A very very brief introduction to ICH's GCP,
after the 'read more' jump

Catholic Arrogance finds outlet in its Pope.
The Oft used excuse of Rapists is that the victim 'asked for it'.

The Pope's assertation that the Indigenous Natives of America who were converted by force and coercion after largescale massacres, rape and looting were actually 'silently longing' for all this, is no better than a rapists' apologetics.

Indigenous leaders in Brazil have reacted angrily to Pope Benedict's comments that their predecessors had willingly converted to Christianity.

One Amazon Indian leader, Jecinaldo Satere Mawe, said the Pope's remarks had been arrogant and disrespectful.

Pope Benedict XVI told Latin American bishops in Brazil that American Indians had been "silently longing" to become Christians 500 years ago.

The Pope has now returned home after his five-day trip to Brazil.

The Vatican has made no further comment.

'Wrong and indefensible'

The BBC's Emilio San Pedro said the Pope had said the Christianisation of the region had not involved an alienation of the pre-Colombian cultures.

Our correspondent said Pope Benedict also made no mention of the violent history that followed or the documented decimation of native cultures in favour of the Christian model Conquistadores and other Europeans colonisers.

He said the comments had even been criticised by the Catholic Church's Indian advocacy group in Brazil, which described the Pope's statement as wrong and indefensible.

An ancient Vishnu idol has been found during excavation in an old village in Russia's Volga region, raising questions about the prevalent view on the origin of ancient Russia.

The idol found in Staraya (old) Maina village dates back to VII-X century AD.

Staraya Maina village in Ulyanovsk region was a highly populated city 1700 years ago, much older than Kiev, so far believed to be the mother of all Russian cities.

"We may consider it incredible, but we have ground to assert that Middle-Volga region was the original land of Ancient Rus. This is a hypothesis, but a hypothesis, which requires thorough research," Reader of Ulyanovsk State University's archaeology department Dr Alexander Kozhevin told state-run television Vesti.

Dr Kozhevin, who has been working in Staraya Maina for last seven years, said that every single square metre of the surroundings of the ancient town situated on the banks of Samara, a tributary of Volga, is studded with antiques.

Prior to unearthing of the Vishnu idol, Dr Kozhevin has already found ancient coins, pendants, rings and fragments of weapons.

He believes that today's Staraya Maina, a town of eight thousand, was ten times more populated in the ancient times.

It is from here that people started migrating to the Don and Dneiper rivers around the time ancient Russy built the city of Kiev, now the capital of Ukraine.

An international conference is being organised later this year to study the legacy of the ancient village, which can radically change the history of ancient Russia.

Oxycyte, an artificial blood replacement desiged for critical and trauma care, carries oxygen 50 times as effectively as normal human blood.

Oxycyte has recently completed trials and emerged as a promising way to get the all critical oxygen to the brain tissues in Trauma and Reanimation scenarios.

BUYING SYNTHETIC
A wonder drug, perhaps, but one with caveats. Most of those in the artificial-blood world, like Steven A. Gould, the CEO of Northfield Laboratories in Evanston, Illinois, have hedged their bets on the more common hemoglobin-based substitutes. Northfield’s PolyHeme, for instance, has recently completed its last clinical trial; the company is now compiling its data for the FDA to review.



“The benefit of hemoglobin-based oxygen carriers is that oxygen is loaded onto them when we’re breathing room air,” Gould says. That is, hemoglobin-based substitutes work just like our own blood. To get the full effect from Oxycyte, on the other hand, a patient breathes in 50 to 100 percent oxygen four hours before receiving it and for 12 hours after it’s infused (air contains 21 percent oxygen). “That’s a logistical limitation,” Gould says, “and in general, it’s preferable not to breathe supplemental oxygen if it can be avoided.”

Most of today’s ambulances carry oxygen on board, as do military rescue helicopters, so the problem isn’t getting a tank of air to the patient. It’s the risk of inhaling supplemental oxygen for too long. Scientists know that pure oxygen increases the number of free radicals in our bloodstream, which can damage tissues and membranes, but the long-term severity of that damage is unknown. Spiess believes that Oxycyte could still work at even lower levels of oxygen, or even with room air, but he hasn’t yet been able to test out either of those scenarios on humans.

