Category: Uncategorized

Shahrukh Khan in My Name is Khan: First Look

MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan was detained at Newark airport in New Jersey and questioned for over two hours after his surname came up on an airport alert list on Saturday. The actor was on his way to Chicago to attend an Independence Day event and, ironically, was in the US to promote his new film, My Name is Khan. SRK was interrogated by airport officials. He was released only after Indian diplomats intervened.

Earlier on Saturday, SRK’s manager, Niloufer Qureshi, had said, “He was detained over an issue with his surname being Khan. We are waiting for Mr Khan to officially talk to us. They did not let him go until officials from the Indian embassy intervened.” Moments later, SRK made a statement through his manager: “I was really hassled by the authorities at the airport because of my surname. They wanted to know why I came to the US and where I was staying. They even asked me if I knew anyone in the US. The authorities said that I have a common name which caused the delay, before thoroughly checking my bags. They finally allowed me to make a call, which I did, and the Indian consulate helped me out. I think the entire process was absolutely uncalled for. I felt really angry and humiliated.”

India took up the issue of SRK’s detention at Newark airport with the US embassy here. “The matter was taken up with the US embassy,” ministry of external affairs spokesman Vishnu Prakash said soon after reports of the actor’s detention reached here. Mr Prakash also said the consul-general of India in New York was in touch with the actor.

“We are trying to ascertain the facts of the case — to understand what took place,” US ambassador to India Timothy J. Roemer said in a statement. “Shah Rukh Khan, the actor and global icon, is a very welcome guest in the United States. Many Americans love his films,” the envoy added.

Later on Saturday SRK appeared to shrug off the episode, saying he had suffered similar treatment previously. He, however, admitted growing “greatly worried” as American officials asked him several questions, mainly about his travel to the US. “They checked me because I was an Asian. They wanted to know why I came to the US and where I am staying. I personally feel it is over and done with,” he added, sounding conciliatory.

A large number of Indians, including the organisers of the Chicago event, were waiting outside the airport to receive him. Indian diplomats came to his rescue when they heard about his plight. The Indian government and the entertainment industry have reacted angrily.

Asked if he got into trouble because of his Muslim name, SRK, who is married to a Hindu, said, “Certain countries have issues with my name” before quickly adding, “I am very proud of my name.” Asked if he felt like reacting in a similar way, he replied, “If they want I can frisk Angelina Jolie when she is here (India).”

The 43-year-old actor was recently named one of the world’s 50 most powerful men by Newsweek.

In April, Malayalam actor Mammootty was similarly separated for questioning by security officials at JFK Airport in New York for more than two hours after his name popped up on the computer screen at the immigration counter. Mammootty (56), whose full name is Muhammadkutty Ismail Paniparambil, arrived at the airport by a British Airways flight and was taken to a separate room for interrogation on his purpose of visit to the US and other details. He was allowed to leave the airport after the Indian consulate contacted authorities and explained he is a popular actor in South India and has visited the US many times in the past.

South Asian Media for more

by Media Matters staff

From the July 27 edition of Fox News’ The Live Desk (hat tip to Twitter user StefanoScalia):

Some site comments to the above:

• They seriously have Iraq labeled Egypt? Wow…just…wow.
• Now that’s what I call liberating a country. It’s not even there any more.
• See, this is what I like about Fox. They let you decide where Egypt is instead of having some fancy pants elitist tell ya!
• That’s right. Fox viewers don’t need a map or God forbid a book to tell them where Egypt is. If their guts tell them it’s between Syria and Iran who are you to tell them that it’s not.
• The word “whuts” was quite obviously intentionally misspelled. The best educational system in the world can’t compensate for stupid.
• At least they didn’t label any of those counties with “(D)”. Congrats

Media Matters for more

(Submitted by Reader)

Op-Ed Columnist

By MAUREEN DOWD WASHINGTON

I’m not sure the man who popped off and tweeted that Sonia Sotomayor was a “Latina woman racist” is the best Henry Higgins for the Eliza Doolittle of Alaska.

But Newt Gingrich was a professor. And he does know something about pulling yourself up by dragging down others and imploding when you take center stage — both Palin specialties.

Besides, he agrees with Sarah — who fretted that her parents and son Trig might be in danger from Obama “death panels” — that we should be very wary about trusting government with end-of-life decisions.

So Newt took it upon himself to become Palin’s Pygmalion. He told Politico that the out-of-work pol should write a book; take a commentator gig on TV; get a condo in D.C. or New York to use as an East Coast base; and prepare three types of speeches — one “to make money,” another to “project her brand” before universities and interest groups, and a vivid campaign stump speech to use for Republican candidates in 2010.

