S. Asian researchers to study women's security

New Delhi - December 31, 2003 - In a two-day (December 27-28, 2003) conference by WISCOMP (Women in Security Conflict Management and Peace), a South Asian group has come together with a multiple research project on non-traditional aspects of security. The project, apart from focusing on Kashmir and Gujarat, will deal with non-traditional security issues like water-scarcity, fundamentalism and women's displacement. The speakers were from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladeswh, Nepal. Ammara Durrant of Pakistan identified water scarcity. "Gender dimension in the Maoist movement" worries Mandira Sharma, human rights activist and executive director of Advocacy forum, and Anil Pant, team leader of Action Aid from Nepal. Bangkok-based Retta Reddy said she would look into the gender sensitive aspect.

The Indian Express - January 1, 2004.

China - Muscle for hire - Another western fad reaches China

Li Jicheng is a square and muscular former martial-arts instructor in China's special forces. Although Mr. Li has trained hundreds of people who now work as bodyguards, the government is still hesitant about giving its blessing to the country's personal-security industry. China is usually considered a relatively safe place for foreigners, but there are pockets of lawlessness. Some in Shenzhen's bodyguard industry, however, believe that the government's attitude is softening. But Zhang Hucheng, general manager of Wolfman Commercial Investigations and Security Consultancy, says his company advertises its bodyguards in local and Hong Kong newspapers, while the authorities turn a blind eye. Rules, after all, are made to be broken.

The Economist - January 10, 2004.

Anti-corruption body in Russia

Moscow - January 12, 2004 - The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, has set up a Kremlin anti-corruption watchdog, admitting failure of previous efforts to control corruption. The new body, the Presidential Council for combating Corruption, will beheaded in the next six months by the Prime Minister, Mikhail Kasyanov. Mr. Putin instructed the anti-corruption council to prepare bills that would institutionalise public control over the government. A study carried out by Russia's Information for Democracy Institute found that business owners forked out $33 billion in 2002 to government officials to keep things running smoothly, while Russian citizens paid another $3 billion in bribes.

The Hindu - January 13, 2004.

Never Lost Here But Found Daily: Japanese Honesty - Cellphones, bags and even lost money can be reclaimed

Tokyo - Smaller lost-and-found centers exist all over Japan, based on a 1,300-year-old-system that long preceded Japan's unification as a nation and its urbanization. In a four-storey warehouse, hundreds of thousands of lost objects are meticulously catalogued according to the date and location of discovery, and the information is put in a database. In 2002, people found and brought to the Tokyo center $23 million in cash, 72 percent of which was returned to the owners, once they had persuaded the police it was theirs. The authorities are thinking of ways to update the system by creating an Internet listing of the items at all lost-and-found centers. The system's survival will depend less on technology than on simple honesty.

The New York Times - January 17, 2004.

The Voynich manuscript - Another twist in the tale - A possible explanation for the world's most enigmatic book

The Voynich manuscript was once owned by Emperor Rudolph II in 16th century. Wilfrid Voynich, an American antiquarian, bought the manuscript and started circulating copies in the hope of having it translated. Some 90 years later, the book still defies deciphering and is lying at Yale University. The manuscript is written in "Voynichese", which consists of strange characters, some of which look like normal Latin letters and roman numerals. Some analysts have suggested that Voynichese is a modified form of Chinese. Others think it may be Ukrainian with the vowels taken out. But Voynichese words do not resemble those of any known language. Another possibility is that the text is written in code. Best efforts of cryptographers over the past 30 years have failed to crack it. On the other hand, the text could just be gibberish and the book - which may have been passed off to Emperor Rudolph as the work of Roger Bacon, a 13th-century natural philosopher, in exchange for the princely sum of 600 gold ducats - a grand hoax. Gordon Rugg, a computer scientist at Keele University in England, thinks he may be one step closer to an explanation of how the text might have been created. In a paper published in the January issue of Cryptologia, he uses low-tech 16th-century methods, rather than 20th-century computing, to generate text resembling that in the book. Dr. Rugg borrowed one of Kelley's techniques. He used a grid of 40 rows and 39 columns to create a table which he filled in with Voynichese syllables. He then placed a grille - a piece of cardboard with three squares cut out in a diagonal pattern - on top of the table, and started forming words by reading off the syllables as he moved the grille across columns and down rows. The result was words with the same internal patterns as Voynichese. Dr. Rugg and his ream are now making further efforts. Of course, this does not prove that the manuscript is nonsense - an impossible thing to demonstrate, in any case, since failure to find meaning in the text does not make it meaningless, but simply beyond current methods of decoding.

The Economist - January 10, 2004.

Hoisting of Tricolour a fundamental right: SC

New Delhi - January 23, 2004 - The Supreme Court today declared that citizens have a fundamental right under Article 19 (1) (A) of the Constitution to hoist the national flag on their premises throughout the year. The ruling came from a bench headed by Chief Justice V.N. Khare while dismissing an appeal preferred by the Centre against a High Court judgment on the issue. Proper respect to the tricolour will, however, have to be paid.

The Indian Express - January 24, 2004.

A date with infinity on a sheet: Bata man's calendar may break record

Bangalore - January 24, 2004 - Mr. Amaranath (resident of Bangalore), a production officer of Bata India Limited claimed that he was all set to break the world record in creating a 11,200 year calendar, which is held now by a German national. What is more, he challenges that he can reproduce the calendar within a matter of just eight hours without any reference material. Leap years have also been ingeniously calculated to fit in effortlessly in the calendar table prepared by Mr. Amaranath. Asked if he wants to market his "invention" and make the best of it, he said he was only aiming at the world record first before thinking about anything else.

The Asian Age - January 25, 2004.

The Great Wall of China getting shorter

Beijing - January 26, 2004 - The Great Wall of China is shrinking. "Only one third of the 6,350 km of wall now exists and the length is still shortening," the official Xinhua news agency said. The United Nations listed it as a world heritage site in 1987. But developers continued to encroach and farmers used its bricks for their courtyards and even pigpens, Xinhua said. The number of visitors - ten million a year - also has contributed to wear and tear, Mr. Dong Yaohui, general-secretary of the Great Wall Society of China, said.]

The Asian Age - January 27, 2004.

Food for Thought

Every cause needs people more than money, for when the people are with you and you are giving your cause their attention, interest, confidence, advocacy and service, financial support should just about take care of itself; whereas, without them in the right quality and quantity in the right places and the right states of mind and spirit, you might as well go and get lost.

Harold J. Seymour

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"When others make mistakes, do not keep counting these mistakes. Allow them to count on you for co-operation to erase that weakness.

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"One constructive suggestion is worth a hundred complaints."