Pharmaceutical companies busy trying to send Rajitha home

Aug 27, 2017

There is talk about a no-confidence motion against health minister Rajitha Senaratne. The government says it will be made into a motion to establish confidence in the minister.

The move comes as many changes are taking place in the health sector for the benefit of patients. The prices of 48 varieties of drugs, including essential ones, have been brought down. Some of them are worth thousands of rupees each. Also, the prices of stents needed for heart surgery have been reduced by hundreds of thousands of rupees. Also, the prices of cigarettes have been increased in order to discourage smoking, and the results are now visible.

People do not have any need to remove the health minister from his position. Therefore, to understand as to who needs his removal is very easy. Pharmaceutical and tobacco companies are the ones that have been badly hurt by Senaratne’s programmes, as the prices of drugs have been brought down and cigarette sales have decreased, thereby reducing the huge profits of these companies. They are now trying to see that he is removed.

No previous health minister was able to, or strong enough to, stop these companies from earning unreasonable profits. That is why the Senaka Bibile drug policy was kept sidelined for more than 40 years. Senaratne has been able to work freely under president Maithripala Sirisena, a former health minister, and the people are enjoying the dividends.

Pharmaceutical companies are spending money to remove the health minister. They are distributing money to the GMOA, which is using the SAITM issue against the government, other trade unions and even the joint opposition. 

The result is the no-confidence motion against the health minister. However, he says he is no afraid of these threats. He says the hatred of these companies against him is an indication that his programme has become a success.

In a lighter vein, for a change

Films, eclipses, sperm counts and more 

Very sparse, so political leaders are all in a wobble

by Kumar David-August 26, 2017, 5:41 pm 

In 1949 a little known playback singer catapulted to iconic status never equalled by a playback singer, before or after, anywhere in the world. It was an insignificant Hindi film called Mahal, the song Aayega Aane Wala (What Will Be Will Be), the singer Lata Mangeshkar. A digitally improved slower paced rendition has just been released (August 2017); hence this short comment. Want to hear it?

Go to; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Okt15fhDvy4

In 1956 the phrase was used in Spanish as Que Sera, Sera by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans in a popular song for Doris Day. It was adapted later the same year in English for Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much starring Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day.

If you go to trendy sites and high-brow film magazines and ask people who know how to hold their glasses of champagne and smoke their cigarettes from slim holders, "what are the best films of all time?" The answer would invariably include Battleship Potemkin, Rashomon, City Lights, Citizen Kane and Vertigo. Usually Bicycle Thieves, Tokyo Story, 2001 A Space Odyssey and Godfather creep in next. The Indian film that most frequently makes it near the top in the view of the snotty lot is Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali, the first in the Apu Trilogy. But I think Aparajito, the second, was much superior.

An official committee in 1997 identified Lanka’s best films, in order: Nidhanaya, Gamperaliya, Viragaya, Bambaru Awith and Sath Samudra. Vimukthi Jayasundara was the first Lankan director to win the best-first-film award at Cannes (2005) for Sulanga Enu Pinisa. The first two in the 1997 list are Lester James Peries films. What a shame that instead of letting his fame rest on his laurels, he wanted Dickman’s Road renamed after him. Where will this paltry street name changing charade stop? Petty nationalists have now changed Havelock Road to a jaw breaking Something-Thero Mawatha.

The biggest gag is Baseline Road, renamed Danister de Silva Mawatha by the ignoramuses of the Colombo Municipal Council. These illiterates were not aware that this was the dead-straight Grandpass to Narahempita base-line used in the first terrestrial survey of the Island in 1857. By the way, the Survey Department was Ceylon’s first government department formed in 1796 by Fredrick North. The British abolished common land holding and established title deeds as a prelude to forming vast estates; for this land surveying was essential. The estates were set up after the fall of the Kandyan Kingdom in 1815 and the 1840 Waste Lands Ordinance (officially Crown Lands Ordinance, in truth a repeat of the ‘tragedy of the commons’) opened the way for the Raj to appropriate the people’s common lands.

Eclipses

At 10.14 on the morning of 21 August I stood with more than a million people in Oregon (many tens of millions all across the USA) to see the first total solar eclipse in 99 years to cross the entire continental US. The word awesome is hackneyed, a stock in trade of people with poor vocabularies, but there are occasions when it fits. The wire services have had a lot to say about the ‘Great American Eclipse of 2017’ so no more from me. I want to give you snippets about other total solar eclipses. On 16 July 2186 the earth will see the longest solar eclipse in 12,000 years (4000BC to 8000AD). Totality at greatest eclipse – just out to sea - will persist for an unbelievable seven minutes and 29 seconds and the best locations are in northern South America – Venezuela and Guyana – where there will be over seven minutes of totality. So hurry, book your great grandchildren’s air-tickets. The second longest known eclipse was seven minutes and 28 seconds in 744BC; I am unable to find out the location. The first solar eclipse historically recorded was on 4 June 781BC in China.

There will be an annular eclipse visible in Sri Lanka in December 2019. An annular eclipse is where the distance between the earth and the moon is such that instead of complete cover of the sun, a ring of fire is visible round the rim. It is not as spectacular as a total eclipse.

