An attempt to start another riot, I guess. It won’t work.
Five killed, 16 injured in blast at Hyderabad mosque- Hindustan Times
At least five people were killed and 16 injured in a bomb blast during Friday prayers at the historic Mecca Masjid here.
Eyewitnesses said the blast occurred when thousands of Muslims were about to complete ‘namaz’.
The blast took place near ‘wazu khana’ or water tank, where Muslims do ablution before offering prayers.
Would have been my headline. Apparently, the New York Times byline writer was more concerned about a multi billion dollar company losing a small amount of money than the fact that a different ruling in this case would have made life saving drugs unaffordable for millions of people. When did American newspapers become shills for the elite?
Setback for Novartis in India Over Drug Patent – New York Times
Indian companies will be free to continue making less expensive generic drugs, much of which flow to the developing world, after a court rejected a challenge to the patent law on Monday.
Aid organizations declared the ruling a victory for the “rights of patients over patents,” but the Swiss drug company Novartis, which filed the case, warned that the ruling would discourage investments in innovation and would undermine drug companies’ efforts to improve their products.
At issue is the degree of innovation required for a drug to be regarded as truly “new”, where there is a significant enough chance for failure that the company would never develop it unless afforded monopoly rights for 10 years. A very well known tactic by drug companies is to make a slightly different formulation of an existing drug, say an extended release form of a drug which takes a little longer to dissolve, and hence is available to the body at a different time. Under US patent law, this qualifies for full patent protection on the extended release form. By now, the science of making an extended release tablet is well known, it’s just a question of formulating the drug with a different set of inactive ingredients that take longer to dissolve, or sometimes, through a differently engineered tablet. The chemistry of this change is predictable, published and not really innovative. Why should these small changes have patent protection?
Bonus Note: Madras is my home city, so I’m glad it was decided there!
Pesticide exposure in Punjab and Haryana is out of control. When I was growing up, the Green Revolution was idolized and idealized to degree that in hindsight seems a little excessive. But back then, this octupling of wheat and rice yields in Punjab and Haryana catalyzed the transformation of India from a country mired in famine and food shortages to one that occasionally runs out of room to store excess food. So, this story (courtesy of 3QD) caught my attention.
Green.view | Chemical generation | Economist.com:
IF INDIAN newspaper reports are to be believed, the children of Punjab are in the throes of a grey revolution. Even those as young as ten are sprouting tufts of white and grey hair. Some are going blind. In Punjabi villages, children and adults rare afflicted by uncommon cancers.
The reason is massive and unregulated use of pesticides and other agricultural chemicals in India’s most intensively farmed state. According to an environmental report by Punjab’s government, the modest-sized state accounts for 17% of India’s total pesticide use. The state’s water, people, animals, milk and agricultural produce are all poisoned with the stuff.
Ignorance is part of the problem. The report includes details of a survey suggesting that nearly one-third of Punjabi farmers were unaware that pesticides come with instructions for use. Half of the farmers ignored these instructions. Three-quarters put empty pesticide containers to domestic uses.
The article concludes by saying that the government is encouraging the use of techniques including organic farming, more crop rotation, etc, and how this is ironically “reversing” the green revolution. But two separate issues are getting mixed up here. The green revolution was not won on excessive use of fertilizers, monoculture, excessive water use, and so on. Instead, the development of new hybrid, high yielding varieties of rice and wheat kick started the revolution. The wholesale adoption of water and input intensive agricultural techniques came along for for the ride with the rest of the revolution.
Hopefully, the Punjab government will not stop at writing reports, but start grassroots education projects with the farmers to encourage sensible farming techniques that take the good parts of the green revolution and leave the bad parts out.
It turns out that a third of the people killed in Hyderabad were killed by police firing on a “mob” after the event. Lots of blame to go around here. Is there any point in organizing a violent instant mass protest against a terrorist attack? Do you think the police will just let you riot? And the police, why would you use real bullets? The police are claiming that the mob was trying to attack a petrol pump (gas station), as always, I don’t trust anything anyone says in the immediate aftermath.
Meanwhile, the fingers quickly point to various Islamic terrorist outfits. It is the usual formula to blame a Jihadic islamic terrorist organization for every terrorist blast in India. Unfortunately, police work after events like these is still shoddy and it is never clear what actually happened, what lessons can be learned, or if anyone responsible is actually tried and convicted.
BTW, just read the comments that accompany this following story to see how nasty communal sentiments still are. The Hindus on the comments accuse the Muslims of planting the bombs, and vice versa. Hyderabad is a city of 6 million people, 40% Muslim and home to a booming tech industry. If you’re a terrorist wanting to start something, it’s a perfect little cauldron.
NDTV.com: Harkat-ul-Jihad likely behind blast: Police
On Friday, Hyderabad was struck by a double tragedy. It has now emerged that some of the people who were killed, died in the police firing after the blast. A bandh has been called in Hyderabad and Secunderabad on Wednesday. The strike is in protest against the police firing that followed the blast. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S R Reddy has, in a statement, apologised for the police firing. He said a CBI inquiry will be ordered into the incident if it is required. Hours after the terror attack, it came to light that some of those killed in the Mecca Masjid died in the police firing. A powerful bomb exploded during the busy Friday afternoon prayers that close to 10,000 people were attending. Just after the blast there was utter chaos. Mobs went on a rampage outside the Masjid and the police resorted to lathicharge and firing in the air. As the dead and injured were being accounted for, it was found that some had bullet wounds. Reports suggest at least five of the dead had these wounds. However, the Chief Minister said that only two to three people may have died in police firing.
