared by all persons acquainted with the history of the ancient Rajas that from the beginning up to this time, it has always remained in possession of one and the same family.”
The story behind the name
•The kot (fort), which was earlier called Nagarkot or fort of the city or Kot Kangra, was ruled by a clan called the Katoch. This Rajput family traces its origins to the ancient Trigarta kingdom, mentioned in the Mahabharata. It is believed that Maharaja Susharma Chandra, who had fought for the Kauravas in the Mahabharata, built the fort after the battle.
•There are very interesting stories about why the place is called Kangra. The original name, according to legend, was Kangarh (‘kan’ means ear and ‘garh’ means fort) as it is built on the ear of the demon giant Jalandhara who was slayed by Lord Shiva and buried in a mass of mountains. Aśoka Jeratha, in Forts and Palaces of the Western Himalaya, says the demon’s body was so huge that he occupied 104 km of land. Thus, the demon’s head lies buried in the Kangra valley, his ear under the fort, his mouth at Jawalamukhi, his back under the town of Jalandhar, and his feet at Multan.
Various attacks
•The much-revered idol in the fort has received rich offerings. Given Kangra’s wealth plus the belief that whoever controls the fort controls the hills, it was attacked 52 times, first by the Raja of Kashmir, Shreshta, in 470 A.D. Later, Mahmud of Ghazni (in 1009 A.D.) and Timur attacked it and looted it.
•However, all the rulers who attacked it, including Firoz Shah Tughlaq in the 14th century and Akbar in the 16th century, failed to conquer it. It was only Jahangir who was successful in 1620 after a long-drawn siege. He visited the fort in 1622 with Noor Jahan and ordered a palace to be built for him, which, however, was left incomplete.
•In 1783, the Sikhs captured the fort but in 1786, Maharaja Sansar Chand was successful in wresting it from them. Thus, once more it was in Katoch hands. In 1828, after Maharaja Sansar Chand’s death, the fort fell into the hands of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. It was annexed by the British after the Anglo-Sikh war in 1846. In 1905, the fort, which had withstood so many determined attacks by so many kings, finally lost to nature when most of its buildings were destroyed in an earthquake.
Inside the fort
•As I entered the wooden Ranjit gate of the fort through a low wicket gate, the guide told me an interesting legend. Visitors should enter with their foot, not their head, he said, for if an enemy was lurking inside, it was wiser to lose one’s foot rather than one’s head!
•Written in the 18th century, the Ma’asir al-Umara describes the fort in glowing terms and says that it has 23 bastions and seven doorways. The Jahangiri darwaza has an inscription that gives details of Akbar’s son’s conquest. Once you enter the door, you climb a flight of steep stairs and reach the Darshani darwaza. This leads to the palace area of the Katoch rulers. The Darshani darwaza is flanked by two sculptures, now damaged, of goddesses Ganga and Yamuna. It leads to a courtyard where the exquisite shrines of Lakshmi-Narayana and Ambika Devi stand. The Katoch still worship their family deity, Ambika Devi, at the temple. These are beautifully carved and one can just imagine how splendid the rest of the palace must have been before the earthquake.
•Though the original Jain temple was destroyed in the earthquake, the statue of Tirthankara Adinath miraculously survived and is kept in a small room. It is a popular pilgrimage place. As I stood in the mahal area, the fort’s highest point, looking at the river below with my back to the ruins, behind I closed my eyes and imagined the fort’s grandeur before nature took control. I turned around and faced old, mute rocks — the only spectators to all the events of the past.
📰 Love, respect and critique
•It seems counter-intuitive to be critical of something we revere, to publicly acknowledge wrongs committed by the very nation to which we owe loyalty, to detect moral flaws in the character of children we love ‘blindly’. Love, devotion, patriotism and even respect are possible only if critical judgment is suspended. Right? Conversely, flaws and blemishes surface only when what is mine ceases to be mine, when I begin treating my family or community as any other. The best critiques depend on complete detachment.
•I wish to argue, however, that this way of separating critique from love or attachment is mistaken. In an earlier column, I proposed that we critically respect the religion or philosophy to which we owe allegiance. Here I would like to extend this attitude to the family into which we are born, the institution where we work, and the country we call our home.
Our country, right or wrong?