The key eclipse for modern science was on 29 May 1919 when Arthur Eddington performed the first tests of Einstein’s general relativity theory. The expedition was led by Astronomer Royal (boss of the Greenwich Observatory) Frank Watson Dyson. In a dramatic departure from Newtonian cosmology, general relativity spoke not of attraction between bodies (gravity, falling apples) but said that space-time was curved in the vicinity of large masses. This is the popular way of describing a rather complicated bit of mathematics. If you look at far, far away stars just next to the sun (you can see them only during an eclipse – or at night but what’s the use of that since their light is not grazing the sun) it appears that their positions have moved a tiny bit away from the sun. I hope the little arrows in the picture can be seen and that you notice those closest (starlight passing close to the sun) have moved the most.

This is what Eddington set out to measure. He took photographs during the eclipse and compared their apparent positions with the actual positions at which they should be, which of course were well known to astronomers. The movement expected, if theory is correct, is very small – 1.7 seconds of arc. An arc-second is 1/360 degrees of arc. A degree is one those tiny markings – 360 in all - on the semi-circular protractor you carried to geometry class in your short-pants days. Eddington confirmed that starlight had bent. (Yarn: When the cable from Eddington arrived confirming the finding, Einstein is said to have remarked "I would have been sorry for the Lord if it had been otherwise". En passant, Eddington was not a Lord, only a Sir). There were serious allegations of bias and measurement inaccuracy over the next decade.

Bias because Eddington was a pacifist and a great personal admirer of Einstein; error because compared with later day measurements his instruments and methods were crude. But all’s well that ends well; thousands of experiments over time have confirmed that the general relativity is spot on.

While I am about it I may as well let you in on another secret. Eddington got into a spat with Subramanyam Chandrasekhar who was then a Cambridge student. The latter predicted black-holes (long before Stephen Hawking) purely mathematically from general relativity but Eddington refused to accept purely mathematical "proofs". This despite Eddington being the first ever Cambridge second year student to be made Senior Wrangler. Eventually, cosmology proved Chandrasekhar right and Eddington wrong. One more story which witnesses swear is true: After a Royal Society talk a member of the audience approached Eddington and referred to him as one of only three men who understood general relativity. Eddington paused for a moment. When pressed he mused "Oh, I was wondering who the third might be!" Science joke, not funny, ok sorry.

Moral relativism

The question of moral relativism has come up quite forcefully recently both in Lanka and internationally. I have been grumbling bitterly during the last six months that Sirisena and Ranil are impotent to take firm and decisive action against political racists, religious bigots in the Sangha and internal forces in the government obstructing legal action against Rajapaksa era rogues. The two of them have also not shown any spunk in bringing saboteurs like the GMOA and student hooligans to book. Perhaps the ejection of Wijeyadasa Rajapaksh e will improve things – fingers crossed!

Recent research has shown that male sperm count is falling all over the world and as a result political leaders are on the run. President Trump is one of the worst since the consequences for the world far outweigh Ranil and Sirisena. He swings spiritedly hither and thither, encourages white supremacists and neo-Nazis, threatens global war and attempts to scuttle health care for the poor. As a result his business councils abandon him in embarrassment, people in his party distance themselves and even a Christian leader resigns from Trump’s council of religious advisors. The last straw must have been when four out of five Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US military issued a statement, not naming the President but reiterating a commitment that eschews all forms of racism and discrimination in the service. This was as close as the American military has come to mutiny since the Civil War. The President is trapped in a moral dilemma, while neo-populism as an answer to the ills of capitalism is failing and his personal idiosyncrasies becomes unbearable. He is all over the place; at one moment inciting neo-Nazis and the Klu Klux Klan, at another condemning white supremacists. On Tuesday he beat a retreat to Phoenix, Arizona to rally the remnants of his troops. A low sperm count evokes extraordinary results!

The warped logic of pro-Israel bully Jonathan Hoffman

David Cronin-25 August 2017

Should I feel flattered or afraid?

Each time I give a talk in London, there is a strong likelihood that the pro-Israel bully Jonathan Hoffman will attend.

Hoffman turned up at a recent event held to promote my new book Balfour’s Shadow.

Not content with heckling on the evening, he subsequently posted a review on the Amazon website accusing me of “glaring mistakes.”

Yet he failed to provide an example of even a minor error in the book.

Earlier this year, Hoffman was removed by police from a meeting at which I spoke in the British Parliament.

He followed that episode by complaining that I have written for Spinwatch – “that strange organization which seems obsessed with ‘Jewish power.’”

Hoffman failed to substantiate that smear for obvious reasons: there is no basis to it. Spinwatch has cogently rejected the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that Hoffman suggests it is peddling.

Brazenly offensive

Perversely, Hoffman has leapt to the defense of a journalist who made brazenly offensive comments about Jews.

Kevin Myers was recently fired by The Sunday Times over a column which implied there was a link between the Jewish religion of two presenters at the BBC and how they were among the best paid women working for the broadcaster.

Myers had recycled an age-old anti-Semitic trope. Yet Hoffman argued that Myers was really paying Jews a compliment.

A careful reading of Hoffman’s articles leads to the conclusion that he is not interested in fighting anti-Semitism per se. Instead, he sees allegations of anti-Semitism as a weapon to be used selectively. Myers – a right-wing pundit who has previously disparaged Africans and single mothers – is permitted to insult Jews for being Jews.

