Look and Gaze

Nepali Congress' search for its estranged roots in Madhes

Round the bend

The first thing the NC needs to do is to realise that there is a serious problem with exclusion in Madhes

[Published originally in The Kathmandu Post, April 9, 2012]

The Nepali Congress (NC) was born and baptised in the Madhes. Many NC leaders have no qualm about stating this fact. But around six decades after its birth, the grand old party has gone back to the southern plain in search of its estranged roots, so that it could regain the glory and popular support it has lost to other parties.

After some rounds of meetings and rallies mainly in the Eastern Tarai, the NC leaders have lately realised that the Madhes has distanced itself too far to come back to NC’s fold easily. And there are some flaws, which the leaders in Madhes have pointed out, the party needs to urgently correct, or else it will continue to lose support the region.

Some NC leaders have realised it’s time for the party to came up with a uniform Madhes policy to clear some of the confusions created by its hitherto ambiguous position on major issues of the region. Among them is its indecision over the mapping of federal states, longstanding apathy towards the Madhes’ demand for inclusion in all state organs, including the security forces (especially the Nepal Army), the bureaucracy, and the judiciary.

The Madhesi leaders in the party know NC lost its support in Madhes when its leadership failed to address the aspirations of the southern plains after restoration of democracy in 1990. The pent-up frustrations erupted in the form of Madhes Aandolan in 2008 followed by an avalanche of senior Madhesi leaders from NC’s core team migrating to smaller regional parties. Among the leaders defecting NC were Mahanta Thakur, who formed Tarai Madhes Lokatantri Party and Bijaya Kumar Gachhadar and JP Gupta, who joined and later broke up Upendra Yadav’s Madhesi Janadhikar Forum. These are just a few names. Along with them, the leaders took away their fans and followers at the grassroots level.

NC leaders now realise the ongoing Madhes campaign came too late to control the damage. “This should have been done years ago, may be in 2008 when Girija Prasad Koirala opened up and signed the deal with Madhesi leaders for federalism,” says Mahendra Yadav, a leader from Madhes close to Sher Bahadur Deuba.

The longstanding lack of clarity on federalism is another factor that is going to cost the party high. As a result of absence of firm party position, NC leaders have been making conflicting remarks on federalism publicly.

Last Tuesday, NC President Sushil Koirala remarked out of the blue that he still wanted to see a north-south division of federal provinces, an idea which irks Madhesis across the party line. It triggered a flurry of reactions among the Madhesi leaders. Upendra Yadav the next day dubbed the idea “a new form of Mahendra’s nationalism.”

Koirala’s advocacy for the north-south model was understood as one going against the Madhesi demand for two or one Madhes states exclusively in the Tarai. It was all the more an ‘embarrassment’ as many considered it as an uncalled-for statement in Janakpur where the party was out in a campaign to consolidate Madhesi support. Koirala apparently meant to stress that the federal delineation of states should make it possible for each province to touch the international borders in the north and the south so that they could benefit from two of the world’s fastest growing economies.

The second front where NC leadership failed is in providing ample space for the able and budding Madhesi leaders within the party. This is an area where the party needs to work really hard. For instance, when the NC is out campaigning in Madhes, Bimelendra Nidhi, one of the key pillars representing Madhes in the party, is conspicuously absent. Either he is out in a foreign junket or sent to some hill district programmes. Many say his noninvolvement stems from his ‘frustration’ with the party leadership. Nidhi himself does not want to comment. “This is something the party’s senior

leaders have to think,” says Nidhi in response, “I am assigned to hill districts instead of Madhes.”

In its early stages when the struggle for democracy was gaining momentum under BP Koirala’s leadership, Madhes was the centerpiece of party’s politics and there was a good representation of Madhesi leaders in the party. There were active leaders—like Mahendra Narayan Nidi, Seikh Idrish, Durga Narayan Jha, Ram Narayan Mishra, Atmaram Ojha, Rameshowr Singh, Bhagwat Yadav, Saroj Prasad Koirala—who continued to maintain the party’s hold in Madhes. “Now in the name of factionalism and nepotism, the party is sidelining the real Madhesi leaders,” says Yadav. “Leaders like Mahanta Thakur defected the party when the party pushed Sujata Koirala in the districts where his command would have been better.”