Most important, he advised, the dizzy Palin has to be “clear in her own head what she wants to do.”

At the moment, what she wants to do is tap into her visceral talent for aerial-shooting her favorite human prey: cerebral Ivy League Democrats.

Just as she was able to stir up the mob against Barack Obama on the trail, now she is fanning the flames against another Harvard smarty-pants — Dr. Zeke Emanuel, a White House health care adviser and the older brother of Rahmbo.

NY Times for more

By Sam Strangeways in Bermuda (Reuters )

FOUR Guantanamo prisoners who were released to Bermuda in June have been given jobs tending a public golf course on the tiny Atlantic island.

FOUR Guantanamo prisoners who were released to Bermuda in June have been given jobs tending a public golf course on the tiny Atlantic island.

The four members of China’s Muslim Uighur minority began working last week to help prepare the lush, seaside Port Royal course to host the PGA Grand Slam of Golf in October.

The hiring raised eyebrows in the British territory, where employers can only take on foreigners if no qualified local wants the job. Wendall Brown, chairman of the board of trustees for Bermuda’s public golf courses, said the men replaced a group of Filipino workers who left at short notice.

“They have been offered a temporary position at Port Royal until the Grand Slam,” he said.

Daily Telegraph for more

KATHMANDU (Reuters) – About 200 women marched through the Nepali capital Monday to denounce a government scheme to pay cash incentives to men for marrying widows, witnesses said.

Nepal’s center-left coalition announced a plan last month to pay men the equivalent of $650 for marrying widows, angering the widows.

Monday, women shouting slogans such as “You can’t sell your mother,” and “We don’t want government dowries,” marched toward a government complex that houses the prime minister’s office.

They were stopped by riot police, but there were no arrests or violence.

Durga Neupane, an organizer and a widow, said activists would mobilize widows throughout the Himalayan nation if the government failed to scrap the decision by Friday.

“If that is not done we’ll gather widows from across the country and organize more protests,” she said.

The government says the scheme seeks to help widows who face social and cultural barriers in a majority-Hindu society.

But Neupane said it would only add to their woes as men would marry widows for money and later abandon them. Widows, she said, should instead be given jobs, better health care and education.

(Reporting by Gopal Sharma; Editing by Bappa Majumdar and Ron Popeski)

Reuters for more

A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that the direct medical costs of obesity total about $147 billion a year. That amounts to nine percent of all US medical costs. It’s also over $50 billion more than the annual spending on cancer. In the midst of this national focus on obesity, today we’ll speak to David Kessler, who has spent the last seven years trying to understand how the food industry has changed American eating habits, made certain foods difficult to resist, and helped create the country’s number one public health issue. [includes rush transcript]

Democracy Now for more

Washington, Aug 2 (ANI): Knocking on wood or patting yourself on the head, while taking a daily dose of medicine could prove to be an effective way of helping older adults remember whether they’ve already taken their daily medications, suggests a new study.

“In extended medication-taking situations, the habitual nature of the task may make it difficult for older adults to remember whether or not they took the medication on a particular day, especially if pill boxes are not used,” explains Mark McDaniel, Ph.D., lead author of the study and a professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University.

“To remedy this potential problem, older adults could be instructed to take their medication while placing one hand on their head or in some other unusual or silly way, like crossing their arms,” he suggests.
“Our results indicate that older adults can use these sorts of more complex motor tasks to effectively reduce repetition errors in habitual prospective memory tasks, such as taking a daily medication,” he added.

The study has been published in a recent issue of the journal Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition. (ANI)

ANI for more

Sub continent Independence Day Edition

By B. R. Gowani

Beast of Burden: photo: Zakir Gowani

The Beneficiaries of Independence

An observation of countries freed from the white colonial rule, reveals that the dreams of the majority in realizing the fruits of freedom have frequently remained just dreams.

In the post-freedom period, often the nationalist leaders fighting for sovereignty from the colonial shackles have been trained by, or have remained in close proximity to, the same white masters from whom they sought to be liberated.

A few leaders did genuinely try to carve a post-independence path that would allow them to follow an economic system that would not put them under the dictates of their former colonial masters. However, their plans were frustrated by those masters who now re-colonized their countries economically through the financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund they created after the Second World War. These institutions would hold back the funds from the colonially devastated countries that refused to fall into the trap of this dependency.