Hoffman’s indulgence of such anti-Jewish bigotry is undoubtedly related to Myers’ history of defending Israel and attacking supporters of Palestinian rights.

Critics of Israel are, by contrast, vilified by Hoffman.

He has, for example, alleged that Jackie Walker, a socialist Jew, is anti-Semitic because she has described Israel as a racist state.

No doubt inadvertently, Hoffman then proved her right by alluding to how Israel prohibits Palestinians from using what are effectively Jewish-only roads in the occupied West Bank.

By his own warped logic, he himself is an anti-Semite for acknowledging the existence of that state-sponsored racism.

Vitriolic

Hoffman has been even more vitriolic towards Hajo Meyer, an Auschwitz survivor who died three years ago.

Meyer poignantly spoke out against how Israel was dehumanizing the Palestinians as the Nazis tried to dehumanize Jews.

For drawing a parallel between his own suffering and that of the Palestinians, Meyer got labeled an “amazing dancing bear” by Hoffman.

It was by no means the only time Hoffman has displayed callousness. In March, he made fun of how a politician known to be sympathetic towards Palestinians suffered a heart attack.

And Hoffman has previously insinuated that a campaigner who uses a wheelchair had exaggerated his disability.

Hoffman’s penchant for disrupting Palestine solidarity events appears to be appreciated by the pro-Israel lobby. The Reut Institute, a “think tank” founded by a former adviser to the Israeli government, is known to have consulted him.

In 2011, Hoffman took part in a conference organized with that institute on countering Israel’s “delegitimization” – code for robust criticism of Israel and the state’s ideology Zionism.

That event took place more than a year after Hoffman had been photographed attending a demonstration to support Israel’s settlement activities in the West Bank organized by the far-right English Defence League.

He was again seen flanked by extreme right activists at an anti-Palestinian protest last month.

His willingness to embrace overt fascists may have lost Hoffman some friends. In 2012, he failed to secure re-election as a vice-president with the Zionist Federation, one of the oldest pro-Israel lobby groups in London.

That does not mean he has been shunned by fellow lobbyists. On the contrary, some of those who seek to cultivate a respectable image for Israel have remained happy to work with him.

Ahead of the 2016 referendum on Britain’s European Union membership he signed a joint article with Jeremy Newmark from the Jewish Labour Movement, a pro-Israel pressure group within Britain’s main opposition party.

Perhaps I should consider myself lucky. Though Hoffman has been rude towards me, I have not been subjected to his full boorishness.

During a presentation by Thomas Suárez, whose book State of Terror chronicles the role played by Zionist armed groups in the establishment of Israel, Hoffman shouted “answer my question, you bastards.”

Hoffman also tried to dismiss the book’s findings on the comically absurd basis that Suárez is a violinist, rather than a historian (in fact, Suárez is both).

Hoffman is undoubtedly a bully but nobody should allow themselves to be intimidated by him or by similar lobbyists. Their belligerence illustrates that Israel feels discomfited by Palestine solidarity activists.

They don’t like the message, so they slander the messengers.

Lebanon army declares pause in offensive against IS on Syria border

Ceasefire called to help facilitate negotiations for release of troops captured during IS raid on Arsal in 2014

Lebanese army say missing troops its "top concern" in its offensive against IS (AFP)

AFP-Sunday 27 August 2017 

The Lebanese Army has announced a pause in fighting with Islamic State militants to help facilitate hostage negotiations for security personnel IS took prisoner in 2014. 

The armed forces launched their campaign against IS militants entrenched in the mountainous Jurud Ras Baalbek and Jurud al-Qaa areas on Lebanon's eastern border in mid-August.

"The army command announces a ceasefire beginning at 7:00 am (0400 GMT) to make way for the last phase of negotiations linked to the fate of the kidnapped soldiers," the army said in a statement on Sunday.

Nine prisoners are believed still to be held by IS after militants overran the Lebanese border town of Arsal in August 2014 and kidnapped 30 soldiers and police.

Four were killed by their captors and a fifth died of his wounds, while 16 were released in a prisoner swap in December 2015.

The army has said the remaining missing personnel were its "top concern" in its offensive against an estimated 600 IS fighters in the rugged border region.

"There has been no timeframe set" for the truce, an army source told AFP.

"The negotiations are ongoing for IS to withdraw and provide information on the fate of the troops," the source said.

Six Lebanese army soldiers have been killed since 19 August.

Fraught negotiations

Lebanese militant group Hezbollah launched its own simultaneous attack against IS from the Syrian side of the border in an area known as west Qalamun.

Hezbollah's War Media channel also announced a freeze in fighting on Sunday.

It said the unilateral pause was "in the framework of a comprehensive agreement to end the battle in west Qalamun against Daesh [IS]".

Lebanon's army insisted it was not coordinating its assault with Hezbollah.

The IS and the then al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front militants who attacked Arsal in 2014 withdrew soon afterwards under a truce deal, but took the 30 hostages from Lebanon's security forces with them.

Al-Nusra and IS each executed two of their hostages, and a fifth died of wounds sustained during the fighting in Arsal.