And there are other, undeniable side effects. In past PFC studies, patients were found to experience a transient swelling of the liver as it absorbed the oily molecules of the PFC; some patients demonstrated a decrease in platelet count, which can hinder the blood’s ability to clot; and some suffered short-term flu-like effects. Spiess has a quick response to concerns like these: “If you’ve been hit in the head or you’ve been shot or you’re having a stroke, you don’t sweat the flu-like symptoms.” All drugs have some measure of toxicity, Spiess says. It’s simply a case of the good outweighing the bad.

Although the sample size is far too small to be statistically definitive, it seems that VCURES’s brain-injury trial may be an example of just that. By August, the hospital had enrolled all of the eight patients it needed to complete the Phase II study. Even at the best trauma centers in the world, the mortality rate for TBI victims is one in three. Of the eight patients Spiess and Bullock treated with Oxycyte, only one died. The recovery process for the surviving patients has been unusually smooth.

Extraordinarily so, in Bess-Lyn’s case. After regaining consciousness two weeks after the accident, she recovered movement in her paralyzed right side and was ultimately deemed well enough to leave rehab a week earlier than predicted. She is expected to make a full recovery. Meanwhile, Spiess and Bullock are busy designing a larger trial that will bring their oxygen therapy to emergency rooms across the country—perhaps as soon as next year.

Turmeric, an established Ayurvedic Anti-Inflammatory drug was the subject of a study which threw up interesting facts.. and results.

An ancient spice, long used in traditional Asian medicine, may hold promise for the prevention of both rheumatoid arthritis and osteoporosis, according to a recently completed study at The University of Arizona College of Medicine.

Turmeric, the spice that flavors and gives its yellow color to many curries and other foods, has been used for centuries by practitioners of Ayurvedic medicine to treat inflammatory disorders. Turmeric extract containing the ingredient curcumin is marketed widely in the Western world as a dietary supplement for the treatment and prevention of a variety of disorders, including arthritis.

At the UA College of Medicine, Janet L. Funk, MD, working with Barbara N. Timmermann, PhD, then-director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded Arizona Center for Phytomedicine Research at the UA, set out to determine whether (and how) turmeric works as an anti-arthritic. They began by preparing their own extracts from the rhizome, or root, of the plant, providing themselves with well-characterized materials to test and to compare with commercially available products. (Dr. Timmermann since has joined the faculty of the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kan.)

Dr. Funk and her colleagues then tested in animal models a whole extract of turmeric root, only the essential oils, and an oil-depleted extract containing the three major curcuminoids found in the rhizome. Of the three extracts, the one containing the major curcuminoids was most similar in chemical composition to commercially available turmeric dietary supplements. It also was the most effective, completely inhibiting the onset of rheumatoid arthritis.

Dr. Funk, an endocrinologist in the UA Department of Medicine, says this study provides several noteworthy "firsts." Completed with the researchers' own prepared, well-defined extracts, the study represents the first documentation of the chemical composition of a curcumin-containing extract tested in a living organism, in vivo, for anti-arthritic efficacy. It also provides the first evidence of anti-arthritic efficacy of a complex turmeric extract that is analogous in composition to turmeric dietary supplements.

The significance, she explains, is that translating the results of trials such as these to clinical use depends on accurate information about the chemical content and biological activity of the botanical supplements available for use. This work paves the way for the preclinical and clinical trials needed before turmeric supplements can be recommended for medicinal use in preventing or suppressing rheumatoid arthritis.

However, as many of Indian indegeneous herbs and traditional remedies are being studied with added interest, the chances of Indian traditional medical system being absorbed and ultimately done with, looms large.
If our experiences with Basmati and Neem are any indications, this overt take over of Traditional Indian Knowledgebase will go unchallenged, while Indian Government will spend its attention over ways to talk to Pakistan amidst continued terror attacks and retrograde minority appleasement policies.

In this regard, the pioneering work by Mr. Rajiv Malhotra of Infinity Foundation needs mention.
Rajiv Malhotra is single handledly fighting a long drawn process by Westerners taking over Indian tradions and lore, assimilating it and then claiming them as their own..

