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By Venkatesh Athreya

Anthology of essays offering the Left perspective of the great national revolt
THE GREAT REVOLT — A Left Appraisal: Edited by Sitaram Yechury; People’s Democracy Publications, 15, Talkatora Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 300.

The year 2007 saw the official celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the great national revolt against the British colonial rulers in 1857. Given the nature of the policies of the government of the day, it was not surprising that these celebrations did not seek to critically analyse the events of 1857 and draw lessons from such an analysis for the present times. Fortunately, this lacuna has been addressed and a considerable advance in our collective understanding of the events of 1857 facilitated by the volume under review. The book brings together a total of 36 articles carried first in the pages of the English weekly People’s Democracy from January 26, 2007 to October 21, 2007. The editor of the volume, Sitaram Yechury, who has contributed an article and written the Introduction, notes in his brief editor’s comment that though it was planned that the series would begin with the Republic Day issue of 2007 and end with the Independence Day issue, the response from scholars, activists and others who contributed on one or another theme relating to 1857 was so overwhelming that the series had to be continued for another 10 issues.

Relevance
A variety of contributions from persons widely different in their professional pursuits and academic backgrounds enriches the volume, as it offers the reader varieties of content, concerns, style and articulation. But the unifying thread that runs through the volume is that the lessons of 1857 remain relevant today, and have a particular resonance in these times when global finance capital, with the backing of the advanced capitalist countries and, international financial and trade bodies such as the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO, seek to hegemonise the global economy and limit the options open to other countries to pursue paths of independent development. The contributors include an eminent galaxy of academics and political leaders of the Left as well as activists in various fields committed to the values of secularism, national self-reliance and, social and economic justice. The contributions are, by and large, very readable, competent and thought-provoking. Some are simply outstanding.

Themes
Among the themes dealt with in this volume are: the class character of the various constituents of the population in revolt; the class and political nature of the revolt as a whole; the causes underlying the revolt, in particular the role of colonial rapacity and its plunder and despoliation of the agrarian economy; the role of the peasantry; the extent to which the revolt symbolised the overcoming of divisive religious identities; the consequences of the events of 1857 for British colonial policies in the post-1857 period; the remarkably prescient analysis of Marx on the consequences of British rule in India, as reflected in his writings in the New York Daily Tribune, anticipating the revolt and empathising with it totally when it actually occurred; the events outside the main regions of the revolt, especially in the East, North East and the peninsular South of the Indian subcontinent, that also constituted rebellious opposition to colonial rule; and, throughout, the contemporary relevance of the great national revolt of 1857.

Twin challenges
The courage of the mutineers from the ranks of the Army, the commitment of the ordinary peasantry of India to the overthrow of the hated colonial regime, the role played even by some sections of the feudal ruling elements such as zamindars and taluqdars, and the leadership provided by these sections with all its weaknesses and vacillations, and the fierce and vengeful response of the colonial rulers both during the rebellion and when they had finally crushed the rebellion, have all been brought out very well in this volume.

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Pakistani British author Tariq Ali, author of the The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power, reacts to the Pakistani government’s reinstatement of dismissed Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry following massive public outcry. Ali also talks about what he calls President Obama’s “inexplicable” expansion of the US occupation of Afghanistan and reflects on the sixth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq.

AMY GOODMAN: The New York Times reports President Obama and his national security advisers are considering expanding the American covert war in Pakistan beyond the tribal areas and deep into Baluchistan, around the area, the city, of Quetta.
To discuss all this and more, we’re joined now in our firehouse studio by the veteran journalist, activist, Pakistani British writer, Tariq Ali, born in Lahore, Pakistan, lives in London, written over a dozen books, frequent contributor to The Guardian, The Nation, the London Review of Books, on the editorial board of the New Left Review. His latest book, called The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power.
Welcome to Democracy Now!

TARIQ ALI: Hi, Amy. Good to be with you.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about this US war that is not exactly declared, not at all declared, on Pakistan.

TARIQ ALI: You know, what is quite staggering is that in order to sustain the occupation of Afghanistan, a country of 30 million people, the United States is now seriously considering destabilizing Pakistan, which is a country of 175 million people. And they don’t seem to understand that if they destabilize this country and if the Pakistani military begins to crack up and split, what we are seeing in Afghanistan will be absolutely nothing compared to what could happen in Pakistan. It’s a very serious business.