After months of negotiations, al-Nusra handed over 16 of the soldiers and police in December 2015 in exchange for the release of prisoners from Lebanese jails and delivery of aid.

The head of Lebanon's General Security body, Major General Abbas Ibrahim, oversaw the release efforts in 2015. He is also expected to be behind negotiation efforts for the nine soldiers still in IS hands.

The army's operation comes after Hezbollah carried out its own six-day campaign in July further south on the border area against al-Nusra, now known as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham after breaking off ties with IS last year. 

That offensive ended with a ceasefire under which 8,000 refugees and IS militants were transported to northwestern Syria in return for the release of five captured Hezbollah fighters.

Gunfire heard near Bangladesh border as thousands flee Myanmar violence

Ruma Paul-AUGUST 27, 2017

The death toll from the violence that erupted on Friday with coordinated attacks by Rohingya insurgents has climbed to 104, the vast majority militants, plus 12 members of security forces and several civilians, according to a Reuters tally based on official releases.

The government said it was investigating whether members of international aid groups had been involved in an alleged siege by the insurgents of a village in Rakhine.

The United Nations had pulled out non-essential staff from the area, said a spokesman, while Pope Francis expressed his solidarity with the Muslim minority in his weekly address in Rome.

Bracing for more violence, thousands of Rohingya - mostly women and children - attempted to forge the Naf river separating Myanmar and Bangladesh and the land border. Reuters reporters at the border heard gunfire from the Myanmar side, which triggered a rush of Rohingya towards the no man’s land between the countries.

“Please save us,” 61-year-old Amir Hossain told Reuters near the Bangladeshi village of Gumdhum. “We want to stay here or else we’ll get killed.”

Around 2,000 people have been able to cross into Bangladesh since Friday, according to estimates by Rohingya refugees living in the makeshift camps in Bangladesh.

The violence marks a dramatic escalation of a conflict that has simmered in the region since last October, when a similar but much smaller Rohingya attack prompted a brutal military operation dogged by allegations of serious human rights abuses.

The treatment of approximately 1.1 million Muslim Rohingya in mainly Buddhist Myanmar has emerged as the biggest challenge for national leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Suu Kyi has condemned the raids in which insurgents wielding guns, sticks and homemade bombs assaulted 30 police stations and an army base.

Win Myat Aye, Myanmar’s minister for social welfare, relief and resettlement, told Reuters late on Saturday that 4,000 “ethnic villagers” who had fled their villages had been evacuated, referring to non-Muslim residents of the area.

ONGOING CLASHES

The military, known as the Tatmadaw, reported several clashes involving hundreds of Rohingya insurgents across northern Rakhine state on Sunday.

“The Tatmadaw column going to Nanthataung Village for operation also confronted about 800 Bengali terrorists at 9 am today. They are still fighting there,” the army said in a statement.

The term “Bengali” is seen as derogatory by many Rohingya as it implies they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, although many can trace family in Myanmar for generations.

The government said it was investigating whether international non-government organisation staff were involved when militants surrounded and blockaded a village in August.

A member of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) tells a Rohingya girl not to come on Bangladesh side, in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, August 27, 2017.

A local reporter in the town of Buthidaung told Reuters he had seen nearly 100 staff of international aid agencies leave the town in speedboats following that statement.

The government also re-posted photographs of energy biscuits with the logo of the World Food Programme (WFP) on it which it said had been found at a “terrorist camp” in August.

The WFP said it took “any allegation of food diversions very seriously,” adding it had requested details on the biscuits from the authorities, but had not heard back.

“In light of the situation on the ground, the U.N. in Myanmar has decided to temporarily relocate non-critical staff out of Maungdaw,” the U.N. said referring to another major town in northern Rakhine, without giving more detail.

In a statement that risked complicating his visit to Myanmar planned for later this year, Pope Francis expressed his solidarity with the Rohingya.

“We all ask our Lord to come to their rescue and to prompt men of good will to come to their aid so they have full rights. Let us also pray for our Rohingya brothers,” he said.

NO MAN'S LAND

The Rohingya have for years endured apartheid-like conditions in northwestern Myanmar - they are denied citizenship and face severe restrictions on their movements. Many Myanmar Buddhists regard them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

The Myanmar government called on Rohingya civilians to cooperate with the security forces and said those not related to the insurgents would not be affected.

It has declared the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), which instigated the October attacks and claimed responsibility for the latest offensive, a terrorist organisation in the wake of the attacks.

On Sunday, it also indicated it may take action against media calling the group "insurgents" and not "terrorists" as per the government's designation.

At the no man's land near Gumdhum, dozens of Rohingya women, most wearing burqa, sat cramped under a few black plastic sheets shielding them from the harsh sun.

A number of Rohingya men ran to the unoccupied area between the two countries after several gun shots rang out on the Myanmar side.

Bangladesh border guard officials said they were providing food and water to the Rohingya, but that no one would be let in.

Rohingya have been fleeing Myanmar to Bangladesh since the early 1990s and there are now around 400,000 in the country, where they are a source of tension between the two nations who both regard them as the other country's citizens.