Westerners appropriate Indic ideas through a process which Rajiv Malhotra has called the U-Turn. In its basic form the U-Turn Theory states that a member of the dominant Western culture first whole-heartedly learns the Indic tradition. He or she, for a variety of reasons, then repackages it and projects the knowledge gained from India from within his/her own culture. The next thing you know is that s/he claims these ideas were always an integral part of Western culture. Some, but not all, also start demonizing the source Indic traditions using a lot of pretexts, such as calling them “world negating” or accusing them of “human rights” abuses. As an example, Malhotra has examined on how Jung appropriated much from Indic thought – including key ideas of collective unconscious, archetypes, and synchronicity – but did the classical U-Turn from Indic thought. In all, Malhotra has done 50+ case studies of such U-Turns, and each has its own story as to why and how it was done. U-Turns have played animportant role in shaping Western ideas, literature and popular culture; yet they are typically ignored in discussions on the history of ideas. The U-Turn Theory also explains that many Indians internalize the Western adaptations of Indian culture and re-import them into India: For instance, Tantric healing is more fashionable as “energy healing” or as reiki; yoga’s return to India’s Westernized middle class owes a lot to the West’s adoption of it; and Western research on cognitive science and neuroscience includes yogis who are mere “subjects.”

From: Science Daily

The Lancet is no stranger to controversy. In fact it courts the worst kind of it - Political!

Perhaps its its high impact factor that nudges it and its left-leaning editor into taking up issues such as the Iraq war, but seriously, does it really serve its stated mission?

Advancing medicine, by delivering superior education, reference information and decision support tools to doctors, nurses, health practitioners and students.

Oh yeah.

The Lancet's history of serious wobbling started with its publication of a paper in 1998 which tried to link MMR Vaccine with Autism! The last I heard about it, the controversy is still on. The Jan 2006 scandal of the fabricated 'Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and the risk of oral cancer: a nested case-control study' was enough for the Vancouver Guidelines to be updated with new guidelines and ethical consideration rules.

The 2004 Controversial estimate of Iraq war's death toll of Iraqis of the Lancet brought it into the mainstream glare of critical 'fact checking' crowd online...
And now, they come up with this:

"About 100,000 Iraqi civilians -- half of them women and children -- have died in Iraq since the invasion, mostly as a result of airstrikes by coalition forces, according to the first reliable study of the death toll from Iraqi and US public health experts. "

The Guadian discusses it and writes:

100,000 Iraqi civilians dead, says study
About 100,000 Iraqi civilians - half of them women and children - have died in Iraq since the invasion, mostly as a result of airstrikes by coalition forces, according to the first reliable study of the death toll from Iraqi and US public health experts.
The study, which was carried out in 33 randomly-chosen neighbourhoods of Iraq representative of the entire population, shows that violence is now the leading cause of death in Iraq. Before the invasion, most people died of heart attacks, stroke and chronic illness. The risk of a violent death is now 58 times higher than it was before the invasion.

Last night the Lancet medical journal fast-tracked the survey to publication on its website after rapid, but extensive peer review and editing because, said Lancet editor Richard Horton, "of its importance to the evolving security situation in Iraq". But the findings raised important questions also for the governments of the United Sates and Britain who, said Dr Horton in a commentary, "must have considered the likely effects of their actions for civilians".

When a massive earthquake stuck North East Pakistan including the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, bleeding hearts of India setup email and internet campaigns to collect and send money for relief.

I had written then on various fora that this money can easily fall into wrong hands since many news reports have been filed on how the Kashmiri Terrorist Groups have geared upto provide assistance in distribution of relief material.

A number of candle-kissers had vehemently protested at the apparent lack of sensitivity on my part.

Today, my stance vindicted with the following news report, I sit back at my Geckoid Headquaters, and contemplate on how India would be if we had a quantatively lesser number of undescended gonads around:

‘Quake money’ sent to Pak used to finance UK plane bombing plot

Aug-13,06

KARACHI: Money sent to Pakistan for quake rehabilitation was used to fund the Heathrow bomb attack plot that was foiled by British authorities following inputs from their Pakistani counterparts, if an investigation by a leading Pakistani daily is to be believed.

According to the Daily Times, the Muslim Charity of UK remitted a huge amount of money to three individuals in three different bank accounts in Mirpur, Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) in December last year as earthquake relief.

But the money in the three accounts in Saudi Pak Bank, Standard Chartered and Habib Bank Ltd was solely for the purpose of financing the foiled bomb plot, the paper said. According to the report, two of the recipients are British citizens of Kashmir origin while the third is an Islamabad-based builder, also of Kashmir origin.

Officials said all three have been arrested, but it is still not known whether the three had any links to militant organizations such as the Al Qaeda or Lashkar-e-Toiba.

An official said UK National Terrorist Financial Investigation Unit authorities asked them to carry out ‘discreet enquiries’ about large sums of money being transferred by charities to accounts in Pakistan.

Source: New Indian Express
http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems. ... tle=Top+Stories&Topic=420

The hypocrisy of Muslims is overwhelming. On one hand, they violently protest against cartoons that dipict Mohammad. On the other hand, they have no qualms in destroying religious structures of other religions since the very birth of Islam.

