Geneva, 19 Feb (Kanaga Raja) — Sixteen public health, consumer and development groups have sent separate letters to the heads of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) voicing their concerns over recent seizures by Dutch customs authorities of Indian generic drugs shipped through the Netherlands en route to Brazil, Colombia and Peru.

In their letter dated 18 February to WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan, the NGOs asked her to “immediately undertake an assessment of the risks to public health programs presented by such seizures and any anti-goods-in-transit provisions that exist in current or proposed trade agreements, including those relating to anti-counterfeiting initiatives.”

In conducting the assessment, the WHO is asked to “interview developing country governments, UN agencies and other entities engaged in the trans-border delivery of generic medicines to developing countries, to fully document the extent to which medicines in transit are at risk regarding seizure or liability for infringement.”
In a separate letter to WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy, the groups called on him to “explore with the European Union the extent to which its customs rules and provisions in trade agreements present risks to goods in transit, and undermine the commitments made in 2001 in the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health concerning access to medicines.”

The sixteen non-governmental organizations that signed both the letters are BUKO Pharma-Kampagne; Consumers International; Consumers Union; Essential Action; HAI Africa; HAI Asia Pacific; HAI Europe; HAI Global; HAI Latin America and Caribbean; Health GAP; Iqsensato; Knowledge Ecology International; Medico International; Oxfam International; Third World Network; and U. S. PIRG.
“In a world with territorial patent rights, it is important that the rules for ‘goods in transit’ permit the transport of medicines from places where they can be made to places where they will be used. The Dutch seizures have drawn attention to this issue, as has the recent disclosure of MSF that they regularly transport and temporarily store medicines in Europe, in route to users in developing countries. We expect the leaders of the WHO and the WTO to lead on this issue,” said James Love of Knowledge Ecology International.

“It is time that the World Health Organization, the institution that we look to for a lead in international health and development gave strong and clear guidance on the interpretation of international trade agreements that so adversely affect health. The health of millions of people worldwide who depend on life-saving quality assured generic medicines will be in jeopardy unless action is taken now by the World Trade Organization to give clear guidance to its Members on goods in transit. This situation cannot be allowed to continue,” said Tim Reed of HAI Global.

In their letter to WHO Director-General Dr Chan, the groups said that in recent years there has been a flurry of activity regarding new trade agreements and rules to enforce patents and intellectual property rights. One important aspect of those rules are measures that concern “goods in transit.” Under some legal traditions and consistent with WTO rules, goods in transit are exempt from normal restrictions associated with patents or other intellectual property rights, when en route to a market where the use is legitimate.

“This approach is not uniform, however, as illustrated recently by several seizures of medicines by Dutch customs officials,” said the letter to Dr Chan.

The groups noted that the Dutch cases involved medicines manufactured in India, and then shipped to Brazil, Colombia and Peru, via the Netherlands. The medicines were seized by Dutch customs officials.

Citing industry reports, the letter noted that at least four cases of Indian generic medicines in transit in the Netherlands were seized by Dutch customs authorities from October 15, 2008 to December 12, 2008: Clopidogrel Bilsulphate API (to Colombia); Olanzapine 10 mg Tabs (to Peru); Rivastigmine 3 mg Tabs (to Peru); and Losartan – API (to Brazil).

According to the manufacturers, all products were legitimate generics and did not violate any patent rights in the exporting or the importing countries.

The groups said that the seizure of the shipment containing Losartan active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) destined for Brazil was made in connection with a complaint filed by Merck, as the licensee of European patents and Dutch Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs), pursuant to Dutch law and the procedures set out in EU Regulations. In the case of the Clopidogrel Bilsulphate API shipments to Colombia, the Dutch customs authorities reportedly asserted the generic APIs were counterfeits, and Sanofi Aventis sought destruction of the goods.

