by D. Banyopadhyay

After all, the Tatas made their primary accumulation of capital through opium trade in China in the nineteenth century. Use of opium was prohibited under law in China. The East India Company and its minor trading partners, among which the Tatas were one, started illegal importation of opium into China from India. The Chinese Government strongly objected to this. The British waged the first Opium War (1839-42) in which China lost resulting in the Treaty of Nanjing, 1842. It imposed insulting and highly unfavourable conditions against China and in favour of the British. Then there was a second Opium War in 1856-60 wherein the British triumphed again and forcibly legalised contraband trade in opium in China. The Tatas and a few other Indian traders made enormous profit from this trade in a contraband commodity in China. Wealth creates hauteur. Hence we may excuse Tata for his slightly less than civilised behaviour in slandering Ms Mamata Banerjee at the press conference. He did not show any concern for or kindness to the land losers of Singur but it is reported that he donated US$ 50 million to Cornell University only recently.

http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article1077.html

by A. G. Noorani

“POLITICS is a preoccupation of free men, and its existence is a test of freedom.” It is too much to expect people who went on television to grab whatever publicity they could, in the wake of the terrorist strikes in Mumbai, to read Professor Bernard Crick’s mini-classic In Defence of Politics, or, for that matter, any serious work that bears on the subject. The anchors who invited them were of the same class. The people, exasperated at the lapses of the state, understandably responded to the shrill, sweeping denunciation of politicians and politics. They could not be expected to recall that the loudest among the member panelists was an ardent supporter of Indira Gandhi and the dictatorship she imposed on India.

http://frontlineonnet.com/stories/20090130260207900.htm

by Glen Ford
It’s hard to believe that a generation ago, the Congressional Black Caucus was known as “the conscience of the congress, a political and moral high ground long deserted by the current CBC, which has utterly collapsed under Israel-lobby pressure for the second time in three years.
All but two Black lawmakers voted either “Yes” or “Present” on a Resolution that absolved Israel for its crimes against humanity in Gaza – placing all blame on Hamas. In 2006, only two Black Caucus members opposed a Resolution supporting Israel’s savage destruction if Lebanon’s infrastructure and the killing of 1,000 people. Hypocritically turning their backs both on Black public opinion and on the work of Dr. King, whose name they invoke at every public opportunity, the CBC has put itself “out of the anti-war business,” and well outside the mainstream of Black opinion on the Israel-Palestine question.”
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=980&Itemid=1

by Anna Pelegri
Venezuelan flags and portraits of President Hugo Chavez have been flying high during protests in the West Bank against Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip.
The Venezuelan president’s decision on January 6 to expel Israel’s ambassador from Caracas — the only country apart from Mauritania to take such a step — has made the left-wing South American leader a hero to Palestinians.
Hamas, the Islamist movement which controls Gaza, has welcomed Chavez’s “courageous decision,” while Hassan Nasrallah, head of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, urged Arab states to follow the Venezuelan president’s example.
Chavez on Saturday accused Israel of being the “murder arm” of the United States and said the solution to the Gaza crisis was in the hands of Barack Obama when he becomes US president later this month.
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4099

By B. R. Gowani

Happiness/Sadness

This must be the happiest day of your life as you will be entering the White House – a house that was built with the sole intent of housing rich white men. However, it is also the saddest day for your predecessor — not the outgoing president – but his father, the 41st president. Senior ruled at a time when US became the solo Empire of the world — in wake of the Soviet Union disintegration. His 1991 war against Iraq was instigated to impose the United States’ global hegemony. His son set that same Empire on a downward slide through his gringo-style violence which was, of course, conducted with blessings and full stimulus from the Jewish Lobby. It marks the beginning of the end of the US Empire.

Like many of your predecessors, Mr. Obama, your legs must have given up too at the thought of running for the highest office of the land, but you were damn smart, sir, to grab the two crutches offered to you (without which no body can even dream of reaching the highest office of the land): the Jewish Lobby and the Corporations.
One Cautionary advice: Never should a thought cross your mind that you can do away with either of these crutches. Let us look at what happened when you predecessor tried to explore the thought of eliminating the crutch: When George Bush Sr. asked the then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir not to use the US loan money on building Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, he felt the negative power of the Jewish crutch and this is widely believed to be the reason he lost the second term.

