March 2016 Archives

Ultra-HD Map of Zika Virus Reveals Important Structural Secrets

An up-close and personal view of the notorious virus has opened up possibilities for future studies and treatment options for the Zika-prone.

A representation of the surface of the Zika virus with protruding envelope glycoproteins (red) shown. Credit: Kuhn and Rossmann research groups, Purdue University

As research teams around the world scramble to make sense of the ongoing Zika outbreak, scientists from Purdue University in the US have made a significant announcement: they have successfully determined a near-atomic level structure of the mature Zika virus.

Their visualisations, described in a paper published on March 31 in the journal Science, reveal that the virus is built similar to other flaviviruses, like that of dengue, but an important difference lies at a site that plays a role in choosing which cells to infect and affects host immune response. “The structure provides a framework for answering both basic questions about virus biology as well as providing a useful tool to developing antivirals and future vaccine studies,” virologist Richard Kuhn, one of the authors of the study, told this correspondent.

Parts of a flavivirus

The viruses that cause Zika fever, dengue fever, yellow fever and West Nile fever all belong to a family called flaviviruses and are transmitted by arthropods like mosquitos and tics. All flaviviruses have genomes that consist of single-stranded RNA molecules (as opposed to human genomes that are made of double-stranded DNA molecules) that encode about 10 proteins.

The RNA strands are about 11,000 nucleotides long and of the positive-sense type, meaning they can skip a step in protein production and so can infect the host faster and more easily. The genome lies in the centre, protected by a layer of capsid proteins. Around the capsid, there is a lipid membrane called the envelope on which float a layer of glycoproteins arranged as an icosahedral shell. A 3D animation of the parts of a dengue virus is available here.

Kuhn and team wanted to examine the structure of the Zika virus closely enough to be able to spot the ways in which it was identical to that of dengue and the ways in which it was not. The latter might explain some of the standout aspects of Zika infection, like why it seems to specially target neurons.

Spotting the differences

For this, they employed a highly advanced technology called cryo-electron microscopy (cryoEM). Here, the viruses are frozen and bombarded with a stream of high-energy electrons. Thousands of resultant 2D images are combined to create high-resolution 3D one. Unlike the powerful X-ray crystallography method, cryoEM is able to image the virus in a liquid solution rather than in crystals, Kuhn pointed out, an important advantage since membrane viruses such as Zika are extremely difficult to crystallise.

The image or ‘map’ that the scientists produced after the process showed that many of the features in Zika were similar to dengue and West Nile viruses – but not all. The most notable difference was observed in the Zika virus’s envelope glycoprotein E. “This region is on a loop on the envelope protein (the very outermost region of the virus) and thus sticks out. This ‘sticking out’ may make it easy to capture hooks that exist on target cells,” said Kuhn, explaining how this may control the virus’s entry.

This is important because the tropism, or the range of host cell types that the Zika virus targets, is still largely a mystery. Understanding such sensitive parts of the viral structure can help figure out if brain cells are especially susceptible as they seem in the light of the growing links between Zika, Guillain-Barré Syndrome and microcephaly.

A worthy approach

“Knowing the structure of the virus and the structure of the proteins that are coded by the viral genome is the best way to design therapeutic molecules against viruses,” said S. Ramaswamy, from the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Bengaluru, about this development. He wasn’t involved in the study. He added that antiviral drugs against the HIV virus had resulted from structure-based strategies.

Ramaswamy also commented on the need for India to quickly invest in cryoEM, a technology he called a ‘game-changer’. “It is important that India be part of the first wave of adaptors of this technology, else we will significantly lag behind in structural biology, an area India has traditionally been strong,” he warned. “What better example of the importance than the quick determination of the structure by this technique of an emerging viral epidemic.”

Photo Gallery: After the Kolkata Tragedy

Swastik Pal captured the aftermath of Thursday’s deadly collapse of an under-construction flyover on Vivekananda Marg, Kolkata.

The under construction Vivekananda road flyover in one of the most congested parts of the city collapsed. The flyover was commissioned in 2007 and was yet to be completed due to land clearance issues. The Vivekananda Road Flyover collapsed at 12.25 pm on Thursday

Right from its inception there was considerable amount of protest as certain sections of this flyover crossed shockingly close to adjacent buildings, with the minimum distance being as less as 3 feet at certain stretches.

Rescue workers have been trying to cut through huge beams of metal to pull out trapped bodies beneath the collapsed flyover.

Local residents in Girish Park area of Kolkata fears hundreds of people and vehicles are still trapped under the debris of the flyover.

The West Bengal Fire and Emergency service rushed to the spot, but couldn’t help much as the scale of the disaster was huge and they had limited resources to cut through the debris.

Scattered water pipes of the West Bengal Fire and Emergency Service

Owing to the immense magnitude of the disaster, eventually the army was called in to assist the rescue operations.