The prospects for the NC in Madhes, however, are not over. As a national party, the NC could claim to have greater leverage in successfully addressing the Madhes issues at a time the ever-splitting Madhesi parties and the Morcha stand on shaky grounds.

In the short run, the party should do something concrete, which could create a positive environment to make the people in Madhes believe the NC is their party too. According to Shekhar Koirala, an influential NC leader who has closely observed the dynamics in Tarai, the first thing the NC needs to do is to realise that there is a serious problem with exclusion. As Koirala says, “Once the NC realizes this, it will automatically be reflected in the party’s actions, decisions and policies. The NC should face the fact that it has wounded the Madhes—and it should try to heal that as early as possible.”

[Originally published at The Kathmandu Post, April 9, 2012]

2012: Beginning of the End or Why the World Won't End?

Remember the Y2K scare? It came and went without much of a whimper because of adequate planning and analysis of the situation. Impressive movie special effects aside, Dec. 21, 2012, won't be the end of the world as we know. It will, however, be another winter solstice.

Much like Y2K, 2012 has been analyzed and the science of the end of the Earth thoroughly studied. Contrary to some of the common beliefs out there, the science behind the end of the world quickly unravels when pinned down to the 2012 timeline. Below, NASA Scientists answer several questions that we're frequently asked regarding 2012.

Question (Q): Are there any threats to the Earth in 2012? Many Internet websites say the world will end in December 2012.
Answer (A): Nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012. Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012.

Q: What is the origin of the prediction that the world will end in 2012?
A: The story started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth. This catastrophe was initially predicted for May 2003, but when nothing happened the doomsday date was moved forward to December 2012. Then these two fables were linked to the end of one of the cycles in the ancient Mayan calendar at the winter solstice in 2012 -- hence the predicted doomsday date of December 21, 2012.

Q: Does the Mayan calendar end in December 2012?
A: Just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012. This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period but then -- just as your calendar begins again on January 1 -- another long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar.

Q: Could phenomena occur where planets align in a way that impacts Earth?
A: There are no planetary alignments in the next few decades, Earth will not cross the galactic plane in 2012, and even if these alignments were to occur, their effects on the Earth would be negligible. Each December the Earth and sun align with the approximate center of the Milky Way Galaxy but that is an annual event of no consequence.
› More about alignment

"There apparently is a great deal of interest in celestial bodies, and their locations and trajectories at the end of the calendar year 2012. Now, I for one love a good book or movie as much as the next guy. But the stuff flying around through cyberspace, TV and the movies is not based on science. There is even a fake NASA news release out there..."
- Don Yeomans, NASA senior research scientistQ: Is there a planet or brown dwarf called Nibiru or Planet X or Eris that is approaching the Earth and threatening our planet with widespread destruction?
A: Nibiru and other stories about wayward planets are an Internet hoax. There is no factual basis for these claims. If Nibiru or Planet X were real and headed for an encounter with the Earth in 2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye. Obviously, it does not exist. Eris is real, but it is a dwarf planet similar to Pluto that will remain in the outer solar system; the closest it can come to Earth is about 4 billion miles.

Q: What is the polar shift theory? Is it true that the earth’s crust does a 180-degree rotation around the core in a matter of days if not hours?
A: A reversal in the rotation of Earth is impossible. There are slow movements of the continents (for example Antarctica was near the equator hundreds of millions of years ago), but that is irrelevant to claims of reversal of the rotational poles. However, many of the disaster websites pull a bait-and-switch to fool people. They claim a relationship between the rotation and the magnetic polarity of Earth, which does change irregularly, with a magnetic reversal taking place every 400,000 years on average. As far as we know, such a magnetic reversal doesn’t cause any harm to life on Earth. A magnetic reversal is very unlikely to happen in the next few millennia, anyway.
› More about polar shift