The letter to Dr Chan said that the European Union is currently seeking very aggressive provisions regarding customs procedures in a number of proposed bilateral and regional trade agreements. The topic of provisional measures is also a key element in the secret negotiations for a new Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).
According to some reports, said the NGO letter, there are proposals in the ACTA negotiations to require the seizure of goods that infringe on patents, even for goods in transit. Whether intentional or not, additional risks to goods in transit are also found in the International Medical Products Anti Counterfeiting Taskforce (IMPACT)’s “Principles and Elements for National Legislation against Counterfeit Medical Products” and World Customs Organization’s “Provisional Standards Employed by Customs for Uniform Rights Enforcement (SECURE).”

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By bringing the benefits and the knowledge of science to their people, Haseena and Tajunnisa have helped secure the future for the resources on which their families depend. Their home, Agatti, has, now become a model, writes Papri Sri Raman.

10 March 2009 – Kavaratti (WFS) – On January 29, Haseena and Tajunnisa, two young women from the beautiful Agatti island in Lakshadweep, received the 2008 Earth Heroes ‘Young Naturalist’ awards, given annually by ‘Sanctuary’ magazine in collaboration with the Royal Bank of Scotland. This unusual recognition came to these women, who are in their 20s, for their spectacular effort in mobilising a fishing community to become the keepers of nature.

Their story began five years ago, when the Mumbai-based Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) was entrusted with the job of studying the giant clam in the waters off Lakshadweep’s west coast.
Lakshadweep is India’s smallest Union Territory, beginning about 250 kilometres west off the Kerala coast. It comprises 12 atolls, three reefs and five submerged banks. There are 36 tiny islands on these sub-marine banks, with a total area of just about 32 sq. kilomtres.
The islands are scattered and remote, each fringed by white coral sand and shallow lagoons protected by reef walls. They are the only coral islands in India. Ten of these are home to about 60,000 people. The island group’s Gross Domestic Product from coconut, tuna, tourism, and sea-faring touches almost Rs.100 million, with the tuna canning factories concentrated on the Minicoy Island, the second largest and southern-most among the islands of the Lakshadweep archipelago.

More than 40,00,000 tons of tuna is caught in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans every year. In 2004, the Federal Drug Authority (FDA) frowned upon the intake of excessive tuna by pregnant women, nursing mothers and children, as it is believed to contain a large quantity of mercury. Light tuna, low in mercury content, is found off the Lakshadweep coast and this is now a thriving industry.
Tuna, a very large fish, feeds on small bait-fish, like minnow and anchovy. The availability of bait-fish is an indicator of the concentration of tuna in an area. Giant clams, too, live in association with bait-fish. The giant clam also harvested for food and as a curio, is listed as a ‘vulnerable’ species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

“The BNHS-lead International Marine Protected Area project (funded by the Darwin Initiative) was to study the giant clam and try and develop conservation strategies for it, as also for bait and tuna off the Agatti coast by developing a community-managed reserve,” says Deepak Apte, Assistant Director, BNHS. Apte, who is associated with the project, recently addressed a gathering of the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers in Chennai, which met to discuss the viability of India’s marine protected areas.

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By Enrique Gili

SAN DIEGO, California, Mar 22 (IPS) – The San Diego Latino Film Festival is perhaps the biggest little film festival most people outside of Southern California have never heard of.

Big because the festival showcases the vast array of talent living on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, and small because the commercial appeal of Spanish-speaking films in the U.S. market is almost negligible.

Nonetheless, the festival attracts a diverse crowd eager to create their own space in modern cinema. An estimated 20,000-plus people attend the festival over the course of a two-week period from Mar. 12 through Mar. 22.

Now in its 16th season, the festival is the brainchild of Ethan Van Thillo, executive director of the Media Arts Centre San Diego, a city-wide nonprofit organisation dedicated to promoting technical skills and media literacy in underserved communities.

The festival began modestly, showing student films in improvised spaces and later growing into its present format located in a multiplex movie theatre near downtown San Diego. This year, the festival screened 173 entrants, including feature-length films, shorts, and documentaries, from as far afield as Argentina and nearby as Tijuana, Mexico.

Sales are brisk at the box office, attracting a large crowd waiting in eager anticipation to see movies ranging in spectrum from light comedic fare to prison dramas. “We have to offer something for everyone,” Van Thillo said.

“We’ve seen a lot of great work come out of film schools in Mexico, Argentina and Spain,” he explained, observing the career arc of directors who have presented at the festival in prior years and are now returning to the festival with feature-length projects.