Selective religious freedom is not religious freedom at all

A Malaysian Muslim man walks towards a mosque for noon prayers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Source: AP

By Emma Richards | 25th August 2017

MALAYSIA is in the spotlight again as religious intolerance is on the rise and religious minorities are under increasing scrutiny from both government officials and members of the public, according to a report from The Diplomat.

A recent gathering of the “Atheist Republic” group, and the political fallout and public outcry that followed, are held up as a prime example of this.

An innocent photo depicting a group of mostly young men and women, casually dressed, raising cups or peace signs and smiling for the camera, prompted a violent backlash from netizens, some of whom called for the deaths of the participants or demanded they be thrown out of the country.

Ali A. Rizvi‏Verified account @aliamjadrizvi

READ: Malaysian Muslims openly talk about killing fellow Malaysian atheists—whom their government just announced it is actively targeting:

 

3:00 PM - 6 Aug 2017

Accompanying the photo was the caption, “Atheists from all walks of life came to meet one another, some for the very first time … each sharing their stories and forming new friendships that hopefully last a lifetime! We rock!”

Shortly after, Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki asked for an investigation to determine if any Muslims were involved in the meeting.

A day later, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Shahidan Kassim, suggested a forced education for the atheists.

He said in a press conference:

“I suggest we hunt them down vehemently and we ask for help to identify these groups.”

This is powerful and divisive rhetoric in a country that enshrines freedom to practice religion in its constitution.

According to The Diplomat, it is rhetoric like this – coming from the highest levels of government and society – that is emboldening the fundamentalist Muslim community, not only against atheists but all religious minorities.

There have been recent examples of this, such as a cross being removed from a church façade, statues being removed from parks, and people getting arrested for conducting prayer.

SEE ALSO: Pew study: Governments around the world are tightening the screws on religious freedom

There seems to be a disconnect between what religious freedom really means and how it’s being carried out. Any bastardised version of religious freedom selective in its approach, is not religious freedom at all.

If it is acceptable to harass and demean people of another faith in your home country, then you condone the rights of others to do the same to those of your faith in other nations. You cannot have it both ways.

Those who call for atheists to be hunted and hanged will no doubt be the same people who are outraged by Trump’s Muslim ban, the treatment of Rohingya Muslims or any instance in which followers of the Islamic faith are not freely able to practice.

As so often seems to be the case in religious stand-offs, there is a feeling of “us” and “them”. As if the people who hold different beliefs are some dangerous “other” to be feared.

 And it is easy to maintain this feeling in your home country when surrounded by people of the same faith. But what if you were to become the “other” as so many Muslims in many parts of the world have been forced to become?

SEE ALSO: Brunei, M’sia, Indonesia rated region’s worst violators of rights, religious freedom

Through malicious policy and provocative rhetoric similar to what we hear today in Malaysia, Muslims are often marginalised in societies across the globe. In trying times such as these, religious freedom should be of the utmost importance.

But it must be understood that religious freedom does not simply apply to your religion.

If you cannot respect the followers of other faiths, how can you expect anyone to respect yours?

** This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not reflect the views of Asian Correspondent

India Under Modi: Lies, Damned lies, statistics…

The problem is, rising above party and partisan politics, viewing matters with circumspection and objectivity, and thinking seriously about changing the condition of the poor, the labourer, the struggling artisan, or the welder and the small shop keeper. We are being heaped with statistics from all sides. What will it help? To write erudite papers?

by Ananya S Guha-Aug 27, 2017

( August 27, 2017, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) The inner paradoxes that are in the body politic of our nation, is all too evident. On the one hand we are again and again reiterating the secular ideals of a nation, and it’s rightful diversity. On the other hand we are trapped in this diversity, by proclaiming again and again that history of the country was distorted and the enormous wrong must be righted. True of course, that the history of the country represented in past was North centred, paying little attention to the Southern, or for that matter, the North Eastern regions of the country.The northern domination came to be represented as a clash between Muslim and Hindu rulers, be they Marathas or Rajputs.

So the paradox of in letter and in spirit, continues to live in a conflict. We mouth the platitude of secularism, but practice the ideology of sectarianism. There are many who are lamenting this, and vocally protesting against it. The time has come to take stock and find out whether things are going from bad to worse, or have matters improved in terms of economy, corruption, and overall functioning of government departments. In between is the great debate raging on nationalism, it’s meaning and the relationship it bears, or does not with the professed secularism. Certain radical changes in terms of cleansing the currency and imposition of the goods and services tax have resulted in both criticism, and appreciation. Three years some say, is enough for a government to make changes. Are these changes visible, or can they take place in such a short space?

Education and health many contend, are the two crucial points for the well being and development of a nation. What has been happening to them, in the past? some query. After all we are seventy years old.

The questions that come to mind, to the apolitical are: what is the condition of poverty, has it decreased? What development has taken place, in rural areas, in terms of housing or, communication? Has the rural urban divide lessened? If we are talking about internet connectivity, what is the state of road connectivity, in intractable areas, say of North East India. True, how are we going to overcome problems in accessibility of education, wipe out teacher absenteeism and look at education for drop outs and street children? Health care suffers a similar fate of apathy and neglect. Anyone having even an iota of love for the country, must look at these matters dispassionately. But what is unfortunately happening is that both rightists or leftists are not rising above petty party politics.And, some of the intellectuals, writers and artists. No one is willing to position, oneself in an objective and unbiased manner. It is either this side or that, mine or yours, thus dividing not only the body politic but intellectual opinion in the country. If you constantly point fingers at what is not done, why don’t you go and do it yourself, with ‘ like minded’ friends? Taking recourse to the social media, by giving vent to your anger is no concrete fall out.