Pakistan had apparently protested the Taliban's destruction of the priceless Bamiyan Buddhas. But behind the facade, they had actually assisted in destroying for eternity.

The perfidity is unbelievable!

Swiss documentary on Afghanistan: Pakistani, Saudi engineers helped destroy Buddhas

WASHINGTON: The Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan were destroyed by the Taliban with the help of Pakistani and Saudi engineers.

According to an account published here on Saturday, a local Afghan told the makers of a Swiss documentary on the giant statues which had stood there, carved in the side of a mountain for hundreds of years, had been destroyed by engineers from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. The dynamiting of the statues took place in March 2001. Swiss documentary filmmaker Christian Frei, who has made several documentaries that have won praise at various international film festivals, shot 'The Giant Buddhas' in Afghanistan. The film is due to be shown at the National Gallery of Art in Washington on 26 March.

The Taliban went ahead with the destruction of the giant statues, revered for centuries, because they considered them "offensive to Islam". They ignored appeals from around the world, including UNESCO and an appeal from the then Government of Pakistan, made, it would appear now, more "for the record" than any serious intent to stop the Islamist zealots from destroying what the rest of the world considered mankind's heritage.

Taliban minister of information Qudratullah Jamal said in a statement later, "The destruction work is not as easy as people would think. You can't knock down the statues by dynamite or shelling as both of them have been carved in a cliff. They are firmly attached to the mountain." Museums and governments around the world kept hoping until the end that the Taliban would desist from committing what the rest of the world saw as an act of "cultural sacrilege" but they were adamant in their resolve.

A delegation from the Organisation of the Islamic Conference went to Kandahar to urge the Taliban leaders to change their mind, but was turned down. The Taliban information minister was quoted at the time as saying, "We would repeat to them as we have to other delegations that we are not going to back away from the edict, and that no statues in Afghanistan will be spared." UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan also urged the Taliban not to go ahead but was rebuffed. Koichiro Matsuura, the head UNESCO, said the agency would continue efforts to salvage other Afghan relics targeted for destruction. "It is abominable to witness the cold and calculated destruction of cultural properties which were the heritage of the Afghan people, and, indeed, of the whole of humanity," he said in a statement. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak dispatched the Grand Mufti of Egypt to Afghanistan to plead with the Taliban rulers to spare the statues but his emissary had no success either. Zahi Hawas, the man in charge of the plateau holding the great pyramids outside Cairo, said at the time, "They are making bad publicity about Islam - and Islam has nothing to do with what is happening in Afghanistan."

Xuanzang, a 7th century Chinese monk, pilgrim and chronicler, travelled to Bamiyan and wrote a graphic description of the statues. He even mentioned a giant "sleeping Buddha" in the area, but no trace has been found of that in modern times

Abdel Karim Suliman who was featured here earlier has been expelled from his university for expressing his views on his blog.

And when everybody wonders why aren't we hearing the moderates in the Islamic world speak out!

Abdel Karim Suliman, the Egyptian blogger who was arrested then released for his controversial views, was expelled from his university Al Azhar.

Abdel Karim Nabil Suliman [AKA: Kareem Amer] is a 22 year-old Egyptian student of law at the Azhar University in Egypt (Largest Islamic University in Egypt and the Islamic world), Damanhour Campus, and a women-rights activist. He also maintains his own blog where he posts articles expressing his views on the need for political reform as well as reforming Islam.

On Wednesday March 15th, 2006 Karim wrote on his blog under the “Events of Al Azhar Inquisition” saying:“Yesterday, I went to my college in Damanhour to attend the disciplinary council I was referred to because of my views and articles that I post online, the accusations ranged from defaming Islam to atheism to libel against the grand Imam of Al Azhar and some of the university scholarsKarim adds: (They simply turned criticism into libel and defamation, they considered the criticism of terrorist teachings as a derogatory act against religion), Karim went on to say ”

“ I did not try to deny the writing of these articles that they took as an incriminating evidence, but rather I insisted that they are my personal product despite their warnings that by admitting so, I might face many consequences”

On March 17th, 2006 the semi- official Algomhuria Egyptian newspaper published the following:“Professor Hamdi Shalany, PHD., Dean of the School of Islamic Sharia and Law in Damanhour decided to expel the student Abdel Karim Nabil Suliman for perpetrating acts and writings that defames religion in addition to defamation and libel against the grand Imam of Al Azhar The disciplinary council has submitted a copy of the investigation documents for public prosecution”.