Another observation: when a country gets freedom from the colonizers, a certain class of citizens benefits both in good and bad times. This phenomenon has been observed in the colonizing countries too. The Great Depression of 1929 saw most people in the US being pushed into misery. However, the rich continued to have their parties and lived the same luxurious life they enjoyed before the onset of the Depression.

The beneficiaries could be a priestly class, such as the Brahmins in India or the dominant ethnic group(s) which may not always be a numeric majority. This was true in the pre-1971 Pakistan which comprised of a Bengali majority (54%) but where the major power holders were Punjabis who comprised of only about 27% of the population.

A unique case being South Africa where not only did the white minority become the new colonizers under the facade of Independence, but they passed an official policy of apartheid through which they minimized contact with the colored majority.

This scenario was repeated in many Latin American countries when the fair skinned Caucasian-looking Hispanics became the new masters; including in Guatemala, where darker skinned native Indians make up 60% of the population. Of course, these dictators were taking orders from their former colonizers and the new master: the US.

Pakistan and India: Different paths

Pakistan and India gained independence from the British in 1947 on August 14 and 15, respectively. Initially, the citizens in both countries had high hopes that conditions would be better than under the British Rule. The reality of poverty, bribery, injustice revealed itself blatantly almost immediately turning their dreams into sour reality.

It was apparent not too long after that both countries had chosen different paths of governing.

At the time of independence, only Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, who was an agnostic and a constitutionalist, was influential enough to hold the country together and introduce it to democracy. But within thirteen months he succumbed to illness. Later, the military along with the feudal class and the bureaucrats became major players in Pakistan politics. In India the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s liberal and democratic outlook allowed it to venture on the path of democracy; and the civilian leaders who followed him adhered to this policy.

The other aspects of Democracy

While it is true that India has more freedom of expression than Pakistan, freedom from censorship is but one pillar of true democracy. Freedom from hunger, illiteracy, sickness, homelessness, injustice, violence, police harassment, bribery, etc. are other necessary aspects of democracy.

However, the different systems in both countries should not fool anyone that the majority of Indians are in any better shape than their counterparts in Pakistan. On the United Nations HDI (Human Development Index), India is placed at the 132nd position out of 179 countries — barely above Pakistan’s 139th position.

Pakistan’s future is hard to predict. India, however, is emerging by the grace of United States – as a regional superpower. In an interview to the Tehelka, Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s appreciation of Indian help in ruthlessly crushing the Tamil Tigers lends testimony to this: “I am sensitive to India’s feelings because India is my elder brother.”

However, the grim figures on poverty, economic disparity, health, education, farmer suicides and other unpleasant statistics paint the real picture of the state of affairs in India. The increasing power of communalist elements, the unresolved Kashmir problem, the ongoing conflict in northeast India do not augur well for India’s future.

India has achieved some affluence but it has a long a way to go in alleviating the misery of the majority of the people.

Also, India, like many other countries (US included), has ignored the 1948 UN Charter on Human rights.

In December of 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights comprising of 30 articles. Article 25 states:
• (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
• (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com

By JAYATI GHOSH

A food security law will be meaningful only if it is based on universal food provision and ensures that every citizen’s nutritional needs are met.

M. GOVARTHAN

At an outlet of the public distribution system in Erode, Tamil Nadu. States such as Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have defined BPL in such an inclusive way that the vast majority of the population is included, which makes their food distribution schemes near-universal.

IT is not surprising that questions of food security and the right to food have become such urgent political issues in India today. The rapid growth of aggregate income over the past two decades has not addressed the basic issue of ensuring the food security of the population. Instead, nutrition indicators have stagnated and the per capita calorie consumption has actually declined, suggesting that the problem of hunger may have got worse rather than better.

Consider the evidence on nutritional outcomes from the most recent National Family Health Survey (NFHS), conducted in 2005-06. According to this, 46 per cent of children below three years are underweight; 33 per cent of women and 28 per cent of men have a body mass index (BMI) below normal; 79 per cent of children aged six to 35 months have anaemia, as do 56 per cent of married women aged 15-49 years and 24 per cent of married men in that age group; 58 per cent of pregnant women have anaemia. The national averages mask locational differences: all these indicators are much worse in rural India.