The positioning is something like this: my way of an essential patriotism is this, yours is different, your nationalism is different from mine, your reading and interpretation of history is wrong, subversive, mine is right etc. So we shout at each other, especially on television platforms. In the midst of it lying totally unnoticed is the poor Indian, who is perhaps not interested in such debates, but is struggling hard, braving adverse and deleterious weather conditions, whether it be the heat, or the floods, to simply eke out the meals of a day. Just above this is the unorganised sector, the petty trader or the shopkeeper. Then we have the middle class, whose grouse is endless, where the rungs of a social and economic ladder have to be climbed, with much bravado.

The problem is, rising above party and partisan politics, viewing matters with circumspection and objectivity, and thinking seriously about changing the condition of the poor, the labourer, the struggling artisan, or the welder and the small shop keeper. We are being heaped with statistics from all sides. What will it help? To write erudite papers? To inundate the statistical bureau with more information, with no action taken? For example we are hearing again and again, that the gross enrolment ratio in education is abysmally low. But what about retention, after this ? Can anyone quote the actual figures?

So the battle of wits, is transformed into the battle of half wits or nit wits. Can anyone tell us whether a study on GST has been done to show who are affected, or who actually benefits? A shop keeper says he has been paying to the company, but the wholesaler in guise of the middleman can be a constant shadow. All these must be clearly specified, in terms of a white paper, or whatever you call it. Intellectuals, economists, must go into a mode of enquiry, dispassionately, forgetting the other, a syndrome haunting the country in all measures. The rancorous arguments continue. The poor man continues to suffer. In this midst we have catapulting figures of growth. Of what, poverty?

” Lies, damned lies, statistics”. The country continues- to suffer and bleed. Damn it, diversity and unity! and let the idiot box continue to spawn more idiots.

The State Department's Top U.N. Expert Steps Down On Eve of Trump's Turtle Bay Debut

 

Top State Department Officials Step Down in “Black Friday” Exodus

BY COLUM LYNCH-AUGUST 27, 2017

The top State Department envoy responsible for overseeing U.S. policy at the United Nations and other international organizations stepped down from her post Friday, continuing an exodus that is thinning the ranks of America’s most experienced career diplomats, according to a U.S. official.
Tracey Ann Jacobson, 52, a career foreign service officer who served as acting director of the Bureau for International Organization Affairs, announced her plans to take early retirement to her staff on Friday, just three weeks before President Donald Trump is scheduled to deliver his maiden address before world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly’s annual debate. Jacobson — the recipient of several diplomatic honors, including the Presidential Meritorious Service Award — is expected to continue in her post until early October.

Jacobson’s announcement came on the same day that William Rivington Brownfield, who has been serving as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs since January 10, 2011, told his department that he would also step down by the end of September. It comes about four months after his wife, Kristie Kenney, on of the most senior foreign service officers in the State Department, announced her resignation.

It remained unlikely that Brownfield, a career foreign service officer who has served as George W. Bush’s ambassador to Colombia, Venezuela — where he was repeatedly threatened with expulsion by the country’s late president, Hugo Chavez — and Chile, would be taking on any other top posts in the administration, said one senior official. Foreign Policy reported earlier this month that Tillerson was considering making Brownfield the administration’s top envoy for Latin America. Brownfield — a recipient of the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award and the Presidential Performance Award three times — did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for the State Department’s drug and law enforcement bureau insisted that Brownfield has “made no announcement that he is retiring.” But the official would not say whether Brownfield was intended to step down or not.

Early last week, FP reported that the State Department’s top official for European affairs, John Heffern, was driven from his job. Together, the departures add to concerns of a growing wave of resignations by foreign policy professionals who are either being pushed out or resigning over frustration with an administration that has downgraded the importance of Washington’s diplomatic corps. Former and current officials said Jacobson and Brownfield, who at 65 has reached retirement age but is not required to step down, have left of their own volition. But on former U.S. official said that Jacobson in particular “would not have left if the situation was different.”

“Dissatisfaction is a big factor” for a surge in early retirements, said one State Department official who has decided to take early retirement. “Certainly a big one for me.”


Jacobson confirmed that she was seeking early retirement, ending a 30-year career during which she served presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama as U.S. ambassador to Kosovo, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. She did not say why she had decided to leave.

The State Department did not respond to a request for comment on Jacobson’s departure.

She was appointed to the top post in the bureau that oversees multilateral affairs on Jan. 20, the same day President Donald Trump took office on an “America First” platform that questioned the need for deep engagement with international organizations from NATO to the United Nations. She succeeded Bathsheba Crocker, an Obama administration political appointee, who had previously held the position.

President Trump is expected to deliver his first U.N. address in the General Assembly hall, and he is likely to preside over a side meeting on reform of the international organization.