He’s showcased the early films of Alfonso Cuaron (Y Tu Mama Tambien) and Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth), among others. Both Mexican-born filmmakers have matured into movie-making powerhouses working in their native country and abroad.

This year, Carlos Cuaron, Alfonso’s bother and co-writer of “Y Tu Mama Tambien”, has returned with “Rudo y Cursi” in the hopes of having similar success.

Standouts include Sundance favourite “Sin Nombre”, a border thriller, and “The Garden”, an award-winning documentary set in Los Angeles that follows a Mexican-American community’s effort to protect an urban farm from development.

The San Diego Latino film festival, the second largest in the country, has become an essential stopping point for Hispanic filmmakers seeking welcoming audiences.

“I got the film bug early,” said film director Javier Chapa, a fifth generation Texan of Mexican-American ancestry, who was accompanied by his multicultural cast and crew to screen the premier of “Pepe & Santos Vs. the United States”, a light-hearted comedy set in Brownsville, Texas about the misadventures of day labourers in their efforts to own a house.

Making the movie, Chapa had an epiphany. “I thought, why don’t we celebrate Hispanic culture through comedy?” he said. “Pepe & Santos” combines elements of a Capra-esque fable mixed with the socially conscious “El Norte.”

The film played to a predominantly Hispanic crowd grown accustomed to seeing negative portrayals of the immigrant experience. In the question-and-answer session that followed, more than one viewer felt compelled to thank Chapa for making a movie they and “our children could watch.”

In 50 years’ time, media anthropologists wishing to study the demographic shift currently taking place across the United States might look to Latino film festivals popping up around the United States. They can be found not just in warm-blooded cities such as Miami, Phoenix and Los Angeles, but urban outposts like Chicago and San Francisco.

As Hispanics emerge from their ethnic enclaves in search of greater job and economic opportunities, they are bringing their culture with them. In doing so, they are shaping the lucha libre that is U.S. pop culture.

At the film festival, the two cultures intertwine. Film geeks mingle with middle-class Hispanic families. Spanish freely mixes with English, often in tandem. The films are as diverse as the populations they portray.

According to the U.S. Census, Hispanics are 15 percent of the U.S. population. By 2050, they will make up one-third. In border states, Hispanics already belong to a minority- majority population that includes Asians and African-Americans.

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US software giant Google says it has removed several images taken in British cities from its Street View software, after users raised privacy concerns.
Street View displays 360-degree ground-level images captured by roaming cars using digital photography equipment.
The cars began taking images last northern summer, and continue to capture images across the country, allowing the service to expand after its launch in London on Thursday.
Just 24 hours after its release in Britain, however, Google said it had removed several pictures, including ones that users found embarrassing, such as one of a man leaving a sex shop in central London’s Soho neighbourhood, or another one of a man vomiting outside a pub in the east of the British capital.
A spokeswoman for the American internet company declined to confirm the precise number of photos that were removed, but said it had been “less than expected”.
Individual internet users who do not want either their image or that of their home to be used in Street View can request it be taken off Google’s database by filling out an online form.
Google says it has developed sophisticated software that ensures that individual’s faces and vehicle licence plates are blurred.
After initially being launched in the United States in May 2007, Street View is now available in Australia, Britain, Japan, New Zealand, France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands.
AFP
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By NICHOLAS BAKALAR

British scientists have developed an online tool for predicting your risk of developing adult-onset diabetes.

The researchers examined medical records of more than 2.5 million people over 15 years, excluding patients who already had diabetes or whose records were incomplete. They found nine significant risk factors: age, ethnicity, body mass index, smoking status, socioeconomic level, family history of diabetes, diagnosis of cardiovascular disease, hypertension and use of steroid drugs.
They calculated the relative importance of each of these factors, and incorporated them into a formula, or algorithm, that quite accurately predicts the 10-year risk for Type 2 diabetes.