A pigeon sits on the section of the bridge from where the flyover collapsed Thursday afternoon.

The National Disaster Response Force was one of the earliest forces to arrive on the scene. However due to lack of efficient industrial gas cutters they had huge difficulties in cutting through the strong metallic beams.

Three hours after the incident, there is still a lot of confusion regarding rescue operation. Cranes deployed at the site failed owing to the heavy weight of the fallen portion of the bridge.

Three hours after the incident, there was still a lot of confusion regarding rescue operation. Cranes deployed at the site failed owing to the heavy weight of the fallen portion of the bridge.

Rescue operations are currently underway and eyewitnesses at the site fear at least 100 more people could still be trapped inside the rubble.

Rescue operations are currently underway and eyewitnesses at the site fear at least 100 more people could still be trapped under the rubble.

It’s complete chaos for the local residents of the area, with many people trapped in their own houses. All the shops in the vicinity have been shut down as there is still fear of the other hanging section of the bridge falling.

The fallen portion of the Vivekananda road flyover lying eerily close to residential buildings. Several buildings have been evacuated to avoid further casualties.

One of the biggest challenges in the rescue operation is to navigate the cranes and the larger machines through the extremely crowded and narrow lanes of Burrabazar, one of the oldest and busiest parts of Kolkata.

“It is nothing but God’s act,” claimed Panduranga Rao of the Hyderabad-based IVRCL Construction company engaged in the construction of the Vivekananda road flyover. This insensitive response has been roundly condemned.

Government’s Plan to Demolish Iconic Nehru Pavilion Opposed by Heritage Experts

The government’s plans to demolish the Nehru Pavilion and Hall of Nations in Delhi’s Pragati Maidan and build new structures in their place have raised the ire of critics

The Nehru Pavilion at Pragati Maidan which could be demolished

New Delhi: Some of the country’s best known modernist structures in Delhi’s Pragati Maidan are facing a serious threat of demolition and this has raised the hackles of heritage experts and architects. The Indian Trade Promotion Organisation, that comes under the union commerce ministry, has decided to pull down the Nehru Pavilion and the Hall of Nations in order to replace them with a state of the art convention centre.

This is part of a larger plan announced last November to give Pragati Maidan a makeover, the first step of which is to demolish all non air-conditioned halls. The entire project is expected to cost around 3,000 crores.

However, several people, including the architect who designed the structures have raised questions on why buildings of historic significance are being torn down in this manner. The Indian National Trust for Art and Heritage (INTACH) put in a request to stop the process. An online petition to save the buildings has more than 3,000 signatures. Members of the architectural and artistic community have spoken out against the demolitions.

Photographer Ram Rahman told The Wire that efforts are being made to create more awareness about the historic and architectural importance of the spaces. “The Nehru Pavilion is a classic of Indian modern architecture, in two senses. One is the design concept, which was the giant space frame. It was done in 1971, at a time when our resources were quite low. So it was a hugely audacious design, and Mahendra Raj (the engineer for the project) didn’t have enough material to make a building like that. But he managed to engineer it in hand-poured concrete, which was an engineering feat on its own. The building is regarded internationally as a classic of modern design, both in concept and in execution,” Rahman said.

Raj Rewal. Credit: PTI

The architect of the Nehru Pavilion and Hall of Nations, Raj Rewal, described the idea behind the pavilion while speaking to The Wire. “The structure was created to honour a great statesman, not to make a monumental building,” he said. “It is based on a simple Buddhist grass mound stupa. It was also symbolic of Chacha Nehru–children could climb up and down it.

Rewal was awarded the French Legion of Honour for his career in architecture earlier in March. A big book on Mahendra Raj’s work was just released two weeks ago in which the Nehru Pavilion is featured. “It’s ironic that at a time when they’re both gaining recognition, their most famous work together is going to be destroyed by this government,” Rahman said.

These building have received international recognition, Rahman added. “Internationally, a lot of interest has been shown in these buildings recently,” he said. “They were shown in the Pompidou Centre [in Paris] last year, and now the Museum of Modern Art, New York is showing interest in them. They visited in January.”

After their visit, the chief curator of architecture from the Museum of Modern Art wrote to union commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman, asking that the architectural sites be preserved.

MoMA chief curator of architecture’s letter to Nirmala Sitharaman. Source: Facebook/Ram Rahman

The exhibition shown at the Nehru Pavilion is equally historically important, Rahman adds. “The Nehru Pavilion is also a classic because of the exhibition it holds on Nehru which was designed by the great designers Charles and Ray Eames who helped found the National Institute for Design. The making of this exhibition was one of the key steps in the foundation and development of NID as an institution. So destroying that exhibition and building is also, on another level, a terrible destruction of a heritage we should be proud of. That exhibition again has an international reputation.”