Plans to have the president participate in a high-level meeting on famine hosted by U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres have already been shelved. Instead, an official representing the U.S. Agency for International Development will attend.

The move reinforces the impression among foreign delegations that the Trump administration sees little value in the U.N. or the virtue of a robust American diplomatic corps.

The White House has been seeking to impose cuts of as much as 37 percent to the State Department budget. The administration is targeting even higher cuts for the U.N. Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., has boasted that she has secured more than $600 million in cuts to peacekeeping missions.

Photo credit: DOMINICK REUTER/AFP/Getty Images

Trump asked Sessions about closing case against Arpaio, an ally since ‘birtherism’

 President Trump pardoned former Maricopa County, Ariz., sheriff Joe Arpaio Aug. 25. Here’s what you need to know. (Patrick Martin, Victoria Walker/The Washington Post)

By Philip Rucker and Ellen Nakashima August 26 at 6:45 PM

As Joseph Arpaio’s federal case headed toward trial this past spring, President Trump wanted to act to help the former Arizona county sheriff who had become a campaign-trail companion and a partner in their crusade against illegal immigration.

The president asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions whether it would be possible for the government to drop the criminal case against Arpaio, but was advised that would be inappropriate, according to three people with knowledge of the conversation.

After talking with Sessions, Trump decided to let the case go to trial, and if Arpaio was convicted, he could grant clemency.


Maricopa County Sheriff Joseph Arpaio gestures to the crowd while delivering a speech at the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016, in Cleveland. (John Moore)

So the president waited, all the while planning to issue a pardon if Arpaio was found in contempt of court for defying a federal judge’s order to stop detaining people merely because he suspected them of being undocumented immigrants. Trump was, in the words of one associate, “gung-ho about it.”
“We knew the president wanted to do this for some time now and had worked to prepare for whenever the moment may come,” said one White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the action.

President Trump pardoned former Maricopa County, Ariz., sheriff Joe Arpaio Aug. 25. Here’s what you need to know. (Patrick Martin, Victoria Walker/The Washington Post)

Responding to questions about Trump’s conversation with Sessions, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “It’s only natural the president would have a discussion with administration lawyers about legal matters. This case would be no different.”

The Justice Department declined to comment.

Trump’s Friday-evening decision to issue his first pardon for Arpaio was the culmination of a five-year political friendship with roots in the “birther” movement to undermine President Barack Obama. In an extraordinary exercise of presidential power, Trump bypassed the traditional review process to ensure that Arpaio, who was convicted of contempt of court, would face no time in prison.

[Read Trump’s pardon of former Arizona county sheriff Arpaio]

Trump’s pardon, issued without consulting the Justice Department, raised a storm of protest over the weekend, including from some fellow Republicans, and threatens to become a stain on the president’s legacy. His effort to see if the case could be dropped showed a troubling disregard for the traditional wall between the White House and the Justice Department, and taken together with similar actions could undermine respect for the rule of law, experts said.

Arpaio faced up to six months in prison and was due to be sentenced in October. During his 23 years as Maricopa County sheriff, Arpaio was a lightning rod, in part because of his aggressive crackdown on illegal immigrants. He also was accused of racial profiling, failure to investigate sex crimes, poor treatment of prisoners and other instances of police misconduct.

To Trump, however, Arpaio is an American hero — a man who enlisted in the military at 18 after the outbreak of the Korean War, worked as a beat cop in Washington and Las Vegas and as a special agent investigating drug crimes around the world, then was elected sheriff in the epicenter of the nation’s roiling immigration debate.

Joe Arpaio's illegal-immigration crackdown made him a polarizing figure and an early ally of President Trump. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)

Joe Arpaio's illegal-immigration crackdown made him a polarizing figure and an early ally of President Trump. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)

Arpaio’s age weighed on Trump, some of his confidants said. The 71-year-old president could not stomach seeing an 85-year-old he admired as a law-and-order icon wasting away in a jail cell.

Trump’s spring inquiry about intervening in Arpaio’s case is consistent with his alleged attempts to influence the federal investigation of Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser. Trump also made separate appeals in March to Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats and National Security Agency Director Michael S. Rogers to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.

[Trump pardons former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio]

Trump’s pardon of Arpaio “was his backhand way of doing what he wanted to do at the front end,” said Robert Bauer, a former White House counsel in the Obama administration. “He just wanted to kill the prosecution off. He couldn’t do it the one way, so he ended up doing it the other way. This is just another vivid demonstration of how far removed from an appropriate exercise of the pardon power this was.”

Presidents can set law enforcement priorities, but they are expected to steer clear of involvement in specific cases to avoid the perception of politicizing the impartial administration of justice.

Trump backed off the Arpaio case after being advised it would be inappropriate, but that he even tried is “beyond the pale,” said Chiraag Bains, a former senior counsel in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

Bains said he believes Trump “has a sense that the chief executive controls everything in the executive branch, including the exercise of criminal power. And that is just not the way the system is set up.”​

Trump and Arpaio became brothers in arms five years ago. As they saw it, the two provocateurs — one a celebrity real estate developer, the other a polarizing sheriff — were pursuing justice in the form of supposed evidence that Obama’s birth certificate was fraudulent.