From Canada’s paper of record…
Speaking fluent English, he described the gruelling 42-day high-seas journey and talked of the deteriorating living conditions in his homeland. He also described his dismay at arriving in Canada only to be branded a potential terrorist and jailed for nearly three months.
Ah, the old “compliment”, “you speak such good English”, code for “I am so culturally and racially ignorant that the act of any non-white non Anglo-Saxon speaking English surprises and amazes me, and I am clueless enough to think of this statement as a compliment”. If the statement is made by a lay-person, I view it as an opportunity to educate. This represents the culmination of a long journey growing up in privileged middle class India and slowly accepting myself as a person of colour (different and yet to be written blog post). But, for a reporter specifically assigned to write about immigration and refugee claims, this is inexcusable, especially because the language of his testimony has no relevance to his story. It’s almost as if the reporter thinks that this person would be more deserving of Canadian sympathy if she lets us know that he speaks “fluent English” just like us!
The rest of the story is not too bad, it uses neutral language to chronicle the story of a heroic person’s struggle to first help the people around him, then finally make a risky journey across the world in search of a better life.
But wait, there’s more! The headline writer seems to have his or her own agenda as well (not captured in the website article, but see the Page One headline (captured on cellphone camera!):
Not bad, ” Tamil Migrant Sought Relief from Homeland Threats” – neutral, descriptive and to the point.
Now see the headline for the continuation:
Wow, “Militant Claims No Ties to Tamil Tigers”. Hello, what happened? When did migrant become militant, when did his statement become a “claim”, and what relevance do the Tamil Tigers have to this man’s refugee status? Is every Tamil a Tiger? (true story, playing pickup at the gym the other day, this guy asked me what my ethnicity was, then called me a Tiger, then got very defensive when I yelled at him!).
A writer’s bias becomes very evident in the choice of words used to frame statements. I always look for “said”, “asserted”, “claimed” as short forms for “we are reporting this statement, but here’s what we really think”.
This is not the first time headlines have made me scratch my head. This happens especially often in the world of science, as this blog post very ably documents. I once got into a brief email discussion with a reporter at the Raleigh News and Observer who was writing articles about undocumented workers. She would use “undocumented immigrant” (Good), “illegal immigrant” (Bad) and occasionally, “illegal alien” (Alien??) interchangeably. However, the headline would always contain the very pejorative one word “Illegals”. I asked her about it and her one line dismissal was that “she did not write the headlines”, which is a nice and casual shirking of responsibility! Since most people only see headlines anyway, the words stick. So, Tamil = Tiger, immigrant = illegal, etc.
It made me a little sad to see the story of good things (he survived and will have his refugee claim heard) happening to a good man reduced to a disgusting innuendo filled headline. For more on the Tamil refugee story, see this article. The Canadian government is using secret evidence to decide who gets to go free and who is detained. While some of the people on board this ship could possibly be linked to violence, secret trials and innuendo do not help anyone involved. The Canadian government should know this, given that its dealings with immigrants using the security certificate program have been criticized before. I understand and fully sympathize with the Canadian government’s position that this is a complex situation and each person needs to be dealt with carefully on a case by case basis, but secrecy is not necessary here.
Obviously, not good at all. Apparently, “It’s only a game” is not the operating credo in the subcontinent.
Woolmer was strangled, police say – CNN.com
KINGSTON, Jamaica (CNN) — A pathology report indicated that Pakistani cricket coach Bob Woolmer died of “manual strangulation,” according to a statement from Jamaican police commissioner Lucius Thomas.
“In these circumstances, the matter of Mr. Woolmer’s death is now being treated by the Jamaican police as a case of murder,” the statement said Thursday night.
Police announced Tuesday that Woolmer’s death was suspicious, two days after he was found unconscious in his room at the Pegasus Hotel. Woolmer, 58, was declared dead at a hospital soon after he was found.
Initial media reports indicated he died of a heart attack.
Woolmer’s death came less than 24 hours after former world champion Pakistan was beaten and eliminated by the relatively unknown Irish team on St. Patrick’s Day, one of the biggest shocks in World Cup cricket history. The loss on Saturday prompted outrage among the team’s hardcore fans, with protesters burning effigies of Woolmer and the team captain in Karachi.
Asked about suspects, Deputy Police Commissioner Mark Shields would only say, “We have a few definite lines of inquiry,” acknowledging later that betting on cricket matches was among them.
Terror struck Uttar Pradesh on Friday, when militants triggered near-simultaneous blasts in court premises in three cities across the state, killing at least 13 and injuring over 59 others.Six bombs — three in Varansi, two in Faizabad and one in Lucknow — went off within a span of 15 minutes in the crowded court complexes between 1310 hours and 1325 hours. Some of bombs are believed to have been planted on cycles.A little-known outfit, called Indian Mujahideen, has claimed responsibility. UN intelligence agencies said senior UP police officials have received an email in which the outfit has owned up to the attacks.
Delhi on high alert following UP serial blasts
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what happened to people.. On Fridays generally Mecca Masjid area is tightly secured as 10k people come to that place to offer prayers… I hope police will take control of the situation and no one will act crazy and start communal riots…
I heard 200 people gathered and started pelting stones (not sure at whome) after the blast occurred to protest… I don’t understand what they were trying to do.. instead of helping the injured they became obstacle for the ambulance to reach the hospital.. police had to use tear gas shells to make way… this is such a dumb thing to do.. instead of helping they get down to protest… I not sure where this world is going to..
Peace.
The intention behind this blast was probably to create tension in southern states.
I share your optimism. I believe such riots will not break out.
They were successful in reminding people in this part of the country that India is not immune to terror!!!