Exhibition at Nehru Pavilion designed by Charles and Ray Eames.

Rewal also expressed dismay at the way the structure and exhibition are being maintained. “The upper floor used to have a lot of films and audio visual materials, but that has been totally removed. The ground floor had the original panels designed by the Eames. At some point they whitewashed the whole thing, which has destroyed a bit of the structure and stained some of the panels. It was done very badly and carelessly,” he said. “And now they want to demolish it, which is extremely unfortunate. They should renovate and refurbish it properly. The Nehru Pavilion could also be a standard for future honorary structures, instead of building 400 feet statues. This structure should really be left alone and renovated again, that is my opinion.”

Rahman, Rewal and others plan to continue their efforts to garner public opinion in favour of the buildings and have launched an online and offline campaign to get support.

Kolkata Flyover Collapse is Reminder that India Needs a Comprehensive Strategy for Accident Prevention

India needs to work towards a comprehensive accident-prevention plan, the first step to which is building a reliable information database.

An aerial view of the site where an under-construction flyover collapsed on Vivekananda Road in Kolkata on March 31. Credit: PTI

A flyover being constructed near Girish Park in central Kolkata collapsed on March 31, killing at least four people and injuring dozens. Many people are suspected to be stuck caught under the debris. The flyover was supposed to be completed in 2010 and had missed eight deadlines.

Unfortunately, accidents of this kind are far from rare.

There would be spontaneous public agreement that nothing can be more painful than a child burning to death. World Health Organisation data shockingly reveals that as many as 46,656 children (aged 0-4 years) die in fire accidents worldwide every year. But in several countries, including India, the official data on accidents is considered to be hugely underestimated.

Reducing accidents has the potential to decrease human suffering in a relatively small amount of time. Public support for such efforts can also be easily garnered, since the high incidence of accidents affect people on a daily basis. However, despite the potential, no comprehensive planning and coordination has been taken up yet to reduce accidents in India.

While sporadic efforts have been made to reduce certain kinds of accidents, particularly road accidents, many other kinds of mishaps have been neglected to a shocking extent. In fact, the entire discussion on accidents often takes place in the context of road accidents, even though data from other countries suggests that the number of workplace and domestic mishaps can be several times higher than that of road accidents. While there are different departments working to reduce accidents in their own areas, no efforts have been made yet to coordinate these efforts or prepare a comprehensive plan.

Need for reliable information

The availability of detailed and reliable information is the first step towards building a comprehensive accident-prevention plan. But even at this stage there is much to be desired. There are serious gaps in the data, due to which multidimensional harm and suffering associated with accidents cannot be captured, and a somewhat distorted picture is revealed.

Data from the National Crime Records Bureau for 2014, for instance, tells us that 3,16,800 lives are lost in accidents in one year, out of which 1,69,000 lives are lost in traffic accidents. The number of injuries in accidents is 4,94,000, while the total number of accidents is 6,36,000.

While this data confirms that harm associated with accidents is very high, particularly in terms of the number of deaths, several serious gaps and distortions in the available data need to be pointed out with the aim of making necessary and long overdue improvements.

Those familiar with the impact of accidents are aware of how painful and long lasting serious injuries can be, sometimes even resulting in long-term or permanent disabilities. There is then a clear need to give equal importance to injuries, given that accidents in India are generally discussed only in the context of fatalities.

It is clear that the number of injuries is seriously underestimated in India. While the number of accidents is reported at 6,36,000, the number of injuries in accidents is estimated at 4,94,000. In other words, the number of injuries is estimated to be lower than the total number of accidents, even though it is well known that most accidents result in multiple injuries. In the UK, where accident data is collected more carefully, the number of serious injuries caused by accidents is 50 times more than deaths caused by accidents, whereas in India the number of injuries is estimated to be almost the same as the number of deaths caused by accidents. The number of serious injuries caused by accidents is likely to be about 30 or 40 times the number of fatalities (author’s estimate), although the precise situation can only be revealed with the careful collection of more accurate data.

The overall number of accidents and fatalities is also likely to be higher than the official data. It is well known that many accidents remain unreported in India. At present, the official data reveals that only about 9% of the total number of accident fatalities in the world take place in India (3,10,000 of about 35,00,000), while approximately 16% of the world’s population lives in India. In other words, the accident rate measured in terms of fatalities is significantly lower in India relative to worldwide numbers. However, all other evidence indicates that the accident rate in India is extremely unlikely to be less than the world average. In particular, the probability of occupational accidents in the unorganised sector and domestic accidents going unrecorded is very high.

Recommendations

A proper database needs to be built in order to have a correct appraisal of the number of accidents, as well as related fatalities and injuries. This will help provide a convincing case for significantly increasing financial resources and personnel needed for accident prevention. In addition, more resources are required for providing good, timely medical care to accident victims.