And it’s incredible that the Obama administration is going ahead with this, or appears to be going ahead with this, without any serious consideration of what the consequences are going to be in Pakistan. I mean, they imagine that the main problem in Pakistan is terrorism. That is their obsession. Well, this is not the view of large numbers of people who live in that country. For them, the main problem is malnutrition. For them, the main problem is large-scale unemployment, lack of education, lack of health and, as you’ve seen, the struggle of the people for democracy, restoring the chief justice. What has that got to do with terrorism? It’s a struggle for the separation of powers, wanting an independent judiciary. I mean, that is the Pakistan I know.
The longer the US stays in Afghanistan, the more it creates instability on the Afghan-Pakistan border, because it’s a porous border and it’s impossible to police it. So if they are now going to fire drones, which they’ve started doing—I mean, the same day the chief justice was restored and people were celebrating, a US drone killed nine civilians in a Pakistani village. So it’s a crazy situation, and I don’t think they understand the seriousness of it. And one was hoping that with a new administration in office in Washington with some serious advisers, they would warn them, “Don’t do it.”

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By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

After her stroke, Francine V. Corso, a software engineer who worked on NASA’s lunar lander, was housebound from 1992 to 2001.
Her left arm was twisted up near her neck, making it difficult to pull on a blouse, and her fingers curled so rigidly that her nails buried themselves in her palm. When she finally learned to rise from her wheelchair, her contorted left leg had the so-called horse gait of many brain-injury victims — she stepped toe-downward, and then fought to keep her foot from rolling over.

Now, with injections of botulinum toxin every three months, she says, “I’m completely transformed — I drive, I volunteer, I take art classes.” Her fingers are so relaxed that a manicurist can lacquer her nails red.
Botulinum toxin, the wrinkle smoother best known by the brand name Botox, has many medical uses, some official and some off label. It helps dystonia victims regain control of spasming muscles, actors who struggle with flop sweat slow down the flow, and children with clubfoot avoid surgery.

Its use in stroke victims is still off label — that is, it is not approved for that purpose by the Food and Drug Administration. But it is so widely accepted that Medicare and other insurers will usually reimburse for its use.

Nonetheless, said Dr. David M. Simpson, a professor of neurology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York and a leading botulinum researcher, only about 5 percent of the stroke patients who could benefit from its use ever get it.

Primary care doctors who oversee nursing homes often do not know about it, he said. Relatively few doctors are trained to do the injections, which go much deeper than dermatologists do to erase frown lines. And most neurologists are in the habit of prescribing antispasticity drugs like tizanidine and baclofen, which are oral and inexpensive, but which cause drowsiness and weaken every muscle in the body, not just the target ones.

Ms. Corso, 66, never heard about the treatment from her first neurologist, whom she called “Dr. Bad News” because he told her family she would die and then kept telling her she would never walk. “I heard about it from Dr. Max Gomez on NBC,” she added. “That’s when I came into the city and found you people.”

In a Mount Sinai classroom with a broad view over Manhattan, Dr. Simpson stands behind two disembodied arms mounted on rocker joints. One looks pasty but muscular and is covered with needle tracks. Its partner is bright red and nothing but muscle; it is an anatomical model with all the skin and fat removed.

Dr. Simpson, who gets financing from three botulinum toxin producers — Allergan, which makes Botox; Solstice Neurosciences, which makes Myobloc; and Merz Pharmaceuticals, which makes Xeomin — is teaching residents how to find the harder-to-reach muscles, like the flexor pollicus brevis, which bends the thumb, and the pronator quadratus, which rotates the wrist.

The rubber arms have sensors that beep when the tip of his needle enters the right muscle. Human arms do not beep, of course, but Dr. Simpson had used a variant of the technology on Ms. Corso only an hour before.

Just before the first needle sank in, she let visitors know how she felt about electromyography, which she calls “the stim.”
“This,” announced Ms. Corso, who is almost 5 feet tall, “is what separates the men from the boys.”