•“Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but right or wrong, our country!” remarked Stephen Decatur, an American naval officer living in the aftermath of the war of independence, exemplifying the kind of loyalty and commitment that precludes criticism. Possessive pronouns such as ‘mine’ or ‘ours’ are laden with strong sentiment and passionate commitment, but they need not compel us to react defensively at the slightest complaint of wrongdoing. Understandable, it may be, but it is not the only response, and certainly not the best. A more appropriate rejoinder is to reflectively evaluate the negative judgment and if, on deliberation, found valid, to act and set things right. An obvious example: a parent sees or is shown some wrong done by a child, some defect appearing in his character. A foolish reaction would be to cover up what the child has done, to whitewash the wrong, to announce that the child committed no wrong. This myopically appeases the child, throwing the door wide open to future moral disasters. The wiser response is to resolve to set things right; to patiently sit with the child, understand her motivation and then launch a sensitive and sensible process of moral rehabilitation. What is true of our children is true of our religious communities, and of the nation too. When a wrong done by our religious community (for example, the brutal rape of women from another community) or our nation (for example, callousness to poverty or farmers’ suicides) jumps to the eye, one can neither publicly defend this wrong nor hide one’s head, ostrich-like, under the sand. The wrong has to be collectively and openly identified and set right.
•It is by this logic that another American, Carl Schurz, a Union General in the American civil war, amended Decatur’s statement, investing it with another, virtually opposite meaning, “My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.” When our country behaves well, meets appropriate moral standards, we feel good, even proud, but when it behaves badly, it still remains ours and for that reason, we have a special obligation to identify what is wrong with it, to openly criticise it. It is simply mistaken to presume that the stronger our identification with the country, the harder it is to recognise or acknowledge its wrongs. Indeed, the closer our identification with the nation, the stronger the motivation to restore it to the right path, and this desire to move it in the right direction propels us to a better understanding of what precisely has gone wrong. Love and attachment motivate us to undertake sharper, persistent critique. Indeed, the more things go wrong, the more severe our critique and the more intense our desire to put things back on the right track. Critique does not require total emotional detachment.
Distance, not detachment
•Although critique is possible without radical detachment, it does demand some distance. But distance from what? I believe that public criticism of whatever is ours — family, institution, religion, or nation — presupposes the ability to disconnect not from the entire community but its rotten segments: persistent lies told by our child, the callous indifference to the hierarchy and intolerance within our religion, the petty acts of power and manipulation within our institutions, the pernicious oppressions in our nation. We move away from these decadent sites not to escape to some place wholly outside our community but to other, more morally defensible locations within it. We move sideways to whereever the morally right stance is still alive. This is not possible if we remain close to the beneficiaries of the rot or succumb to the base Machiavellian temptation to whisper in the ear of power wielders. A son cannot criticise patriarchy in his family or remove it if he kowtows to his oppressive father or himself benefits from the unfair burden imposed on his mother. But to be critical, he does not have to renounce his family either. Likewise, Indians do not become anti-national, or Hindus, anti-Hindu when they justifiably criticise some of their unethical practices.
•A final remark to reinforce my main point: A better grasp of what we are and a fair appraisal of how well we fare requires a form of understanding available only from the inside, from particular locations within our religious, national, or institutional community. A sustained connection with one’s community is crucial to understanding what it is and should be. Only when such understanding is available can we arrive at appropriate and relevant critiques. Thus, a deep connection, some emotional and intellectual attachment (love, respect and commitment), is an important condition of appropriate critique. Critical respect is crucial to a vibrant living community.
📰 IIT Delhi team increases the usability of donated corneas
Corneal transparency is compromised by tissue engineering techniques
•As much as 20-30% of human corneas taken from cadavers and transplanted into patients get rejected. Unlike in the case of other tissues, the conventional tissue engineering technique that uses polymer scaffolds to seed cells and culture tissues in the lab do not succeed in the case of cornea as transparency, which is vital for cornea, gets compromised. Against this backdrop, a team of researchers led by Prof. Sourabh Ghosh from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi have found corneas taken from goats and transplanted into rabbits are not rejected and transparency is not compromised. The work was done in collaboration with clinicians from All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi.
•Dr Radhika Tandon, Professor of Ophthalmology at AIIMS and one of the authors of a paper published in the journal ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering is optimistic of study’s translation potential. “These findings open up maximal utilisation of donor corneas. Human donor corneas, which for various reasons are categorised as unsuitable for keratoplasty [where abnormal corneal tissue is replaced by a healthy cornea], can be processed in this manner and be useful for successful transplants for patch grafts and anterior lamellar keratoplasties,” she says.