Above all, a national authority should be created to plan for a reduction of all accidents (not just road accidents). This can be a separate authority that cuts across departmental divides, or could also be a sub-authority within the National Disaster Management Authority, with units established at the state and district levels.

If taken up in a well-planned and dedicated manner, this work can help us avoid several hundred thousand deaths and serious injuries in a single year.

Space Junk Didn’t Knock Out Japan’s New Satellite – But it Could Have

The Kessler syndrome has moved on from its humble origins as a radical theory to a real problem with far-reaching consequences.

On March 26, a Japanese satellite named Hitomi stopped communicating, except in sporadic bursts, with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Some 40 minutes after it went silent, the US Joint Space Operations Center detected five unidentified objects around the satellite – thought to be debris. Tracking data also revealed that the satellite had veered off its orbit and was tumbling. While the cause for the mishap remains unclear, many think it’s the result of some kind of internal malfunction. Go Cher Hiang, a satellite project director at the National University of Singapore however thinks, “It could also be from a collision with something in space, either from outer space or a man-made object already in space.” If Go Cher’s conjecture is proven, then the Hitomi mishap will be an unfortunate case highlighting the dangers of space debris.

A seminal paper co-authored by NASA astrophysicist Donald Kessler, published in 1978, outlined that all the junk in space – together with obsolete crafts – accumulated over the years will increase the density of space debris to such an extent that one crash would not only be inevitable but also ultimately deadly. He projected that a single collisions would be able to kick of a chain of further collisions, each singularly catastrophic, exacerbated by the high speeds obtained by debris in orbit around Earth. The end result: a ring of space debris continuously circling the planet, dense and energetic, rendering future satellite launches completely infeasible.

This event, dubbed the Kessler syndrome, was ignored until 2009. Then, two satellites called Iridium 33 and Kosmos-2251 collided at a height of 789 km over Siberia, prompting Kessler himself to admit, “… it’s building up as I expected. The cascade is happening right now”. The collision destroyed both satellites and, by July 2011, had resulted in over 2,000 pieces of debris floating around. The attention paid to such events has since become more keen, with scientists recalling that both the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope have been threatened by space-junk. The threat in the latter case was from a Chinese satellite that had been obliterated by a Chinese rocket, in a demonstration of capabilities that also turned out to be the single largest contribution to space-junk in its history.

A photograph showing light reflected from a piece of space junk going from NE to SW. Credit: lonetown/Flickr, CC BY 2.0

And thus the Kessler syndrome has moved on from its humble origins as a radical theory to a real problem with far-reaching consequences. Its practical realisation refuted NASA’s big-sky theory, which holds that the vastness of space allows it to act as a dumping ground for mission debris. The space agency has since acknowledged the problem that now lies at the doorstep of that vastness. So, what have agencies been doing to keep the problem under control?

In December 2009, NASA and the Defence Advanced Research Project Agency organised the International Conference on Orbital Debris Removal, hoping to draw the attention of scientists and engineers to the space-junk problem and get them to invent new solutions. Studies were commissioned from around the world to investigate which patches and types of debris should be tackled first and how. One concluded that the greatest danger came from medium-sized debris (0.5-10 cm long) even as the smaller objects could be shielded against while the larger ones could be tracked. And how these objects can be removed continues to be a challenge. Jer Chyi Liou, NASA’s chief scientist for orbital debris, has said, “As of today, there is no economically viable or technically feasible method to allow us to do it.” At the same time, he thinks that debris removal is not an immediate problem and can be put off for 10 or 20 years. Obviously, Kessler doesn’t echo this sentiment, and has claimed, “The longer you wait to do this the more expensive it’s going to be … This scenario of increasing space debris will play out even if we don’t put anything else in orbit.”

There are also a few bright spots like the European Space Agency’s CleanSpaceOne project, which aims to ‘capture’ a satellite and bring it into atmospheric reentry, where it will burn up. Another project is DARPA’s Phoenix, which will deploy smaller satellites to raid the larger, defunct ones in orbit for parts.

In an update on March 29, the US military confirmed that Hitomi’s ‘breakage’ debris was not the result of a collision with an external object but most likely due to an internal part failure. Nonetheless, the threat posed by space debris is real and we shouldn’t need another collision to be reminded of it. If it seems difficult to consider the problem on a personal level, get this: in the visually stunning accelerated Kessler syndrome depiction in the 2013 film Gravity, a character quips, “Half of North America just lost their Facebook.” The consequences of the syndrome realised in full glory are far greater – imagine a world without critical weather and climate data, military intelligence and global communication systems, a superset that includes mobile and wireless Internet. Personal enough?

The Legendary Architect Zaha Hadid is No More. Take a Look at the Amazing Buildings She Made.

Her swirling, curved structures made her one of the most sought after contemporary architects.