Vrinda Karat, the Commie Henchwoman had accused Swami Ramdev of using human and animal parts in his ayurvedic preparations.

BBC reports:

A leading Indian yoga guru has been cleared of mixing human bones and animal parts in his medicines.

Uttaranchal state Health Minister Tilak Raj Behad told the BBC Swami Ramdev's medicines contained no objectionable ingredients and were purely herbal.

He said four samples of medicines were sent to Shriram Institute of Industrial Research in Delhi, which is recognised by the Indian government.

Swami Ramdev had described the allegations as a conspiracy.

Bone powder

The institute submitted its report last week after testing the samples.

The state government had set up an enquiry into the charges made against Swami Ramdev by Vrinda Karat, a leader of the Communist Party of India.

The BBC's Shalini Joshi in Dehradun, the Uttaranchal state capital, says Swami Ramdev's popular yoga classes are watched in hundreds of thousands of Indian homes every day.

Ms Karat alleged that ayurvedic medicines from his Haridwar-based pharmacy contained human bone powder and animal parts.

Church of England apologises for slave trade

LONDON: Almost 200 years after slave trade was abolished, the Church of England has admitted its complicity in the trade and apologised to the descendants of the slaves, some of whom also hailed from India.

The church profited from the trade - it owned a slave plantation in the West Indies while several bishops had owned hundreds of slaves.

The General Synod of the church admitted its complicity in the trade at a meeting on Wednesday.

During an emotional debate, the General Synod voted unanimously to tender an apology to descendants of the slaves. The slave trade included people from eastern Uttar Pradesh and other parts of India.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, urged the Church to share the "shame and sinfulness of our predecessors".

The Church's missionary arm, the Society for the Propagation of the Faith in Foreign Parts, owned the Codrington plantation in the Barbados island and slaves had the word "Society" branded on their chests with a red-hot iron.

One archbishop, the Most Rev Thomas Secker, wrote to a fellow bishop in 1760: "I have long wondered and lamented that the Negroes in our plantation decrease and new supplies become necessary continually.
"Surely this proceeds from some defect, both of humanity and even of good policy. But we must take things as they are at present."

According to The Telegraph, the bishop of Exeter and three business colleagues were paid nearly 13,000 pounds to compensate them for the loss of 665 slaves in 1833.

The Rev Simon Bessant, of Blackburn, told the Synod: "We were at the heart of it; we were directly responsible for what happened." He said that, despite the efforts of Anglican reformers such as William Wilberforce, the Church was "part of the problem as well as part of the solution".

Bessant amended a motion by the Bishop of Southwark, the Right Reverend Tom Butler, urging the Church to mark the bicentennial next year of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in 1807.

Bishop Butler said that a Synod apology could result in the Church becoming the "national scapegoat" for slavery when the whole country should share the guilt.

But the amendment was supported by speaker after speaker, including Williams and the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu. Williams said the apology was not political correctness but "necessary".

In an article that overtly smacks of raw bias, Kanupriya Vashisht whines about the recent California Textbooks Issue.

She starts the article by clearing up how objective she is by potraying the organisations that fought for a decent potrayal of Hinduism in California's School Books by calling them, 'Hydra Headed Hindutva' groups.

She goes on to sing some paeons about the 'secular' camp..

The rival group, led by Michael Witzel, an American professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University, had the support of a number of academicians including Indian historians Romilla Thapar, DN Jha and Shereen Ratnagar. (http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/witzelletter.pdf)

The important point to note is that she gives a hyperlink to the letter Witzel wrote while she does not mention any of the many sites on which the Hindu view is presented.

Also, she tries to shore up the 'secular' camp by mentioning its biggies, Romilla Thapar, Jha and others as if this association itself is enough to deem their mission as the justified one..

On the other hand, the Hindu group has a vast array of intellectuals, professors and educationists, not to mention that they are all practicing Hindus as well as a few Scholars of Hinduism. This is conveniently hidden.

If somebody should talk on behalf of Hinduism, they are labed as hydras and hindutva-vadis. This label has become a convenient whip to lash out at anybody who dares to question the leftist brigade.

About 50 international scholars specializing in the study of Indian history and culture endorsed the letter of Prof Witzel.

What? Where is the proof? What a caveat meant to mislead the people!