Their study was published online March 17 in BMJ, and there is an interactive Web version of the algorithm at http://www.qdscore.org/. Dr. Julia Hippisley-Cox, the lead author, said that two of its features — postal code and ethnicity — were specific to Great Britain, but that the algorithm will “give you a fairly accurate notion anyway,” even without specifying those two factors.

Dr. Hippisley-Cox, who is a professor of epidemiology at Nottingham University, added that for those who find they are at high risk, weight loss and exercise are essential. “Those are the interventions that have been tested,” she said. “If you play around with the obesity measure, you can see how your risk will change if you lose weight.”

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HDI Oscars: Slumdogs versus millionaires

What does it mean to rank much better on GDP per capita than in the HDI, as we do? It means we have been less successful in converting income into human development, writes P Sainath.

19 March 2009 – It has been the night of the long knives for our burgeoning billionaire population. Its band has just been devastated, falling by more than half from 53 to 24. The latest Croesus Count, also known as the Forbes Billionaires list, makes that much clear. We also fell by two notches to the sixth rank in the list of nations with the most billionaires. Our earlier No. 4 slot being slyly usurped by the Chinese who clock in with 29. More mortifying, we are a rung below the Brits who’ve grabbed Perch number 5, with 25.

The net asset worth of India’s brightest and best has also shrunk by over a third from the time of the last Forbes scroll. By 2007, that worth had reached $335 billion. That is, 53 individuals in a population of one billion held wealth equal to almost a third of their nation’s GDP at the time. This year, that worth plunged to $107 billion. (A moment’s respectful silence in memory of the dear, departed billions seems in order.) But there is some comfort in that our team is still worth more than twice what its Chinese rivals are. And we even now have eight billionaires more than all the Nordic nations put together – though they boast the highest living standards in the world.
“Four Indians were among the world’s top ten richest in 2008, worth a combined $160 billion,” points out Forbes. Today, alas, “that same foursome is worth just $54 billion.” But the 29 Indian tycoons reduced to the penury of mere millionairehood should not lose heart. Forbes offers us these words of reassurance. “The winds of wealth can change quickly ? They may yet again blow favourably in the direction of these tycoons.” So what if the big balances fly at half mast briefly? There could be gales ahead.

Alongside this grim tragedy runs a slightly longer-term saga. India has fallen to 132 in the new rankings of the United Nations Human Development Index (HDI) for 179 nations. Each year since 1990, the U.N. Development Programme has brought us this index, as a part of its Human Development Report. The HDI “looks beyond GDP to a broader definition of well-being.” It seeks to capture “three dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life (measured by life expectancy at birth). Being educated (measured by adult literacy and enrolment in primary, secondary and tertiary education). And third: GDP per capita measured in U.S. dollars at Purchasing Power Parity (PPP).”

Worst in a decade
In the Index of 2007-08, India ranked a dismal 128. Now we’re at 132. That is our worst ever grade on the Index this decade. It means, among other things, that little Bhutan, never once in the Forbes hall of fame, has trumped us in the new HDI rankings. The tiny Himalayan nation clocks in at 131. That is, a notch above its “second-fastest-growing-economy-in the-world” neighbour. Bhutan once languished amongst the bottom 15 nations in the U.N.’s HDI. It has never been among the world’s fastest growing economies.

At rank 132, India also lags behind war-ravaged Congo, Botswana, and Bolivia. (The last is often called Latin America’s poorest nation). The Occupied Territories of Palestine (torn by conflict for 60 years) are also ahead of us. Another neighbour – Sri Lanka – has been devastated by war for over two decades and has slipped a few notches. It still logs in at 104 – 28 rungs above India. Vietnam suffered casualties in millions in the war waged against it by the United States. Decades after, its agriculture is yet to recover from the planned destruction, lethal bombing, and the conscious use of deadly poisons. But Vietnam clocks in at 114. And China at 94 despite falling several places.

The bad news about the bad news is that these figures reflect the good news days. They relate to the year 2006. (The Sensex was booming. It breached the 10,000 and even 14,000-mark for the first time ever. The Indian economy also grew at 9.6 per cent in 2006-07 and 9.4 per cent in 2005-06.) Those were the glory days our 132nd rank is rooted in. The same period when we churned out 53 dollar billionaires. So the updated HDI numbers do not begin to capture the economic downturn. The picture will be even less pretty when those factors kick in.