Hope/Change Technique

I don’t know whether you have seen Stanley Kubrick’s film “A Clockwork Orange,” or read Anthony Burgess’ novel the movie was based on. Let me briefly recap for you: the main character was violent. When the circumstances led to his arrest he volunteered himself to be used as a guinea pig by the state prison for the Ludovico Technique. He was cured from committing crimes. Upon his release, he had become completely non-violent. However, ultimately he returned to his old ways, when faced with adverse conditions.

You have used a similar technique but under a different strategy: Hope/Change. The people you’ve chosen to run your administration do not show change nor emanate any hope. So the effect of Hope/Change Technique is gradually wearing off and many people are returning back to their normal resigned selves realizing that the Hope is hopeless and the Change is sameness.

Colored People’s Tragedy

Historically, the Third World countries were occupied and colonized by white Europeans. However, when the oppression brought about uprisings, the colonizers trained a tiny select group to continue the oppression by handing them the aura of power. Then came the world wars and it became necessary for them to fight the home fire and they were forced to leave the colonies. By then, the colonies had been looted by the occupiers and their economies were intertwined with those of colonizers in such a way that economic dependency became the newly independent nations’ fate. The leaders of these nations who tried to carve their own paths were crushed or strangled economically and those who followed their dictates were allowed to loot for personal gain and forced to let the former colonizers continue to loot. Either way, the majority of people in those countries could not enjoy the fruits of freedom. The blame was, of course, laid on their non-whiteness in that it was said that the colored folks could not run the country effectively.

Never before in the history of the United States, or the world, has a colored person been known as “the most powerful man in the world.” This is a first. The reality that you’re inheriting a country which is bankrupt and the empire that is breathing its last breath makes your task more difficult. The US debt stands at $11 trillion, in addition to budget and trade deficits. We can not overlook the state of depression and joblessness the country is facing. If you fail to deliver much — which is highly likely — then the racist elements will point a finger at your skin tone.  They’ll intentionally overlook the fact that it has been all the white occupants of the White House that have brought this country to such a desperate bankrupt state.

What You Can DO

Even if you can only accomplish the following couple of things during your time in office, many people in the US and the world will remember you for a long time:

1. Try to eliminate the legal injustices and economic disparities between the colored and white people. In 2002, 50% of the people put behind bars for drugs were blacks. They make up only 13% of the total US population. One reason for this disparity is that the whites who have 18 ounces or 500 grams of cocaine are sentenced to the same imprisonment time as are blacks with 0.2 ounces or 5 grams of crack.

Or take for example the 18% children under 18 living in poverty in the US in 2007, where:
33.7% were Black children
28.6 were Hispanic children
11.9 were Asian children, but only
10.1 were White non-Hispanic children.
At the very least what you should plan to do is to reduce the above numbers as follows:
Black percentage by 23.6
Hispanic percentage by 18.5
Asian percentage by 1.8
to match the population spread and thus bringing equality in poverty.

These small changes will be a step in the right direction to eliminate disparity among the poor Whites, Hispanics, Asians, and Blacks.

2. Use all your charm and oratory power to convince the Israeli leaders and the Jewish Lobby in the US to refrain from blatant and destructive wars, such as the current one against the Palestinians in Gaza and the July 2006 war against Lebanon. Don’t try to stop them — because you cannot — from continuous murders of Palestinians and the Lebanese on a regular basis, albeit on a smaller scale. It’s just that when the killing is on a large scale, that even the US supported Muslim leaders get embarrassed and are forced to show little sympathy for the victims. This will also prevent you from facing awkward “shoe” moments.

You may be aware of what recently happened to the most powerful white man in the world. President George Bush got his final humiliation from the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert recently (as cited by Paul Craig Roberts):

“Early Friday morning the secretary of state [Condoleezza Rice] was considering bringing the cease-fire resolution to a UNSC [United Nations Security Council] vote and we didn’t want her to vote for it,” Olmert said. “I said ‘get President Bush on the phone.’ They tried and told me he was in the middle of a lecture in Philadelphia. I said ‘I’m not interested, I need to speak to him now.’ He [Bush] got down from the podium, went out and took the phone call.”

Bloody good performance for a leader of a tiny country, whose destruction of the Palestinian people depends on the arms and aid from the US. Goliath yet again got humiliated by David.