Earth, as seen in the Blue Marble: Next Generation collection of images, showing the color of the planet's surface in high resolution. This image shows South America from September 2004.Q: Is the Earth in danger of being hit by a meteor in 2012?
A: The Earth has always been subject to impacts by comets and asteroids, although big hits are very rare. The last big impact was 65 million years ago, and that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Today NASA astronomers are carrying out a survey called the Spaceguard Survey to find any large near-Earth asteroids long before they hit. We have already determined that there are no threatening asteroids as large as the one that killed the dinosaurs. All this work is done openly with the discoveries posted every day on the NASA NEO Program Office website, so you can see for yourself that nothing is predicted to hit in 2012.

Q: How do NASA scientists feel about claims of pending doomsday?
A: For any claims of disaster or dramatic changes in 2012, where is the science? Where is the evidence? There is none, and for all the fictional assertions, whether they are made in books, movies, documentaries or over the Internet, we cannot change that simple fact. There is no credible evidence for any of the assertions made in support of unusual events taking place in December 2012.
› Why you need not fear a supernova
› About super volcanoes

Q: Is there a danger from giant solar storms predicted for 2012?
A: Solar activity has a regular cycle, with peaks approximately every 11 years. Near these activity peaks, solar flares can cause some interruption of satellite communications, although engineers are learning how to build electronics that are protected against most solar storms. But there is no special risk associated with 2012. The next solar maximum will occur in the 2012-2014 time frame and is predicted to be an average solar cycle, no different than previous cycles throughout history.
› More about solar storms

Addition information concerning 2012 is available on the Web, at:

· NASA Astrobiology Institute: "Nibiru and Doomsday 2012"

· Bad Astronomy: "The Planet X Saga: The Scientific Arguments in a Nutshell"

· Sky and Telescope Magazine: "2012: The Great Scare"

[From: Nasa.gov]

Is the world really going to end on December 21 2012?

By: John

Is the world really going to end on December 21 2012? That is perhaps the most frequently asked question I receive from visitors to my websitewww.December212012.com. The short answer is most likely no. We as human beings have no possible way of knowing when and how our planet will end. However, we are smart enough and intuitive enough to know when sure and imminent danger is near, and we must be willing to recognize and react to signs of coming change. More importantly we must realize that our entire universe along with our very existence runs in cycles, and evidence of these cycles has been scientifically proven and their recurrence is inevitable. Based on my research and studies into the many theories, prophecies, predictions and facts surrounding 2012, I have come to realize that our world is not set to completely end anytime soon. However, we can be certain that some very dramatic and devastating changes are coming, and these changes will most definitely represent the end of the world “AS WE KNOW IT”.

We are currently and unquestionably immersed in the final years of a thirteen-year global tribulation that began on the winter solstice 1999 and will reach its ultimate conclusion on December 21 2012. During this period of unrest and uncertainty we will become witnesses to a gathering storm of events that will slowly and systematically redefine our existence on this planet. These events will come in the form of both natural and manmade disasters as well as social, economic and religious upheavals, and will most definitely effect every living being on the planet. When featured on the local, network and cable news outlets, these events will be described in terms such as “never before seen”, “worst on record”, “apocalyptic” and yes, “the end of the world”.

As the days continue to countdown to Dec. 21 2012, we will begin to experience a number of natural disasters and unprecedented weather events such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, droughts and many other extraordinary life threatening natural events. Although our planet has always experienced nature’s destructive wrath in one form or another, these disasters will become increasingly more frequent and significantly more intense then any we have ever experienced. Along with the increased property damage and economic losses associated with these disasters, the lose of human life will increase exponentially. As these extreme weather events continue to develop, they will help to significantly increase global famine, disease, pandemics and many other forms of human suffering. Massive floods will devastate, extreme heat will decimate and intense fires will incinerate the very ground on which we stand. Tornadoes will strike in uncommon places and at uncommon times of the year. Severe thunderstorms with intense lighting and uncommonly strong winds will become more prevalent, and the earth will rumble with unusual and unidentifiable sounds of stress.