Zaha Hadid. Credit: Simone Cechhetti/Flickr CC BY 2.0

Pritzker prize winning Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid – arguably the most well-known female architect in the world – died on Thursday of a heart attack. She was 65.

Hadid was born in Baghdad in 1950, and grew up in the city. She moved abroad for college, and then launched her architectural career in London. Hadid’s structures – with their distinctive curves and bulges – are visible across the globe, from Baghdad to Guanzhou to Innsbruck.

By 1979, she had established her own practice in London called ‘Zaha Hadid Architects’. Her reputation was reinforced across the world with ground-breaking work including ‘The Peak’ in Hong Kong (1983), the ‘Kurfürstendamm’ in Berlin (1986) and the ‘Cardiff Bay Opera House’ in Wales (1994). Hadid was the first ever female architect to win the coveted Pritzker prize. She was also the first woman to be awarded the Royal Institute of British Architects’ gold medal in 2016. In addition, she also won the RIBA Stirling prize, among others.

Here’s a look at some of her most iconic structures:

The London Aquatic Centre. Credit: Artur Salisz/Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0

Library and learning centre, Vienna. Credit: Tim Wang/Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Library and learning centre, Vienna. Credit: Wojtek Gurak/Flickr CC 2.0

MAXXI Museum, Rome. Credit: Mariano Mantel/Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0

Galaxy Soho, Beijing. Credit: Bjarke Liboriussen/Flickr CC BY 2.0

Temporary contemporary art container, Tokyo. Credit: Shuets Uduno/Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0

Bridge pavilion, Spain. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Bridge pavilion, Zargoza, Spain. Credit: Juan E De Cristefaro/Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0

Guanzhou Opera House, Guanzhou, China

Gallery: A Journey Through Small Town Bengal, Before it Goes to the Polls

Tanushree Bhasin travels through small town Bengal, capturing the people’s responses to Mamata’s promises.

Tanushree Bhasin travels through the state capturing the people’s responses to Mamata’s promises.

Mamata Banerjee’s helicopter has been the topic of much controversy, with the Left opposition criticising her for ‘unnecessary opulence’. But when the West Bengal chief minister landed at Silda, Binpur on March 26, 2016, she launched an attack on the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which has continued to hold on to the Binpur assembly segment despite losing the state. Her pitch: “Look around you, the TMC government has given you roads, peace, water and development.” TMC is the Trinamool Congress.

Most agree that Mamata has never been photographed in anything but rubber slippers. These slippers are part of a carefully manicured larger image of simplicity, which has now been tarnished by charges of corruption against her party’s leaders. Mamata, however, has repeatedly avoided speaking about the allegations directly. Her strategy so far has been to draw attention to the fact that her party has been able to bring peace to the region since coming to power in 2011. In addition, she has also spoken about her policies of giving rice at Rs.2 per kg to the poor, free cycles to girls in classes 10 and 12, and providing water to villages that have so far had no water supply for consumption or irrigation.

In her speech she spoke about how the TMC was the only party that had bothered to print its election manifesto in the Santhali Alchiki script in an attempt to reach out to the adivasi electorate. She also spoke haltingly in Santhali, urging voters to vote for the TMC – in her words, the only party that “cares for adivasis.”

Even though Mamata’s rallies at the various assemblies at Jangalmahal have seen heavy deployment of security forces, the turnout has been consistently disappointing. Mamata, in what the CPI-M has alleged is an attempt at deflecting criticism, has blamed the weather and spoken repeatedly of the summer sun in her rallies.

A group of young women listen to Mamata’s speech at Silda, standing under the shade of their umbrellas. In conversations with them and others in Jangalmahal, a sense of cynicism and helplessness came through, when they suggested that efforts by the TMC to provide the basic minimum were commendable – yet not even close to addressing the deep-rooted problems of poverty, unemployment and dismal standards of education.

Almost everyone, including the local CPI-M cadre, agree that the three-decade-long Left rule in West Bengal was one marked by little progress. But the TMC’s development has followed a predictable trajectory – the empowerment of security forces and handouts don’t necessarily make lives sustainable.

Choton of Bela Tikri village, with his family.

“I have two children and my greatest worry is what will happen when the cheap rice stops. It’s just not possible for people to actually be given cheap rice forever. We want jobs and education. But those things haven’t happened yet,” said Choton, at Bela Tikri village in Lalgarh, on his way to the PDS shop to buy rice.

Kalipada of Belia village.

Those in Lalgarh are clear about why the adivasi uprising began here in 2008: it wasn’t just a response to atrocities by the police and state, but because Jangalmahal had simply fallen off the map of West Bengal.

Even though Mamata has attempted to counter this by repeated visits and visible development, the fear of once again being forgotten or branded Maoist continues. The old systems of repression continue.