So Obamaji, to the Israeli government and the Jewish Lobby the most powerful black man in the world means nothing. In spite of you being in this dire circus environment (meticulously planned, strategized with no room for error), yet I cannot restrain myself from wishing you all the best.

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

*Aloha means dear or beloved in Hawaiian language and bwana means mister in Swahili language, spoken in Tanzania, Kenya, and some other African countries.

Paris Nov. 13. 1787.
…persevering lying. the British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, & what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. yet where does this anarchy exist? where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusets? and can history produce an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it’s motives. they were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. god forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. the people cannot be all, & always, well informed. the past which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive; if they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. we have had 13. states independant 11. years. there has been one rebellion. that comes to one rebellion in a century & a half for each state. what country before ever existed a century & half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? let them take arms. the remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. what signify a few lives lost in a century or two? the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. it is it’s natural manure. our Convention has been too much impressed by. . .

More:

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/105.html

WHAT IS CLONING?

Have you ever wished you could have a clone of yourself to do homework while you hit the skate park or went out with your friends?

Imagine if you could really do that. Where would you start?
What exactly is cloning?

Cloning is the creation of an organism that is an exact genetic copy of another. This means that every single bit of DNA is the same between the two!

You might not believe it, but there are human clones among us right now. They weren’t made in a lab, though: they’re identical twins, created naturally. Below, we’ll see how natural identical twins relate to modern cloning technologies.
How is cloning done?

You may have first heard of cloning when Dolly the Sheep showed up on the scene in 1997. Cloning technologies have been around for much longer than Dolly, though.

How does one go about making an exact genetic copy of an organism? There are a couple of ways to do this: artificial embryo twinning and somatic cell nuclear transfer. How do these processes differ?
More:
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/tech/cloning/whatiscloning/

by Professor Sarojini Sahoo

Sexuality may well be the most rewarding bliss of all possible experiences that life can offer between two people passionately attracted to each other. The union it produces between men and women in love is so close and so complete that two finite individuals can interrelate almost as if they were one indivisible being. It involves not only physical but also psychological, spiritual, and somehow anthropological and social aspects. It is related to reproduction.

But because it does involve reproduction and transfer of genes, society has always tried to grip it under its control, denying any need of its other aspects. Even, anthropological theories are denied by the social gurus. Society or religion (I am unable to differentiate them) articulates its own definition of sex as all sexual activity ought to be potentially reproductive, that marriage must last forever, and that women must be subject to men. (Aquinas, Thomas, On the Truth of the Catholic Faith, Book 3 ”Providence,” Trans. Vernon J. Bourke, Doubleday, New York, 1967)

‘Dharma’ in Hinduism is different from the Western concept of religion. It is a code related to moral nature. There is a very negligible difference between this ‘dharma’ and ‘spiritualism’ whereas in the Western concept, ‘religion’ and ‘spiritualism’ are two different concepts. So society or religion always plays a role to suppress the sexuality and as the patriarchal dominance is more on these fields, questions about the morality and the politics of sex are usually considered in isolation from issues about gender and erotic sex.

But in spiritualism, it is related to an individual’s understanding for salvation and freedom. For Hindu spiritualism sexuality is represented as ‘kama’. It is one of the four necessities, four aims of life: Dharma, Artha (material goods), Kama and Moksha (liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth)

Kama is defined as the enjoyment of appropriate objects by the five senses of hearing, feeling, seeing, tasting and smelling, assisted by the mind together with the soul. The ingredient in this is a peculiar contact between the organ of sense and its object, and the consciousness of pleasure which arises from that contact. This is called Kama.

In Hindu spiritualism, Kama is not at all a ‘prohibited’ subject or we don’t find any ‘male dominancy’ there. Taking the lovers’ longing for reunion as a metaphor for the soul’s longing for union with the divine makes sexuality more acceptable in ‘Sufism.’ And in a later period, ‘Hindu Bhaktism’ by Sri Chaitanya also adopted this idea easily.

But in Western philosophy, the natural and the universal are sharply divided — like heaven and earth. The division of tasks between heaven and earth, suffering on earth and happiness beyond, is part and parcel of Western culture and its philosophy, religion and mythology. Westerners tend to see the sensuous world around us as false or illusory and the world ‘beyond’ as real. But in Hindu spiritualism, when you are in your sexual desire, you might sense complete presence in your sensuous world, a perfect moment which is spiritual, natural and carnal all at once.