In addition to natural disasters, mankind itself will initiate its own near destruction through the use of social, economic, chemical, biological and nuclear warfare. In a push for power and global domination you will begin to see the world governments respond to perceived threats from other nations with unprecedented force and extreme violence. This continuing show of force will undoubtably lead to a third world war and sure nuclear destruction of many highly populated regions. Many wars will be waged in the name of religion and ethnic cleansing, while others will be initiated to spawn a perceived one-world government to oversee a desired new world order. We will continue to be subjected to both petty and potentially life-altering laws, rules, regulations and religious initiatives designs to keep us preoccupied with day-to-day social, economic and health related issues. Our continuing insecurities will be intensified by an unscrupulous power base of leaders whose primary goal is to deliberately instill near chaos in the form of social and economic unrest. This continuing unrest will be artificially and irrevocably addressed through the implementation of ever increasing taxes, diminished human rights and a desire to keep us in perpetual debt and in a constant state of insured domestic poverty an insecurity.

All of the life threatening, human suffering and earth changing events that are and will continue to take place throughout the tribulation are simply a prelude to a much larger human and planetary disaster. These events in their entirety should and will serve as a preemptive warning of a single global catastrophic event expected to take place at exactly 11:11 GMT on December 21 2012. Science has made reference to a number of possible devastating earthly events such as a Yellowstone super volcanic eruption or a polar shift that could take place in a matter of moments. Other dangers from the sky such as enormous asteroids, increased and violent solar activity, the emergence of Planet X or Nibiru, and the possible devastating effects of a planetary alignment have been well documented and studied by scientists around the world. All of these scenarios have been proven viable and very relevant to the times in which we live. Any one of these events or a combination of many would bring unprecedented global destruction. Human life would dramatically be effected and millions, even billions will die. Although no one knows exactly what this coming catastrophe might bring, we can be sure that the outcome will be dire.

The coming global cataclysm is in no way unique to our existence on this earth. As part of a universal cycle of near destruction, our planet and its population has experienced some form of renewal many times before, and it appears we are in line to witness this extraordinary event once again. The coming event is very real and has been foreseen and foretold by most all ancient civilizations and religions throughout the world. Although the basic scenarios and possible implications very, the final outcome remains consistent in all cases. The ancient Mayans and Aztecs refer to this coming event in terms such as the entering of the fifth world or fifth sun. The Hopi Indians call it the great purification. Christianity calls it the Rapture. Islam sees it as the coming of the Mahdi. The Hindus believe we are in the final moments of the Iron Age, which is the last of four periods known as Kali Yuga. Astrologers call it the coming of the Age of Aquarius which is representative of a cleansing of the earth. In addition, interpretations of many ancient and modern day oracles and prophets of doom also see the coming events. The Chinese book of Changes (I-Ching) sees it as the end of history. The Bible Code, The Web Bot Project, Nostradamus and many others also have provided us with the necessary signs of coming devastation. NASA has confirmed increasing solar disturbances that will reach their peek in late 2012, and even Albert Einstein spoke about the possible implications of the coming astronomical anomalies.

We as human beings are instinctually aware of the coming changes. If you haven’t already began to experience it, very soon you, as an individual will begin to notice an increased sense of awareness and understanding of the inevitable. Many attribute this increased awareness to a possible chemical enhancement of human DNA, while other believe these abilities have simply been suppressed and denied over time and are slowly being revealed in order to prepare us for sure and sustainable change. These feeling and signs of utter dread and impending doom will begin to manifest themselves in many ways, and will effect an ever increasing number of people as we get closer to December 21 2012. Some will see this as a spiritual awakening, while other will experience a remarkable ability to foresee coming events through dreams, meditation, moments of déjà vu and gut Instinct. Your individual increased perceptions will be small an insignificant at first and will be dismissed as coincidence or chance. You may for example have a passing thought about an old friend, and that person will contact you. You may briefly think about a song from your past, and that song will play on the radio. You may experience an increased ability to associate particular smells with past events, and many will see a significant reoccurrence of the numbers11:11. As these events become increasingly more common and more relevant, you will come to realize their importance to coming events.