Mamata has promised new jobs, particularly in the police. But as Kalipada in Belia village at Lalgarh explained, “The problem always has been one of jobs. It has been three years and I am yet to get paid Rs.3,000 for the work that I did on a pond under MNREGA. They call me a Maoist sympathiser because I grew up with Chhatradhar Mahato, and cheat us. Even the jobs that are being given out are to those who already have money and can pay bribes to the babus.”

Roads seem to be appearing out of nowhere in Jangalmahal. Construction workers said that they have been asked to finish before the first phase of elections begin on April 4. Most of the projects had been sanctioned much earlier, but the timing and speed of construction has ensured that the new roads dominate most addas here.

The ‘Sabooj Sathi’, a scheme to distribute cycles among female students in schools, is yet another highly visible scheme. It was implemented with the aim of reducing the dropout rate of girls in 2014. Then the state government decided to extend the plan to include another 40 lakh students in October 2015. The scheme, much like Nitish Kumar’s ‘Mukhyamantri Balak and Balika Cycle Yojana’, attempts to help students – many of whom will be casting their first vote in 2016.

There is no water in Jangalmahal. Repeated reports from various authorities including the Central Ground Water Authority have warned the government of the depleting water table here. Some protests have already begun.

Mamata’s answer lies in an under-construction piped drinking water project at Belpahari that promises “drinking water to everyone by 2020.” But this too has run into trouble and has borne no results yet.

Ragunath Murmu, who created the Alchiki script used in the Santhali language, is omnipresent in schools here.

The problem lies elsewhere though. Santhali is not taught in all schools, and in those schools where students are taught it, there aren’t enough teachers, and often several class levels are made to sit in one classroom and taught together.

Moreover, activists allege that what the students are taught are merely translations of Bengali history, with Santhali culture and history still taking a backseat.

For those in Belpahari, the hunger deaths of 2004 at Amlasole village haven’t been forgotten. Clearly then, for parents, the mid-day meal scheme is a vital incentive for ensuring regular attendance. In this school at Belpahari’s at Nayanagarh village, the menu has been kept simple because of a recent bout of chicken pox: rice, aaloo posto and dal.

Schools will close soon. And almost all of them will be converted into polling booths.

New Research Reveals Associated Press’s Cooperation with the Nazis

AP supplied the Nazi regime with photos for propaganda purposes and exported propaganda news material back to the US.

AP photos used in Nazi propaganda material. Credit: iCollector/University of Minnesota

Research by a German historian has revealed that cooperation between the Associated Press (AP) and the Nazi regime allowed the American news agency operate in Hitler’s Germany, the only western agency to do so.

Harriet Scharnberg’s research, published in the academic journal Studies in Contemporary History, and first reported by The Guardian, argues that by agreeing to the Schriftleitergesetz (editor’s law) in 1935, AP kept its Berlin bureau open in Nazi Germany, but also became complicit in allowing Nazis to “portray a war of extermination as a conventional war.” Her argument focuses on the role AP played in supplying the Nazi regime with photos for propaganda purposes and exporting propaganda news material back to the US, some of which were approved by Hitler himself.

By 1935, two years into Hitler’s reign, most international news agencies had ceased reporting in Germany. However, AP remained open, naturally questions over its relationship with the regime.

“It was a case of conforming with the German laws of closing up shop,” said Louis P. Lochner, the winner of a Pulitzer in 1939 for his work at the Berlin-AP office. However, based on the evidence supplied by Scharnberg, “conforming” looks dangerously close to cooperation bordering on collaboration.

Supplying images for propaganda

Scharnberg, a historian at Halle’s Martin Luther University, describes AP as a “transatlantic image provider,” for granting the Nazi regime access to its photo archives as a result of the editor’s law. In two of its virulently anti-Semitic pieces, the Nazi’s propaganda unit used numerous photos from AP’s files.

In the SS training booklet, Der Untermensch (The Sub-Human), many images were ascribed to AP photographers, and more than half of the 105 photographs in the propaganda booklet, The Jews in the USA, came from AP archives. A prominent image is that of Jewish New York mayor Fiorello LaGuardia midway through eating a plate of food with his hands, aimed to demonstrate not only the greed of Jewish people, but also the decadence of American life.

Although Scharnberg is unable to determine the precise impact of the photos on their German audience she highlights their wide circulation. By the mid 1940s, almost 500,000 copies of The Jews in the USA had been printed and 3.8 million training manuals had been sold.

Exporting propaganda

Besides supplying images to the Nazis for propaganda purposes, the Nazis had a degree of control over the images AP could report at home. The most shocking revelation Scharnberg’s research is Hitler’s order that photographs of dead prisoners found during the ‘Lviv campaign’ were to be published in the American press via AP.

The Lviv campaign saw Nazi troops invade the Soviet-held town of Lviv in western Ukraine in June 1941. The Nazis discovered that Soviet troops had carried out mass killings of prisoners and in response the Nazis carried out “revenge” pogroms against the city’s Jewish population. The photographer at Lviv was SS member Franz Roth, who was also one of the four photographers employed by AP in the 1930s under the editor’s law.