They do capture, though, the revised purchasing power parity (PPP) estimates that clocked in by late 2007. These columns foretold this problem at the time. It was clear that if the Index was using the older PPP data, then “even our awful HDI performance could get worse” once those were revised. (India’s GDP per capita (PPP) fell from $3452 to $2489 with the new data.)

And yet, we’d be even lower down than rank 132 but for our showing on the GDP-per capita front. Even now, our rank on that front is six notches higher than our HDI rank. It makes us look better than we are. For instance, in making out the current rankings, U.N. researchers point out that the GDP per capita data for 2006 “caused India to rise one place.” But “new data (for 2006) on life expectancy caused India to fall one place.” India then also fell two more places as two more nations – Montenegro and Serbia – joined the list. Both fared better than we did. We fell a further two places “as a result of revised PPP estimates.” That’s how we ended up four slots below our last rank.

What does it mean to rank much better on GDP per capita than in the HDI, as we do? It means you have been less successful in converting income into human development. Our GDP per capita rank is six rungs above our HDI rank. Vietnam’s HDI rank of 114 is 15 rungs above its GDP per capita rank. Unlike us, Vietnam has – despite awful historic handicaps – converted its wealth into human development far better.
Cuba logs in at 48, thus breaking into the top 50 nations in the HDI. (While India firms up its place in the bottom 50.) That’s seven places above wealthy Saudi Arabia, whose per capita GDP is three times higher than Cuba’s. In that ranking, Saudi Arabia is No. 35, towering above Cuba’s 88. But when it comes to human development, Saudi Arabia lags seven rungs below Cuba. Apart from suffering lower income, Cuba has lived under crippling sanctions for decades. Sanctions that have imposed huge constraints and high prices on all essentials. Yet, life expectancy at birth in Cuba is now 77.9 years. That’s almost the same as the U.S. (78). And about 14 years better than India’s 64.1.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has logged its worst rank ever, falling to 15 from 12. Between 1995 and 2000, the U.S. was always in the top 5, even staying at rank 2 for a couple of years. Like with India, its decline in HDI has come in the very years seen as its best, the Golden Age of the Free Market. The Nirvana point of neo-liberalism. A year into the economic reforms, India in 1992 ranked 121 among 160 nations then covered by the Index. Today, India is at 132 among 179 nations. Straight comparisons across that time are hard as the Index has changed in numbers and methodology. But the trend is clearly not joyous.

Steady decline
The HDI figures since 2002 signal a steady decline in the nation’s conversion of wealth into human development – even as the numbers of its billionaires and millionaires doubled and trebled. Now the billionaires have shrunk in number, but not the slumdogs. There are at least 836 million Indians living on less than Rs.20 a day, as the government’s own report told us in 2007. Over 200 million of those get by on less than Rs.12 daily. And those are pre-downturn numbers, too. Maybe, we need a new Forbes 500 list – naming the world’s 500 poorest citizens. Who could beat us on that one?

P Sainath
19 Mar 2009

P. Sainath is the 2007 winner of the Ramon Magsaysay award for Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication Arts. He is one of the two recipients of the A.H. Boerma Award, 2001, granted for his contributions in changing the nature of the development debate on food, hunger and rural development in the Indian media.
http://www.indiatogether.org/2009/mar/psa-forbes.htm

By Shahan Mufti of Global Post

http://www.globalpost.com/video/pakistan/090226/the-hindus-who-stayed-pakistan-0

Submitted by a reader with the following comment: “Pre-partition Peshawar was home to a significant Hindu community with many prominent names such as Kapoors to name one.”

“Johnny B. Goode” – the autobiographical saga of a country boy (“colored boy” in the original lyrics) who could “play a guitar just like ringing a bell”. It was given the honor of being the only rock and roll song included on the Voyager Golden Record, which are actual gold-plated records attached on the Voyager I & II space probes with the intent to convey greetings, sounds and images from humanity to any extraterrestrial life encountering the spacecraft as they travel beyond our solar system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Berry#Influence

Though the SBA doesn’t give stimulus package loans directly to small businesses, savvy scammers would have you believe otherwise.