The syringe was wired to an electric stimulator that pulsed a charge — up to a tenth of an amp — twice a second. When Dr. Simpson believed he had pierced the right muscle, he dialed it up. If the correct finger began twitching in sync, he knew he was there, and pressed the plunger. If not, he moved the needle and tried again.
He did that several times in Ms. Corso’s arm and then in her leg. Within 45 minutes, Ms. Corso said her foot was hitting the floor more evenly.

Botulinum cannot restore the use of muscles when stroke has destroyed the brain region that controls them. But patients look and feel better and often find it easier to dress, hold objects and bathe themselves.

Dr. Mark Hallett, chief of the motor control section of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, says he uses both electromyography and ultrasound when injecting patients.
“A number of authorities feel that if they get close, that’s good enough,” Dr. Hallett said. “I don’t agree. I think it’s valuable to make sure you’re in the right place.”

So does Ms. Corso. For a while, she said, she was seeing another neurologist nearer her home in Fort Salonga, on Long Island, who injected botulinum but did not use electromyography.

It did not work as well, she said. Now she has a friend drive her to the border of New York City, then takes a car service to the hospital.
“It’s a long way from Long Island,” she said. “But it’s worth it.”

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Five indigenous human rights activists in Mexico are still being held in prison nearly a year after their arrest, despite insufficient evidence against them.

The members of the Guerrero-based Me’ phaa Indigenous People’s Organization (OPIM) are held in a Guerrero state prison on charges of murder. They were arrested in April 2008.

By continuing to detain the five unfairly, the Mexican government is ignoring the human rights commitments it made to the United Nations Human Rights Council a month ago.

A federal review judge ordered the release of four of them on 20 October 2008, after ruling that the evidence presented did not implicate them. However the four remain in prison after Mexico’s Federal Attorney General’s Office filed an appeal against the ruling, despite not providing further evidence in the case. They now await a decision by a federal reviewing court regarding their possible release.

The fifth detainee, Raúl Hernández, was denied an injunction by the federal judge on the grounds that two witnesses testified to his presence at the time of the murder. However other eyewitness testimonies that Hernández was not present have been disregarded. He has appealed against the decision to deny an injunction in his case.

” Less than a month ago, Mexico made a commitment at the UN Human Rights Council that it will protect the life and physical integrity of human rights defenders in the country,” said Susan Lee, Americas Program Director at Amnesty International.

“Amnesty International has established that the case against these five prisoners of conscience has been brought in reprisal for their work promoting the rights of their community and exposing abuses by a local political boss and local authorities.

“When social activists are punished for the legitimate work they do, the authorities are sending a message that protecting and promoting human rights carries a high price.”

Manuel Cruz, Orlando Manzanarez, Natalio Ortega, Romualdo Santiago and Raúl Hernández were detained on 17 April 2008. They were charged with the murder of Alejandro Feliciano García on 1 January 2008 in the town of El Camalote, Guerrero. The five were stopped and taken into custody while crossing a routine military checkpoint in the area.

Over a number of years, Amnesty International has documented a pattern of harassment and intimidation in Guerrero state against members of Indigenous rights organizations such as the OPIM.

Most recently, both the Secretary and President of the Organization for the Future of Mixtec Indigenous Peoples (Organizacion para el Futuro de los Pueblos Mixtecos, OFPM) were found murdered late at night on 20 February in Tecoanapa municipality, Guerrero State. The bodies of Manuel Ponce Rosas and Raúl Lucas Lucía were unearthed 30 minutes drive away from where they were abducted by armed men seven days earlier. Both of the bodies were identified by their families who reported that they showed clear signs of torture.

Amnesty International has called on the Mexican authorities to immediately and unconditionally release the five prisoners of conscience in Ayutla de los Libres prison, Guerrero State and bring those responsible for the murders of Manuel Ponce Rosas and Raúl Lucas Lucía to justice.

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(Submitted by Michelle Cook)

Amnesty International

Authorities in Mexico have dropped the charges against four Indigenous human rights defenders who have been imprisoned for nearly a year in Guerrero State, despite insufficient evidence against them. They are expected to be released this week.