“Instead of printing pictures of the days-long Lviv pogroms with its thousands of Jewish victims, the American press was only supplied with photographs showing the victims of the Soviet police and ‘brute’ Red Army war criminals… To that extent it is fair to say that these pictures played their part in disguising the true character of the war led by the Germans… Which events were made visible and which remained invisible in AP’s supply of pictures followed German interests and the German narrative of the war,” Scharnberg said to The Guardian.

AP denies collaborating with Nazis

On March 30, AP released a statement in response to Scharnberg’s article. “AP rejects the suggestion that it collaborated with the Nazi regime at any time. Rather, the AP was subjected to pressure from the Nazi regime from the period of Hitler’s coming to power in 1933 until the AP’s expulsion from Germany in 1941. AP staff resisted the pressure while doing its best to gather accurate, vital and objective news for the world in a dark and dangerous time.”

Although AP allowed the west to have a degree of insight to a repressive, totalitarian state, the research raises questions over the nature of the agency’s relationship with the Third Reich, and subsequently, casts suspicion on AP’s relations with contemporary totalitarian states. How this will reflect on the work of AP’s bureau in North Korea, where similar deals concerning the circulation of propaganda have been exposed, remains to be seen.

Three Public Sector Banks With High Non-Performing Assets Rejected Most RTI Requests in 2014-15: Study

The high rejection rate could mean the banks had something to hide and may be a reflection of the government’s current trend of restricting the access to information.

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

A day after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) submitted a list of the big defaulters – those who owe banks over 500 crore rupees each – before the Supreme Court, with the plea that the names not be made public, an analysis of the data on the disposal of right to information (RTI) applications has revealed that three public sector banks (PSBs), which figure high on the list of those with large non-performing assets (NPAs), rejected the most number of applications.

While the rejection rate of some banks was less than 12%, many banks had a rate as high as 50%, indicating that perhaps they have something to hide, said RTI activist Venkatesh Nayak, programme coordinator at the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), who examined the annual reports released by the Central Information Commission, which contains RTI application statistics submitted by 24 PSBs under Section 25 of the RTI Act.

“The proportion of rejection of RTI applications was quite high in banks that had reported large volumes of net NPAs in 2014-15. Indian Overseas Bank, Bank of Baroda and Canara Bank, which had reported net NPAs ranging more than 8,000 crore rupees, rejected between a third and half of RTI applications received in 2014-15, indicating a very high proportion of rejection,” said Nayak.

The Supreme Court had earlier this month, expressed serious concern on the rise in bad loans and asked the RBI to submit a list of the big defaulters who owed over 500 crore rupees.

What the data reveals

Talking to The Wire, Nayak said while there was a trend of fewer RTI applications being filed with the banks, his analysis revealed that “in three cases, the banks reported very high rates of rejection and also high NPAs, whereas there were also cases where the rejection rate was high but the level of NPAs was less.”

According to Nayak, another inference that can be made from the analysis is that drop in the number of requests for RTI replies was in tune with what was happening with the government overall. But it is difficult to ascertain the reason behind this trend, he said.

He also said it was important to highlight why the rejection rate was less than 12% for two banks, despite the RTI queries being quite high, while for some others, such as Canara Bank and others that had an equal number of applications, the rate of rejection was over 50%. “What is happening? Obviously, some categories of information that people would be asking in these banks would be similar. Moreover, the RTI applications cannot be so significantly different among various PSBs. So is it a question of greater resistance to disclosure in these banks?” Nayak wondered.

He also noted that the the P. J. Nayak Committee, constituted to examine the governance of the boards of commercial banks some years ago, had in its report in May 2014 observed that coverage of the PSBs under the RTI Act was hampering their ability to compete with their rivals in the private sector. However, he said, no data was produced in support of this finding. Ever since, the CHRI has been examining this claim by evaluating the RTI application status of these banks.

In 2014-15, Nayak said, 24 PSBs dealt with a total of 79,148 RTI applications – 56.4% of the total volume of RTI applications received by the Ministry of Finance during the year.

State Bank of India received the most number of RTI applications, at 24,783.

Overall, during the year, 10 of the 24 PSBs witnessed a significant decline in the number of RTI applications dealt with, whereas in the previous year only six banks had experienced a fall. The biggest decline was at the Bank of Maharashtra (22%), followed by the State Bank of Travancore (19.30%) and the Central Bank of India (17.17%).

Andhra Bank rejected the highest percentage of RTI applications, at 55.1%, followed by Canara Bank, at 49.1%, and Corporation Bank, at 45.8%. On the other hand, United Bank of India had the lowest rejection figure, at 6.2%, followed by Indian Bank, at 12%.