•Though there is no blood supply to corneas (avascular), lymphatic system is absent, and the blood-eye barrier greatly minimises the chances of rejection, cornea from one species to another gets rejected. Removing all traces of protein, cellular and nuclear material from the cornea without destroying the anatomical microstructure and extracellular matrix of the cornea is therefore essential to minimise the chances of rejection.
Corneal transparency
•“Corneal transparency is determined by the orderly alignment of collagen fibres in a particular direction and regular spacing between the fibres so light does not get diffracted and instead passes through the cornea,” explains Prof. Ghosh, corresponding author of the paper.
•By directly passing a detergent at very precise flow rate and direction through the cornea, the researchers had already demonstrated the ability to remove all cellular and nuclear material without affecting the integrity of corneas. However, the secondary collagen alignment or confirmation still gets distorted leading to certain hidden antigenic sites getting exposed.
•Thus there are chances of immune response getting evoked leading to rejection when the decellularised cornea is transplanted.
•To overcome this problem, the team used a chemical (chondroitin sulphate) naturally found in a cornea to combine with the decellularised cornea. “The chemical combines with the decellularised cornea and restores collagen alignment thereby increasing the chances of integration of the cornea, and reducing the chances of evoking immune response and a possible rejection,” says Juhi Chakraborty from IIT Delhi and first author of the paper.
Enhanced integration
•The researchers hypothesised that combining the chemical with the decellularised cornea will result in enhanced graft integration, reduced immune response and less inflammation. To test this they used cornea without removing any cellular or nuclear material, corneas with cellular and nuclear material removed and finally decellularised corneas with the chemical combined to them. “During in vitro studies we found some immune response in the case of decellularised corneas but decellularised corneas was conjugated [combined] with the chemical showed no immune response,” says Prof. Ghosh.
•The researchers implanted the three types of goat corneas in rabbits and tested the immune response. Three rabbits were used for each group. “Decellularised cornea showed the most inflammation and blood vessel formation [vascularisation]. Interestingly, the decellularised cornea combined with the chemical had less inflammation and vascularisation,” says Chakraborty.
📰 Agricultural landscape a crucial habitat for Bengal florican
During monsoon season, these critically endangered birds move into fields
•The critically endangered Bengal florican – a grassland bird more threatened than the tiger – use not just protected grasslands but agricultural fields, too, find scientists. This suggests that conserving these cultivated areas could be as important as protecting the grasslands where these birds breed.
•Fewer than 1,000 adult Bengal floricans remain in the world in two, very fragmented populations. One of them is in the grasslands of the terai, the fertile foothills of the Himalayas, which spans across Nepal and Indian states such as Uttar Pradesh. But how do these grassland dwellers deal with the monsoon, when the grasslands they dwell in gets flooded?
•Researcher Rohit Jha of Dehradun’s Wildlife Institute of India and a team from other organisations in India and Nepal came together to study the distribution, movements and survival of this poorly-understood population in the Indian subcontinent. They conducted 934 field surveys to spot floricans between 2013 and 2016 and studied the movement of eleven birds fitted with small satellite tags.
•Their results show that during the monsoon (the non-breeding season), the birds had far larger home ranges. They moved out of protected grasslands and into low-intensity agricultural fields along large rivers – which were interspersed with grasslands, had no roads and very few people – to escape the floods common during this time. Floricans need alternating patches of short and tall grass to thrive, and till several decades ago, the large herbivores of the terai – such as rhinoceroses and swamp deer – would do this job of creating these perfect habitats, says Jha.
•“But now there are fewer mega-herbivores left, so only dense, tall grasslands remain in protected areas,” he says. “So this could be triggering this movement of floricans into fields.”
•Some of the tagged birds spent more than half a year in such fields, adds Jha. Hence, conserving these fields – by ensuring safe agricultural practices – could be as important as protecting the birds' grassland habitats.
•Taking into account the floricans' preferences for grassland habitats, and with location data from their primary surveys, the team also tried to predict potential undiscovered populations of the birds in the area. Their analyses show that though the birds' habitats get severely fragmented towards the western parts of the Indian subcontinent, there could be some unrecorded populations of floricans in the states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh which have not yet been surveyed. Jha hopes to go in search of these floricans in the immediate future.