In some cases, the changes suggested and approved by the groups tended to show a sanitized version of ancient Indian history and to depict Hinduism as a religion without any reference to its caste system

This paragraph shows that the author has absolutely no idea what the issue is about. It is about Hindus wanting a voice in matters which talk about them, their heritage and religion. Is that too much to ask?

Also, the issues were about gross misunderstandings about Hinduism that is already present in the US. This present attempt was made to rectify many of them.

When ever Hinduism was talked about, the caste and Sati (suttee) is invariably dragged in. Do we talk about Hitler and Crusades in lessons about Christianity? about Witch Hunts and the Inquisition? or do we talk about the Millions massacred by Timur Lane when he sacked Delhi and claimed it for Islam?

The revisionists wanted the following reference to the Ramayana, "One of the most famous Hindu stories is the Ramayana. The Ramayana tells about life in ancient India and offers models in dharma", changed to: "One of the most famous Hindu scriptures is the Ramayana. The Ramayana describes the divine actions of Bhagwan Ram when he appeared in ancient India. Through His righteous living He set an example of how to live by dharm."

What is wrong about that?
Isn't that what Ramayana is about? Rama?
Is it just about being a famous story that tells about life in ancient India? What is Ramayana without Rama?
Of course Ramayana describes the divine actions of Lord Rama. Is that wrong?

Patterico unleashes a devastating article, the third in a series, where he thoroughly fact-checks and exposes evident bias, parochial prejudices and third grade journalism in the editorials and reportorials of Los Angeles Times newspaper in 2005.

The charges are neatly summed and filed up under various topics with clear hyperlinks to the original articles.

Indian Blogosphere is grossly engaged in writing about baby diapers and cheesy comments. It is high time sensible writers from the Nation heed the call and get down to serious critique business.

Welcome 2006!
This Pongal and start of the 'Thai' Month, I am shifting to Hyderabad to join office at a Life Sciences Company where I will be heading the Clinical Research Department responsible for Clinical Trials.

Wish me luck!

Generations of Doctors of Free India in Bihar have been filling in an archiac document wherein the applicant declares that he/she has not been, at any time, 'pronounced unfit for government employment by the medical board at the India Office in England or any other duly constituted medical authority'... and nobody bothered to do anything about it.

To blame all the woes of Bihar on Lalu seems superficial!

Link: Hindustan Times

What does a neophyte who has just discovered the web do?
He would sign up with every free E-mail provider encountered, create a multiple accounts with every site that offers webspace or blog hosting and so on.. What happens when an organisation 'discovers' about virtual servers, sub-domains and other TLDs?

Those at IIPM have laboured and worked themselves into a domain registering, cum website proliferating frenzy! Yet another example of megalomaniac tendency of IIPM to over-state facts and exaggerate to the point of nausea!

Armed with a dirt cheap reseller accounts at technolozy.com (yes, its Hinglish!) and thewebhostingpeople.com running on a windoze IIS 6.0 box, Arundam Chaudauri's fantastic web-mastering team has worked overtime to come up with dozens of sites with almost nil or redundant content, each cross linking each other in a quest to get high page ranks on google - Google spamming at its best! [Puneet had reported on IIPM's google spamming in his Oct. 14 Article together with screenshots and under the hood examinations]

The motive behind this might be to flood google with IIPM friendly sites, or it might be a novel way of damage control - Google's listings for IIPM key word is filled with links to the Blogosphere commenting on IIPM-Sabnis/Rashmi Legal threats fiasco - that the *clever* management at IIPM could have brainstormed a plan to equally drench the net with sites extolling the Institute's virtual virtues!

Thus they have a series of sub-domains of the following pattern, 'www.newsx.iipm.edu' where x is a number... these sub-domain sites host a piece of PR advertorials IIPM has managed to book in various periodicals and dailies.

For the record, as of today, here is a list of IIPM sprawn sites:

1. www.iipm.edu


2. www.iipm.us


3. www.chennai.iipm.edu


4. www.iipm.ind.in


5. www.pune.iipm.edu


6. www.iipmpublications.com


7. www.bangalore.iipm.edu


8. www.iipm-iipm.co.in


9. www.iipm.info


10. www.iipm-business-school.org


11. www.iipm-business-management-institute.biz


12. www.iipm-iipm.info


13. www.iipm-iipm.com


14. www.iipm-india.us


15. www.iipm-iipm.info


16. www.iipm-india.us


17. www.news.iipm.edu


18. www.chennai.iipm.us


19. www.bangalore.iipm.info


20. www.arindamchaudhuri.iipm.edu


21. www.planmanlife.com

The News Series sites are around 19 and counting.. they start as:
www.news1.iipm.edu
www.news2.iipm.edu
www.news3.iipm.edu
www.news4.iipm.edu
--- all the way to 19 ------
www.news18.iipm.edu
www.news19.iipm.edu

Phew!