Observing that according to 2014-15 data only the State Bank of India, State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur and Punjab National Bank averaged more than one RTI application per office, with all other banks averaging less than one RTI application per office, Nayak said the statistics therefore do not support the “constraint theory” suggested by the P. J. Nayak Committee.

Playing the Modi Card in London’s Mayoral Elections

Will British Indians in London vote as one ethnic bloc? The Conservative Party certainly thinks so

A flyer from the Conservative party candidate Zac Goldsmith sent out to British Indian voters in London.

Rival candidates are pulling out all stops to woo Londoners for the forthcoming elections to the post of the Mayor in May; naturally, the Indian community is a prime target. Like everyone else, I too received flyers from the hopefuls, but I was left aghast at the pitch.

“The Mayor of London is your ambassador to the world, the person who is responsible for embodying all the hopes and dreams that lie in the heart of Londoners…but millions of Londoners are being priced out of our city. I’m running to be Mayor to ensure our city’s successes are enjoyed by all, and I will stand up for everyone who lives in our city,” a mailer from the Conservative Party candidate, the multi-millionaire Zac Goldsmith said. It then added: “The Gujarati Community has contribute massively to London.”

Nothing wrong with these assumptions of me being a Gujarati. I am proud of my ancestral connections to Gujarat, where the Zoroastrian community first landed in India in the 10th century or thereabouts. I speak the language and I follow the customs of ritual, dress, and so on.

But I object very strongly to the assumption that being a British Indian and, more specifically, a Gujarati resident of London, that I would not vote for the opposition. This is supposedly because – as it states in Goldsmith’s leaflet – “Sadiq Khan won’t stand up for the London’s Gujarati community.” And why should this be so? The mailer gave a few points, two of which were: Sadiq Khan supported Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party, who wanted to ban Prime Minister Modi from visiting the UK. Khan did not attend the ‘UK Welcomes Modi’ event at Wembley Stadium last year. Secondly, Khan’s party apparently supports a wealth tax on family jewellery.

If I had any lingering doubts about Sadiq Khan being an effective Mayor of London, such negative campaigning would immediately make me go out and cast my vote for him. The hideous, patronising assumption that I as a Londoner would make my decisions on the future of this great capital city on the basis of a wealth tax, or worse still on the lack of support for the visit of the Indian Prime Minister, is mind-boggling.

I wonder if this is a new trend in electioneering or whether only London’s South Asians are deemed gullible enough to vote en bloc according to ethno-religious prejudice and some sly referencing.

Love of bling

A friend of mine wittily pointed out that the Conservative Party had grasped that ‘bling’ interested “British Asians”. He may be right, going by what the flyer says: “The first job of the Mayor of London is to protect Londoners. I recognise that far too often Gujarati households are targeted for burglary due to families owning gold and valuable family heirlooms.”

I see it as a scandalous misstep by the psephologists of the Conservative Party sifting the electoral roll for likely surnames and (often entirely wrongly) coming to the conclusion that they are addressing (a) Gujaratis, (b) Hindus, and (c) bigots, who will vote as one.

It doesn’t stop there. The Conservative party flyer has pictures of a garlanded Zac Goldsmith visiting the Swaminarayan Satsang Stanmore Temple; Zac Goldsmith speaking at Shree Swaminarayan Willesden Temple; and Zac Goldsmith, complete with a tikka on his forehead joining Janmashtami celebrations at Bhaktivedanta Manor.

To add insult to injury, I received a circular by post a day after this in the form of a letter from the Rt Hon David Cameron MP, Prime Minister and Leader of the Conservative Party. After extolling the virtues of his man Zac and why Cameron was backing him for Mayor, the second paragraph states: “The Gujarati community makes an extraordinary contribution to London and to Britain. Closer ties between the UK and India have been a priority for me as Prime Minister. I was pleased to join Zac and thousands of British Gujaratis in welcoming Prime Minister Modi to the UK last year.”

I checked with other Indian friends, including those whose surnames did not sound Gujarati. In the circulars they received the ‘Gujarati’ label was replaced by ‘British Indians’, and they got an extra bit about how Goldsmith would ‘work to strengthen London’s friendship with India and having spent time in Rajasthan, Dehradun and Delhi is proud of the Conservative Party’s commitment to the British Indian community.’

The flyer for Sadiq Khan, candidate for the post of Mayor of London

On the third day an A5 flyer arrived from the Labour Party and headed ‘Sadiq Khan for London’, who was described as ‘The Council Estate boy who will fix London’s housing crisis. It was simple, positive, and on message, aiming to: (a) make renting more affordable and secure, (b) build homes for first time buyers,(c) give first dibs to Londoners on new- build homes rather than to overseas speculators.

On the fourth day I did what I had not yet done: joined the campaign to elect Sadiq Khan Mayor of London!