Further, these indicators have scarcely changed, or have changed very little, since the previous NFHS in 1998-99. In terms of calorie consumption, the picture is even worse. According to the National Sample Survey Organisation’s (NSSO) large survey of 2004-05, in the period from 1993-94 to 2004-05, the average daily intake of calories of the rural population dropped by 106 kilocalories (4.9 per cent), that is, from 2,153 kcal to 2,047 kcal, and that of the urban population dropped by 51 kcal (2.5 per cent), that is, from 2,071 to 2,020 kcal. The average daily intake of protein by the Indian population decreased from 60.2 to 57 grams in rural India between 1993-94 and 2004-05 and remained stable at around 57 grams in the urban areas during the same period.

Hunger index

The all-India averages do not capture the wide variation across States and even within States. For example, the India State Hunger Index 2008 (brought out by the International Food Policy Research Institute, or IFPRI) shows very large differences across 17 major States, ranging from 13.6 for Punjab to 30.9 for Madhya Pradesh. If these States could be compared with countries in the Global Hunger Index rankings, Punjab would rank 34th and Madhya Pradesh would rank 82nd. However, few Indian States perform well in relation to the global index. Even the best-performing Indian State, Punjab, lies below 33 other developing countries ranked by the Global Hunger Index. The worst-performing States in India have index scores that would be at the bottom of the global rankings: Bihar and Jharkhand rank lower than Zimbabwe and Haiti, and Madhya Pradesh falls between Ethiopia and Chad.

What is especially significant in the IFPRI index is that the indicators of hunger do not always correspond to poverty ratios. For example, the lower incidence of income poverty in Gujarat and Karnataka is associated with worse performance in terms of hunger – and this is confirmed by the calorie consumption data.

The recent rise in food prices in India is likely to have made matters much worse, and the effects of the global crisis on employment and livelihoods within the country are likely to cause further deterioration of people’s access to food. Clearly, therefore, food security is currently one of the most important policy areas, and demands stressing a rights-based approach to public food strategy have gained ground. This is what underlies the current discussion around the legislation on the right to food, which has been put in the 100-day agenda of the United Progressive Alliance government.
According to its most loose definition, food security prevails when the population does not live in hunger or fear of starvation. But recent definitions have been more stringent. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), food security in a particular society exists “when all people, at all times, have access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”.

Such a definition appears to be simple but is actually quite complex and begs many questions. What is “sufficient”? How is access to be determined and provided? To what extent must food preferences be taken into account? All these questions become even more important when food security is sought to be converted into a justiciable right.

It is evident that genuine food security among a population depends upon a wide range of factors, all or many of which are associated with the need for some public intervention. Ensuring adequate food supplies requires increases in agricultural productivity, possibly changes in cropping patterns, and certainly the sustained viability of cultivation. All these would be necessary at both local and national levels. Food can be accessed by all people only if they have the purchasing power to buy the necessary food, which means that employment, remuneration and livelihood issues are important. Social discrimination and exclusion still play unfortunately large roles in determining both the livelihood of and access to food by different social categories. This factor needs to be reckoned with.

Malnourishment is closely linked to poor sanitation and unhealthy practices. So providing clean drinking water, ensuring access to sanitation facilities and other basic amenities and imparting knowledge about correct or desirable eating habits are all necessary. Child malnutrition in India tends to be the worst at the age of five to 11 months, which suggests that breastfeeding and weaning behaviour matter – and this highlights the need for society to educate mothers so as to enable them to continue breastfeeding and to shift to appropriate solids when required.

Multi-pronged approach

Malnourished tribal children in Khammam district, Andhra Pradesh. In hierarchical and discriminatory societies such as India, making a scarce good (cheap food) supposedly available only to the poor is one of the easiest ways to reduce their access to it.

All these issues must be addressed if the rampant problem of undernutrition has to be dealt with. But, obviously, most of these cannot easily be translated into legal provisions. It is clear that a law, however well intentioned and carefully phrased, can only address some of the complex factors that determine food insecurity. It is important for the government to be aware of the need for a multi-pronged approach to the problem that has to extend beyond a legal promise if it is to be successful.

This does not mean that a food security law would be meaningless, far from it. In fact, by focussing on universal food access and assigning responsibility and culpability, a law would force the government at both Central and State levels to take up the entire gamut of issues, which relate not just to actual food distribution but also to its production and patterns of consumption, so as to eventually ensure genuine food security.

The key point here is that such a law must guarantee universal access. The dominant failing of drafts of the proposed legislation that have been circulating in various quarters is that they do not promise or even try to aim at universal food access. Instead, they tend to be obsessed with targeting food security at the below poverty line (BPL) population and some defined vulnerable groups. Some drafts have gone even further, suggesting that the non-BPL population be excluded entirely from public distribution.

Frontline for more