Note: www.iipminfotech.com is not affiliated to Arindam's IIPM, but rather to Indian Institute of IProject Management, Chennai

Bring back the Suttee!

Bring back the tradition of burning widows along with their deceased husbands on the funeral pyre.

That would satisfy the insatiable taste of India bound western journalists who fantasize, mentally masturbate at the prospect and excitement of witnessing such an event and write about it, in many words and descriptions, together with flowery narrations of the scene and background, the colors and pagan rites, sounds and hymns, emotions and wailings, the prelude and aftermath, setting a grim deceiving tone to qualify the mood, and then increase the frenzy of the narration like a symphony note spiraling up to a sharp shrill octave, interspersed with silent pontifications from a 'humane' viewpoint of which the western civilization believes to have a monopoly - thus deriving the moral authority to judge other supposedly lower cultures, to end in a climax of a memorable quote, one that is bound to make an impact - a lasting one... ... to later stand triumphant under the warm limelight, bowing to accolades and standing ovation for sensitive, remarkably life-like reporting.

For the pleasure of these journalists and sensation-seeking photo-reporters, bring it all back. Let them have the real thing. Though they don't tire of finding the crappiest excuse or pretext to bring it up and mention it., give them the real deal. Give them a Sattee. The agony of death by fire is far tamer than the pangs of pain from the fire of temptation to write about Sattee that rages in the hearts of those like Andrea Bruce. They are forced to write about it partially out of the conditioning they undergo at the altars of western liberal education and partially out of lust for the rewards of writing on these topics.

Andrea Bruce does it so flawlessly : Quote: The subject matter was about the Widows of Varanasi - well selected - a leaf out of the 'Water' movie where Deepa Mehta hiding from behind a facade of artistic prerogative succeeded to profit immensely both in terms of millions of dollars as well as popularity and orgasmic praises, from her carefully orchestrated film with dramatic, touching and shocking images of the hardships of Indian widowhood. It was as good as pimping those very widows - that would have only been a desecration of their physical self, while this newer digital avatar of pimping is by capturing their aged bodies draped with old cotton cloth meant to hide their modesty on film for millions to watch who would pay and praise the film-maker, silently abusing the widow's rights to privacy and self-respect, selling their pity, secretly reveling in the opportunity of a good story, and taking advantage of their sorrows. Deepa Mehta would talk about her own freedom of expression, but its raging silence when asked about the real impact if any on the Widows on whom the film is based. Is there a doubt as to who really benefitted from that film? Today, Andrea Bruce has earned her monthly salary out of this very sort of pimping she calls Photo-journalism.

The motivation is weakly artistic, rather overtly to quench the thirst of self-importance while satisfying the hunger of their readers/patrons for their daily emotional and curiosity fixes.

From where she prays on the Ganges River, Mahum is aware of the fires and smells of Harishchandra Ghat cremation grounds, where her husband was cremated 17 years ago. Widows are expected to devote the remainder of their lives to the memory of their husbands.
By the third morning, Mahum welcomed me by putting her cool hand on my cheek. This is the feeling I think most of us photographers yearn for -- to be invisible and accepted at the same time.

Mahum: Does she realise that she is being paraded before the whole world in all her pitiable condition? Did she know that her story wins thousands of dollars in salary for the deceptively sympathetic listenerwho seemed to lend her a compassionate ear and heard her out? Can she be told that she was approached not out of pity, but to obtain a character for their story? How will she feel if she learns that her narration matters more than herself? That she is just a faceless source for a creative storyline?

Sattee is but forgotten in India, rare as it is, and well condemned by all. But Andrea sees the connection and relevance. Widows? Oh Sattee!! How can she not give in into the temptation of mentioning this word in the context of widows? After all it is the mystical India - the nation of unwashed pagans she is covering and Sattee is at the top of the list of words a western journalist dreams to mention! Although long defunct, they beat the drums of Sattee to keep it alive for the western audience. It is an unparalled attention winner, a word that conjures up mental images of uncivilized brutality so characteristic of the old world surviving civilizations such as India.

Now, thanks to the Water film of Deepa Mehta, Widows of Varanasi will become a perpetual topic for western journalists to write about. The widows have just earned the honour of mention in the 'Must Write' list of Western Journalism.