As caretakers of the false “birther” conspiracy, Trump and Arpaio relentlessly probed Obama’s birth in Hawaii and nurtured a lie to damage the legitimacy of the nation’s first African American president.

“There was no collusion,” Arpaio said in an interview Saturday. “I started my birth certificate investigation around the same time he did his.”

[Trump admits Obama was born in U.S. but falsely blames Clinton for rumors]

The Manhattan mogul sent Arpaio a fan letter and flattered him on social media. “Congratulations to @RealSheriffJoe on his successful Cold Case Posse investigation which claims @BarackObama’s ‘birth certificate’ is fake,” Trump tweeted in 2012.

Three years later, in July 2015, when Trump swooped into Arpaio’s hometown of Phoenix for the first mega-rally of his upstart presidential campaign, the sheriff returned the favor by testifying on stage to “the silent majority” that Trump had begun to awaken.

Backstage at that rally, Arpaio recalled, the two men talked about their shared birthday — June 14, which is Flag Day. Their friendship blossomed and Arpaio became a fan favorite at Trump rallies. “I had a gut feeling that he was going to win,” Arpaio said.

Even as Trump went on to win last November, however, Arpaio lost his reelection — and that was the least of his troubles.

Federal prosecutors filed criminal charges against Arpaio last October. Trump was paying attention to the case and he called Arpaio to check in on him around Thanksgiving, according to the former sheriff. That’s when Arpaio told the president-elect that his wife, Ava, had cancer.

On July 31, Arpaio was convicted by a judge, as opposed to a jury. Arpaio and his lawyer, Mark Goldman, said they did not contact Trump during this period, nor ask anyone in the administration for a pardon.

“I didn’t ask for the pardon,” Arpaio said. “He wanted to do it because I think he understood what I was going through.”

Inside the West Wing, the pardon process was set in motion. Senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, who had gotten to know Arpaio through their work on immigration policy during the campaign, advocated internally for the pardon, as did chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, according to people familiar with the deliberations.

The White House Counsel’s Office had quietly begun preparing the paperwork and communications staffers had started drawing up talking points when Trump foreshadowed his intentions Aug. 15 by retweeting a Fox News storyreporting that the president was “seriously considering” pardoning Arpaio.

Around the same time, Arpaio received a call from the White House Counsel’s Office asking whether he would accept a pardon if one were issued. He told the presidential lawyer that he would, according to Goldman.

[As Trump ranted and rambled in Phoenix, his crowd slowly thinned]

The drumbeat culminated Tuesday when Trump returned to the Phoenix Convention Center — the site of the July 2015 rally — for a “Make America Great Again” campaign event.

As Air Force One rumbled toward Arizona, Sanders tried to douse speculation by telling reporters that the president would have “no discussion” and “no action” pertaining to Arpaio at the rally.

Arpaio said he was eager to attend the rally and visit with the president backstage, but decided, “I didn’t want to cause any harm or riots, so I stayed away, which really hurt me.”

When Arpaio heard Sanders say Trump would not talk about a pardon, he said he turned to his wife and told her, “Don’t believe anything you hear because I know how he is.”

Sure enough, Trump bellowed from the stage, “I’m just curious: Do the people in this room like Sheriff Joe?”

The crowd burst into applause.

“Was Sheriff Joe convicted for doing his job?” Trump asked.

More applause.

“He should have had a jury, but you know what? I’ll make a prediction,” the president said. “I won’t do it tonight, because I don’t want to cause any controversy. . . But Sheriff Joe can feel good.”
Arpaio and his legal team did not feel very good the next night, when they read a CBS News report that Trump was being advised not to pardon Arpaio until after his sentencing.

Goldman wrote a two-page letter to White House Counsel Donald F. McGahn II, sent on Friday morning, saying, “Hopefully this is more fake news,” and telling McGahn that a delay until after sentencing “would place Sheriff Arpaio in an untenable and unprecedented position.”

[Read a letter from Arpaio’s lawyer to White House Counsel McGahn]

Without a pardon, Goldman said, Arpaio could be “sentenced, handcuffed, given a ‘perp walk’ and incarcerated” and “left to languish in federal custody.”

McGahn did not immediately reply, but a few hours later, at about 6:30 p.m. D.C. time, another lawyer in his office called Goldman’s co-counsel to double-check that Arpaio would accept a pardon. A few minutes later, an email arrived from the White House with a single page attachment: an “Executive Grant of Clemency” for Arpaio signed by Trump in his thick, black script, complete with a golden Justice Department seal.

Goldman printed out three copies of the document and drove out to Arpaio’s home in Fountain Hills, a suburb of Phoenix, where the former sheriff was getting ready to take his wife to dinner at Arrivederci, an Italian restaurant, to celebrate Ava’s 86th birthday.

“Of course, his first question was, ‘Is this a fake document?’ ” Goldman recalled. “We know the sheriff has looked into fake documents.”

The Arpaios still went out for their spaghetti dinner. As of Saturday, Arpaio had not heard from Trump personally, but said if the president were to call he would advise him to take a lesson from his Arizona adventures.

“If they can do it to me, they can do it to anybody, including the president of the United States,” Arpaio said. Alluding to the Russia probe, he said, “He’s been under a lot of fire right now, him and his family, and I’ve been through the fire quite a while.”