Some people believe that I along with many others are intentionally and deliberately trying to scare people with our web sites, books videos and messages of coming doom, and in many ways they may be right. Much like your local weather person who warns you of possible inclement storms, we are simply trying to inform you that this threat is very real and conditions are right for a global cataclysm that could redefine life, as we know it. However harsh and unsavory you may find this information to be I am confident that the ends will most definitely justify the means and your survival and continuing existence may very well depend on it. You need to look no further then the television network and cable news or newspaper to realize that something very unusual and very unsettling is taking place all around the world. Our social and moral values are in decline. Our global system of socioeconomic stability is failing at an incredible rate. Our political systems have become increasingly more corrupt and self-serving, and people are suffering and dying in unimaginable ways. I encourage you to step back and look beyond your own personal problems and situations and realize that we exist not as individuals, but as a worldwide community who shares one single planet that is in chaos.

The world governments and religious elite are very well aware of what is coming and know that they can not and will not provide protection and support to everyone on the planet. They know we are facing an unimaginable global event that will surpass any and all disasters we have ever experienced. In preparation, bunkers and underground shelters are now being built and stocked with food, water and other survival supplies. Seed banks are being constructed to insure future food availability and publicly financed individuals and organizations are taking the steps necessary to insure that they and a select group of people can and will survive this ordeal. In an attempt to maintain continuos artificial stability and reduce sure and total panic among the general population, entire governments and government-sponsored scientists will become the most adamant critics of the warnings. Many will site Biblical scripture disputing what they do not understand and others will compare 2012 to more recent failed doomsday predictions such as Y2K; knowing full well that this is not a manmade computer glitch, but a real and predictable recurring act of nature. They will insistently deny, discount and discredit the warnings, and will dismiss them as bad science, conspiracy and malicious profiteering.

Despite the lack of official acknowledgment, many are now preparing themselves and their families for the coming disasters, and you may be wise to do the same. This personnel preparation is in large part being done under a vale of secrecy so as to detour those who refused to heed the warnings. You should prepare yourself mentally, physically and spiritually for the coming events, and take the steps necessary to insure your future survival. You should concentrate your efforts on food, water, shelter and personal protection and prepare yourself for prolonged or permanent power outages and limited communication. You need to recognize that currency and traditional means of trade are now and will continue to loose their value, and that your ability to purchase necessary supplies will become limited. Most importantly, you need to enjoy the life you are now living, but prepare yourself for the worst, for the worst is yet to come.

Some scholars have estimated that as many as two thirds of the worlds population may perish as a direct or indirect result of the coming events of December 21 2012 and the thirteen-year tribulation leading up to that date. Our current level of technological advancement could be thrust back hundreds even thousands of years, and the ecological and environmental effects of these events will most definitely prove devastating to the way in which we currently live our lives. Survival will supersede comfort, fear will dominate the living and want, need and hope will dictate our daily existence.

As horrifying and unsettling as all this sounds, it could in many ways be perceived as a good thing for those who survive. December 21 2012 and the years leading up to that date will in many ways represent the storm before the calm, and will dramatically and violently usher in a new era of increased understanding and renewed enlightenment. This new beginning will be met with a new sense of peace and will more widely open our eyes to the true meaning of life. We will enter this new age not only with a complete knowledge of where we have been, but with an increased understanding of where we are going and where we need to be in relationship to the basic truths that will once again redefine our existence. We will be forced by need and necessity to look beyond race and religious differences, greed, hate and social status, and our continuing survival will be rooted in our willingness to honor and respect ourselves, our neighbors, our environment and the powers that be.

No, our world and its population will not come to a complete and final end on December 21 2012. We will however be forced to reevaluate and redefine our lives and our association with our planet. Life will be hard but we can take comfort in knowing that Mother Nature will once again reign supreme in her ability to correct what we have so badly taken for granted.