Amnesty International has welcomed the decision to drop the charges against the four Indigenous human rights defenders but is continuing to call for the release of the remaining defender who is still being held on fabricated charges.

The five members of the Guerrero-based Me’ phaa Indigenous People’s Organization (OPIM), Manuel Cruz, Orlando Manzanarez, Natalio Ortega, Romualdo Santiago and Raúl Hernández, were detained and taken to Guerrero’s state prison on charges of murder on 17th April 2008. Charges against all but Raúl Hernández were dropped last night because of a lack of evidence against them.

“There was never sufficient evidence to justify keeping the Indigenous human rights defenders in prison,” said Susan Lee, Americas Director at Amnesty International. “The decision to drop the charges against them is very positive news. Now the next urgent step is to end the unfair detention and trial of Raúl Hernández.”

“It is time for the authorities to recognise that the prosecution case against these Indigenous defenders is politically motivated and based on unreliable and fabricated evidence in order to punish them for their legitimate work promoting the rights of their community.”

The Me’ phaa Indigenous People’s Organization (Organización del Pueblo Indígena Me’ phaa, OPIM) was founded in 2002 to defend and promote the rights of the Me’ phaa (Tlapanecas) Indigenous People in Mexico.

The southern state of Guerrero, which is home to some 116,000 Me’ phaa Indigenous People, has one of the highest levels of marginalization and some of the lowest indicators of human development in the country.

Amnesty International has documented a pattern of harassment and intimidation against members of Indigenous rights organizations in Guerrero state such as the OPIM over a number of years. Most recently, the Secretary and President of the Organization for the Future of Mixtec Indigenous Peoples (Organizacion para el Futuro de los Pueblos Mixtecos, OFPM) were found murdered on 20 February in Tecoanapa municipality, Guerrero State.

The bodies of the two men were unearthed a thirty minute drive away from where they were abducted by armed men seven days earlier. Both of the bodies have been identified by their families, who report that they show clear signs of torture.

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By Ian Sample

Collections of brain cells in the hippocampus encoded the person’s location

Scientists have used brain scans to read people’s memories and work out where they were as they wandered around a virtual building.
The landmark study by British researchers demonstrates that powerful imaging technology is increasingly able to extract our innermost thoughts.

The feat prompted the team to call for an ethical debate on how brain imaging may be used in the future, and what safeguards can be put in place to protect people’s privacy.

The study was part of an investigation aimed at learning how memories are created, stored and recalled in a part of the brain called the hippocampus.

By understanding the processes at work in the brain, scientists at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London hope to get a better grasp of how Alzheimer’s disease and strokes can destroy our memories and find ways to rehabilitate patients.
In the study, volunteers donned a virtual reality headset and were asked to make their way between four locations in a virtual building. Throughout the task, their brain activity was monitored using a technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
Eleanor Maguire and Demis Hassabis then used a computer program to look for patterns in the volunteers’ brain activity as they stood on virtual rugs in the four different locations. They found that particular collections of brain cells encoded the person’s location in the virtual world, and they were able to use this to predict where each volunteer was standing.

“Remarkably, using this technology, we found we could accurately predict the position of an individual within this virtual environment, solely from the pattern of activity in their hippocampus,” said Maguire.
“We could predict what memories a person was recalling, in this case the memory for their location in space,” she added.

The study overturns neuroscientists’ assumption that memories of our surroundings are encoded in the brain in an unpredictable way. The latest research suggests that this is not the case, and that the information is stored in our neurons in a very structured way that can be picked up by scanners.

The scientists could not tell where somebody was from a single brain scan. Instead, they had to perform several scans of volunteers in each location. Only afterwards were they able to find differences in brain activity that betrayed the person’s location.