Women were hunted down as witches and burned at the stake in the West around the same time when proud and brave Rajput women of besieged towns sent their warrior husbands, brothers and fathers to a sure death war and committed their own bodies to the Fire to destroytheir bodies into ashes preventing the Moslem invading hordes from hunting for their dead bodies to rape. That too was Sattee.

Anyway, we had Francois Gautier telling us way back in January 2000 in his article, 'India's Foreign Observers (Hinduism Today Magazine)

Foreign journalists and photographers covering India are generally interested in three kinds of India. First is the macabre and the negative: the widows of Benares, the caste system as practiced in Bihar, the rat temple, kidney traffic in Tamil Nadu, the slums of Calcutta, bride burning, etc. These subjects have their own truth and there do exist terrible slums, unacceptable exploitation of caste, dying people left unattended and bride burning. But by harping only on these topics, the foreign press always presents a strangely and unjustly negative image of India.

The second reporters' India is that of folklore/myth and the superfluous: Maharajas, whom Westerners are charmed by, although they are mostly irrelevant to modern India; festivals, the camel fair, kumbha melas, dance performances in Khajuraho. All these have their own beauties, but they represent only a small part of this great and vast country.

The third is the politically correct. If you give the 300 foreign correspondents posted in Delhi a subject to write about--any subject--say Ayodhya, the RSS, fanatic Hindus, secularism or recent elections, you will get 298 articles which will say more or less the same thing. This is not to say that there are no sincere Western journalists who write serious stories which do homage to India's greatness and immense culture, but they are rare. And at the end, the result is more or less the same: a downgrading of India, a constant harping on an anti-Christian "Hindu fundamentalism," conveniently forgetting to mention that Christians have found refuge in this country for 2,000 years and have often taken advantage of this Hindu tolerance.

'.

The Horse says:

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Digital Rights Management is clearly the 21st century analog of Chastity belts. Among many heroes who currenly are engaged in a battle for user's rights over purchased media, Jon Lech Johansen is most notable. He has been described as Hollywood's nemesis for his contribution to cracking software that help users copy their DVDs.

He posts regularly on his blog, 'So sue me' where he discuss his exploits and opinions. Lately he has posted more musings on 'Apple' category (abut 26) then on any other topic.

Post Gazette recenly ran an article on him.

Jon Lech Johansen dropped out of high school after just one year. He lives alone most of the time, except when he stays with his parents in his native Norway. The 21-year-old doesn't drive, rarely goes to parties and says he has no close friends, except his father. He spends about nine hours a day in front of his computer screen.

Yet this reclusive young Norwegian is the man who may be the entertainment industry's worst nightmare. Mr. Johansen, Hollywood executives claim, has done more than almost anyone in the world to ignite the explosion of movie piracy on the Internet, costing them billions of dollars in lost sales. He scoffs at that.

At the age of 15, Mr. Johansen wrote a computer program that allowed users to copy DVDs. Then he posted it on the Internet. A Norwegian private school awarded him a prize for making an outstanding contribution to society. The Norwegian government indicted him.

O'Reilly is one word that one can almost expect to hear in response to any question on computers, languages and obscure technologies, just as we now are used to the all obvious answer, "google it! n00b!".

Tim O'Reilly is the personality behind that phenomenon that saw thousands of manuals, books, guides, how-to's, reports on every possible title being printed and reached to the hands of those who wanted to learn them.

Wired ran a very interesting behind the facade profile of this great man.

His own Blog has many interesting study material

Here, he expresses his views on piracy and P2P networks.

His views are fresh, frank and authoritative.

Jagan.

Most would at once connect Anarchism with total rejection of any authority.
It would be surprising to many that there is such as thing as 'religious ararchism'.
In Christianity, Leo Tostoy would easily be the forerunner of a Chiristian version of Anarchy with pacifism as one of the creeds.

But, Hinduism boasts the most ancient ties to Anarchist thought although it is barely understood by scholars. It is hardly visibile or discussed, nor written about and researched. Yet the threads of anarchism are well entrenched in the philosophy abeit in a very complex manner.

Hindu Anarchism is a topic of much interest and personal indulgence for me. One day, I plan to write a Hindu Anarchist Charter outline the cause for further research and publicity on this aspect of Hinduism.

I am putting this thought down in my Blog as a promise to myself and as an impetus for further study of relavent scriptures on which I may base my Charter.

Jagan.