By Karen E. Klein

Q: My sons own and operate an architectural/engineering firm and a steel fabrication firm. These are Main Street firms, needing operating capital. What department of the stimulus package do they apply to for a loan?
—J.R., posted online

A: The American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (also known as the “stimulus package”) signed into law last month provides $730 million to beef up the loan guarantee programs of the U.S. Small Business Administration. Part of that sum is supposed to reduce the fees that borrowers pay for SBA-backed loans and to increase government guarantees on the loans, making them more attractive for bankers. These measures are designed to help thaw the current credit freeze.

Another program in the works, a joint Fed and Treasury program known as the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, or TALF, also aims to get credit flowing again to Main Street borrowers.
However, it is important for your sons and other small business owners to realize the government does not give loans directly to small businesses. The government works through commercial lenders, such as banks, by guaranteeing the small business loans of banks that participate in their loan programs.

The confusion on this point has unfortunately opened the door to fraudulent operators who charge fees purporting to help small business owners and individuals get government money, says Alison Southwick, spokesperson for the Council of Better Business Bureaus in Arlington, Va. “Anytime there’s a story dominating the headlines, scammers are going to take advantage of it,” she says. “When people hear the word ‘stimulus,’ they know that’s something they heard about in the news, so it must be legitimate.”

Hundreds of complaints have poured in to the BBB in the weeks since the stimulus package was passed, she says, most of them from people who responded to Internet ads leading to Web sites featuring “testimonials” from individuals claiming they got government money to start businesses or pay off bills. For a fee, many of the Web site pitches say, they’ll send you a CD or a mail-order kit explaining how to have access to government stimulus money.

Lucky Winners?
These Web sites are extremely misleading, Southwick says, including some that incorporate blogs that appear to be written by the lucky winners of all that stimulus cash. However, not only is the government not cutting checks to would-be entrepreneurs, you don’t need to pay for information about SBA loans or government grants (most of which are available only to nonprofit organizations or very specialized research companies).

“They’re charging you for free information, in the first place. And maybe they send you a CD or maybe they don’t. But what happens is that people’s credit cards start getting billed and there’s no way to stop it,” she says. “A woman I talked to today said she started getting billed not only for the stimulus information but also $25 per month for a newsletter she didn’t want, either.”

Victims often wind up paying $60 to $80 a month, and if they don’t realize it, the scam can go on indefinitely. “They keep on billing and hope that a certain percentage of people aren’t going over their credit-card statements closely,” Southwick says. Even those who catch the unwanted charges often find there’s no way to stop the billing unless they cancel their credit cards.

The bottom line: Provisions of the stimulus package and other government programs are aimed at increasing access to government small business loans and getting the banks back in the business of loaning money again. Good information about SBA loan guarantee programs is available here. Other government sites offer free information about grants, student aid, and government benefits.
There is no reason to pay for software or guides to apply for government loans or grants. Companies that offer such information for a fee—when it is already available for free online—are likely to be scams, so stay away from them.

Karen E. Klein is a Los Angeles-based writer who covers entrepreneurship and small-business issues.

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(Submitted by a reader)

Some parts of South Asia are not doing well; some others seem to be spiraling out of control. We are soliciting your opinion about conditions in the part of South Asia, where you live, where you grew up or with which you are otherwise associated.

1. What is currently going on in your part of South Asia?
2. In what shape do you expect your part of South Asia to be in the next 6 to 12 months?
3. What should peace and human rights activists and civil society members do to improve things in your part of South Asia?
4. What are you willing to do to make these changes happen?
To help us make sense of the results of this opinion survey, please tell us something about yourself. This information will used ONLY in analyzing our findings, and not for any other purpose.
a. In what country do you currently live?
b. With what part of South Asia are you associated?

Any other information you would like to share with us.
Please keep your responses brief, and email them to asiapeace@comcast.net

Pritam Rohila, Ph.D.
Executive Director,
Association for Communal Harmony in Asia (ACHA)
http://www.asiapeace.org/ & http://www.indiapakistanpeace.org/