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President, Dooda Desert Rock
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505-947-6159

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For us, warriors are not what you think of as warriors. The warrior is not someone who fights, because no one has the right to take another’s life. The warrior, for us, is one who sacrifices himself for the good of others. His task is to take care of the elderly, the defenseless, those who can not provide for themselves, and above all, the children, the future of humanity.” —Sitting Bull

Elouise Brown
Treasurer, Hada’asidi (The Vigilant Ones) Organization
PO Box 4588
Window Rock, Arizona 86515

(Submitted by Elouise Brown)

Navajo vice president tours energy facilities in France
Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Kathy Helms

Diné Bureau
WINDOW ROCK — Navajo Nation Vice President Ben Shelly is in Paris this week to look at renewable energy and the recycling of nuclear fuel.
Sherrick Roanhorse of the Vice President’s Office said Shelly is one of nine tribal leaders invited by the International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management in Denver. “The trip is purely educational. It’s to educate tribal leaders about energy policy, energy technology, and it’s to make the tribal leaders aware of energy projects.
“The United States currently does not recycle spent fuel rods by the United States’ 104 reactors,” Roanhorse said.

According to its Web site, the Institute and Areva — the world leader in nuclear power — organized a series of site visits to Areva energy facilities in France for a tribal delegation from the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Osage Nation, and Navajo Nation.
Also in the delegation are representatives of the Council of Energy Resource Tribes and Sinte Gleska University in Mission, S.D. The site visits are intended to further inform tribal leadership on the wide range of energy and sustainable development issues that already are the focus of national and international energy and climate policies and programs, the announcement states.

Areva has manufacturing facilities in 43 countries and a sales network in more than 100. The nuclear giant has a front-end division that deals with uranium ore exploration, mining, concentration, conversion and enrichment, nuclear fuel design and fabrication.
The company also designs and constructs nuclear reactors, while its back-end division specializes in the treatment and recycling of used fuel and cleanup of nuclear facilities. It also has a transmission and distribution division that provides systems and services designed to transport and distribute electricity from the power plant to the final user.

The Arizona Legislature is considering House Bill 2623, to add a renewable energy standard. Under the bill, nuclear energy would be considered renewable energy. The “Renewable Energy Policy” would include tax credits and incentives relating to the production and distribution of solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, nuclear, hydro generation, agricultural waste and landfill gas power.

Resources Committee Chairman George Arthur, who was unaware of the vice president’s trip or that it was being paid for out of the division’s budget, said, “That’s interesting, because I’m getting my education right here on Navajo with people that are party to some of these discussions and I don’t have to travel very far to get good information on renewable energy like wind power and solar energy. It’s just next door to us.

“As far as nuclear interest is concerned, I’m kind of puzzled that one particular leadership should be having to travel abroad to expand on the industry or to be educated in respect to nuclear development when that in itself has been very devastating to our own Navajo people. I, for one, took the initiative to put forth a legislation that I assume the Navajo Nation leadership upholds and will uphold in respect to the banning of nuclear development, either mining or processing activities.”

Budget and Finance Committee Chairman LoRenzo Bates also said that the Navajo Nation has spoken on the uranium issue “and before any possibility of that being considered, it most definitely has to be brought back to the Nation for consideration. But given the lack of any further revenue outside of the casinos, outside of Desert Rock that has yet to become a reality, a president may end up looking at some sort of involvement with uranium.

“But up until then, that president cannot be beating around the bush. A president has to come out and let the people know that this is what’s being considered. This back-room tactics doesn’t cut it with the Navajo people. At some point there will be a president that’s going to have to deal with the matter.”

Roanhorse said the trip was just a fact-finding tri
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Lahore Film and Literary Club (LFLC)
invites you to screening of

1947-Earth
directed by Deepa Mehta.
Starring Amir Khan and Nandita Das, the film is based on
Bapsi Sidhwa’s novel Ice Candy Man.
Date: 3 April 2009 (Friday)
Time: 05:00–06:45 pm

The film will be followed by a discussion with
Bapsi Sidhwa

(Ms. Sidhwa’s books will be available for sale)
Date: 3 April 2009 (Friday)
Time: 07:00–08:00 pm
Venue:
South Asian Media Centre
177 A Shadman II, Lahore
Tel: 755 5621-28
Email: lflc.pk@gmail.com

Entry: Free of Cost (invitation not required)
For details or directions contact:

Bushra Sultana
0300-8430333
Sarah Tareen
0300-4591184

Ms. Sarah Tareen
Coordinator

Lahore Film and Literary Club
177-A,Shadman-2,Lahore
South Asian Media Centre.
(92-42) 7555621-8