Professor David Lee Miller in his book Philosophy of Creativity (Peter Lang Publishing Inc., New York, 1990) tries to define creativity as the “feeling” of pure experience vital to a realistic grasp of life with the ‘sensuous world’ (Miller named it ‘as-in-the-whole-Earth’). Plato first refused this ‘sensuous world’ and under Plato’s influence, Western thought has been dominated by a model (paradigm) of neglecting this knowledge and of value in experience. But Miller, in his book, tries to establish that creativity is of the whole Earth (or we can say ‘sensuous world’) rather than being limited to particular aspects.

It is the philosophy of sexuality in Hindu spiritualism that made Kalidas and Jaydev write two great masterpieces: Kumar Sambhav (Kalidas, fourth century B.C.) and Gita Govinda (Jaydev, twelfth century A.D.). These works depict lovers in separation and union; in longing and abandonment, and have been portrayed in thousands of exquisite miniature paintings in India.

Kumar Sambhav , is about the begetting of Kartikeya, the god of war who was the son of Siva and P?rvati, and depicts the monogamous form of sexuality. In contrast, the erotic love of Radha and Krishna in Gita Govinda is not limited to the love of only two persons, but is extended to the 1,600 women known as ‘gopis.’ Unlike in Kumar Sambhav, the love of Radha and Krishna was not at all a monogamous example as Radha never was the wife of Krishna and the ‘gopis’ were also well-connected with the god ‘Lord Krishna’ in sexual desire and lovemaking.

We can say the love of Krishna was polyamorous and was more an evocation and elaboration of passionate love or an attempt to capture the exciting, fleeting moments of the senses. It could also be an evocation of the baffling ways in which love’s pleasures and pains were felt before retrospective recollection, trying to regain a lost control over emotional life. This is why this love story grips our imagination every time we encounter the animated expressions, flashing eyes, and sinuous movements of a dancer, who as Radha, expresses her anger at Krishna’s infidelities or who as Krishna, begs forgiveness for his irresponsible dalliance.

Gita Govinda was first of its kind to be included in the ritual service of the temple of Lord Jagannath at Puri, one of the four most sacred pilgrimage places of Hinduism. So, as the concept of Brahmacharya (suppression of sexual desire) exists, so also exists the concept of spiritual sexism in every authentic entity in this Eastern religion.
But the fundamentalists always try to prohibit sex though no doubt, we are the product of sexuality and our mind characterizes what it experiences, which has a great influence on how our mind perceives the creative process. This creative process, as an inherent sexuality, is always enhanced when we are in sexual desire or find ourselves in the grip of sexuality.

The writing process is a sexual process. When a writer wants to expose a physical life or an energetic life, a creative tension and a flow of energy is generated in the creative process. This creative tension can be experienced as a sexual tension and the flow of energy creates life or describes a new life.

Religion or society never cares for any artistic sensibility as Plato’s domination and so this inherent sexual influence over creativity has also always been denied by our sexual gurus. So, we find there are descriptions of fetishism, voyeurism, and exhibitionism in the writings after the Second World War. We also find our writers/artists/musicians always have an inclination towards their sexual orientation and sexual behaviour and we encounter how much sexual desire they have.

We find Christina Rossetti, George Eliot, Mary Wollstonecraft, Willa Cather, Emily Dickinson, Sarah Orne Jewett, A. E. Housman, T. S. Eliot, Federico García Lorca, Charlotte Mew, Viscountess Rhondda, Cicely Hamilton, Elizabeth Robins,Virginia Woolf and Simone de Beauvoire were either homosexual or bisexual. In contrast, very few of Indian writers have had the courage to admit such truth but Amrita Pritam, Maitreyi Pushpa, Kamala Das, Harivanshrai Vachchan, and Rajendra Yadav are among them.

Still, Asian and African writers have not shown any admissible indication to point out their sexual inheritance in their writings, though their culture is more open to nature than Western cultures. This is a peculiar situation of contradiction and one which we cannot pass up.

Professor Sarojini Sahoo is an author and a feminist and can be reached at sarojinisahoo2003@yahoo.co.in. Her blog and website are http://sarojinisahoo.blogspot.com/ and
http://sarojinisahoo.com/