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John is an independent researcher of the overall implications surrounding the coming events of December 21 2012 and is the publisher of the #1 rated website devoted to the subject,www.December212012.com.

Pleas feel free to reprint and republish this article in its entirety giving proper credit to its author John and associated origin of publication www.December212012.com.

Mobile phone radiation can cause cancer, warns WHO

A review of published evidence suggests there may be some risk of cancer from using a mobile phone

· Ian Sample, science correspondent

· guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 31 May 2011 19.30 BST

Useful Tips:

Always use left ear to answer mobile phone

Discourage taking long mobile phone calls

Switch to land line whenever possible (eg. Redirect at office)

Radiation from mobile phones has been classified as a possible cancerrisk by the World Health Organisation after a major review of the effects of electromagnetic waves on human health.

The declaration was based on evidence in published studies that intensive use of mobile phones might lead to an increased risk of glioma, a malignant form of brain cancer.

The conclusion by the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) applies to radio-frequency electromagnetic radiation in general, though most research in the area has centred on wireless phones.

The findings are the culmination of an IARC meeting during which 31 scientists from 14 countries assessed hundreds of published studies into the potential cancer risks posed by electromagnetic fields. The UK was represented by Simon Mann from the Health Protection Agency's Centre for Radiation, Chemicals and Environmental Hazards in Oxfordshire.

Jonathan Samet, a scientist at the University of Southern California, who chaired the group, said: "The conclusion means that there could be some risk, and therefore we need to keep a close watch for a link between cellphones and cancer."

In designating radio-frequency fields as "possibly carcinogenic", the WHO has put them on a par with around 240 other agents for which evidence of harm is uncertain, including low-level magnetic fields, talcum powder and working in a dry cleaners.

The report found no clear mechanism for the waves to cause brain tumours. Radiation from mobile phones is too weak to cause cancer by breaking DNA, leading scientists to suspect other, more indirect routes.

"We found some threads of evidence telling us how cancers might occur but there are acknowledged gaps and uncertainties," Samet said.

Christopher Wild, director of the IARC, said that in view of the potential implications for public health, there should be more research on long-term, heavy use of mobile phones. "Pending the availability of such information, it is important to take pragmatic measures to reduce exposure such as hands-free devices or texting," he said.

There are around 5bn mobile phone subscriptions globally, according to the International Telecommunication Union, a UN agency for information and communication technologies.

The IARC group reviewed research investigating potential health risks from electromagnetic fields associated with technologies such as radio, television, wireless communications and mobile phones.

The committee decided the fields were possibly carcinogenic to humans, a finding that will feed through to national health agencies in support of their efforts to minimise exposure to cancer-causing factors.

The IARC has evaluated nearly 950 chemicals, physical and biological agents, occupational exposures and lifestyle factors where there is either evidence or suspicion that they may cause cancer.

The report on radio-frequency electromagnetic radiation comes a year after the WHO published its much-delayed Interphone study, which found no solid evidence that mobile phones increase the risk of brain tumours, but pointed to a slightly higher risk among those who used mobile phones the most. The report was held up for several years because scientists failed to agree on its findings and whether to issue a warning about excessive use.

Exposure from a mobile phone base station is typically much lower than from a handset held to the ear, but concerns over the possible health effects of electromagnetic waves have extended to base stations and wireless computer networks, particularly in relation to schools.

According to the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, half of all primary schools and 82% of secondary schools make use of wireless computer networks.

Wi-fi equipment is restricted to a maximum output of 100 milliwatts in Europe at the most popular frequency of 2.4 gigahertz. At that level, exposure to radiowaves should not exceed guideline levels drawn up by the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation and adopted in the UK.

A Health Protection Agency study led by Mann in 2009 found that exposure to radiowaves from wi-fi equipment was well within these guideline levels. (Originally posted at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/may/31/mobile-phone-radiation-cancer-risk)

[From Guarian.co.uk)