Banner Advertiser

Saturday, November 27, 2010

RE: [ALOCHONA] Re: Khaleda 'lying': ISPR



"I am a member of a growing body of vocal people who are politically neutral. I am on the angry fringe of that body. But I never killed anyone or stole from anyone - unlike many members of the main body of AL and BNP.

Our country conducts its affairs as if our country is a joke. Our country is therefore a joke. This offends/hurts me as much as it offends/hurts you. But thats no reason not to say it. Especially when it offends supporters of AL and BNP who never complain about their own criminals.

Ezajur Rahman
Kuwait "

wonderful.................I do hope that you will condemn violence, inefficiency, corruption...in Bangladesh..more often.

khoda hafez.

========================================================================================




> To: alochona@yahoogroups.com
> From: Ezajur@yahoo.com
> Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2010 07:34:24 +0000
> Subject: [ALOCHONA] Re: Khaleda 'lying': ISPR
>
> Hi Junaid
>
> Thank you for an email of some substance. Now we can talk.
>
> It takes 3 minutes to knock out 10 sentences, especially using predictive text and wireless technology. Respectfully, you probably spend 20 times as much time as I do in traffic jams. The time and energy one takes to debate an issue is irrelevant. More time and energy is spent by AL and BNP ruining our country.
>
> There is indeed a brain drain in Bangladesh. Every year thousands of our best minds leave the country. No one cares. They are not wanted.
>
> I'm not brainy. Better better people than me, at home and abroad, apply better intellects to our problems. But blind supporters of AL and BNP don't face such intellects. Our best minds tend not to address them. So I take on these supporters - many may do it better but they don't bother.
>
> If only I can provoke you to write then I am happy. For just as you glean something about me I also glean something about you.
>
> I am not saying all sophisticated politics is draining out of Bangladesh. I was being sarcastic. I should have been ruder. We don't have sophisticated politics - we have rubbish politics which is exported abroad.
>
> Our people don't leave anymore for education or jobs. They leave to leave Bangladesh. All labourers in the ME would take their families and permanent residency if it was offered to them. If empowered none would return - to the delight any Deshi government. People are fed up.
>
> Parents don't urge their children to stay abroad primarily because of careers, money and lifestyle. This is the language of deception as per the wealthy airport official who demands his bribe stating economics. Parents urge their children to stay abroad for reasons of health, safety, security, peace, values, reasonableness etc. How cruel that it takes a madman like me to say it.
>
> It is my job to offend those who are not offended enough by the headlines in any paper on any day of the year.
>
> Many Bangladeshis living abroad love Bangladesh and understand its woes as much as, and sometimes more than, those who live inside the country. Our love is unconditional and uncompromised by corruption and the necessity of surviving amidst wickedness. Our love can be foolish but it is pure. And our country has much need of us.
>
> I have written with courtesy, and with time, to you in this mail. If you disagree with me on anything you are most welcome to take me up, to correct me and to inform me. But if you seek to make our nation's condition seem tolerable, understandable and unworthy of insult you will find a lifelong foe in me. I have as much time and energy as the criminals in the party of your choice. The tone will always be set by you.
>
> I am a member of a growing body of vocal people who are politically neutral. I am on the angry fringe of that body. But I never killed anyone or stole from anyone - unlike many members of the main body of AL and BNP.
>
> Our country conducts its affairs as if our country is a joke. Our country is therefore a joke. This offends/hurts me as much as it offends/hurts you. But thats no reason not to say it. Especially when it offends supporters of AL and BNP who never complain about their own criminals.
>
> Ezajur Rahman
> Kuwait
>
>
> --- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, "junaid.sultan" <junaid.sultan@...> wrote:
> >
> >
> > I think that I like you too much and more that I love your writings too
> > too much. Sometime I really wonder how on earth you manage that much
> > energy and that much time to write that much. Seems all the brain of
> > Bangladesh had fled to Kuwait.
> >
> > Hi, I am not all resentful for the comments coming from abroad. However,
> > comments like this are not only confusing but unfortunate also. ".
> > After all Bangladeshis in large numbers are fleeing to the US, UK and ME
> > bringing all their sophisticated politics with them." Do mean to say
> > that all sophisticated politics from Bangladesh is being drained out?
> >
> > People from Bangladesh are in Middle Eastern countries purely for
> > economical reasons. There are no migration rules. You finish your job
> > today say after 20 years in service and tomorrow you are supposed to
> > leave the country. The situation in UK and USA is bit different. Most of
> > the people (if not all) went there for higher education and stayed back
> > there for better life style and again for economical reasons.
> >
> > I agree I am generally toothless and speechless. I only speak when I
> > feel water is flowing above the head. And unlike you, I am not in a
> > Middle Eastern country and don't have much time to write. Very
> > unlike you.
> >
> > With lot of love
> >
> > Junaid
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, "ezajur" <Ezajur@> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > Er. Yes. Well. That really helps the argument on one side of an issue.
> > > Which argument on which side of which issue is not clear to me.
> > >
> > > You are generally toothless and speechless so I wouldn't say you are
> > so
> > > just in front of me. How delightful to have a general opinion on my
> > > comments and conclusions on a subject, without making any comments and
> > > conclusions of your own on the subject!
> > >
> > > You shouldn't resent comments from abroad. After all Bangladeshis in
> > > large numbers are fleeing to the US, UK and ME bringing all their
> > > sophisticated politics with them.
> > >
> > > Depthless comments eh? Perhaps. But it will take more than your
> > > invisibility to prove that.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, "junaid.sultan" junaid.sultan@
> > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > I liked your advice son. You are right. I am toothless and
> > speechless
> > > in
> > > > front of extremely learned, highly knowledgeable, sub jaanta people
> > > like
> > > > you. Very obviously, I live in Bangladesh and not in UK, USA and for
> > > > that matter not even in Kuwait.
> > > > Carry on son. I am sick and tired and am going back to sleep. Keep
> > on
> > > > making your nice, very thought provoking and depth-less comments and
> > > > conclusions.
> > > > Junaid --- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, "ezajur" Ezajur@ wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > Aw Grampa!
> > > > >
> > > > > You are sweet. Obviously all is well in the Army. And obviously
> > you
> > > > have nothing else to comment about except the comments of your
> > > grandson.
> > > > I am blessed.
> > > > >
> > > > > Now please. Take your teeth out, drink your warm milk and go back
> > to
> > > > sleep.
> > > > >
> > > > > Goodnight
> > > > >
> > > > > Your grandson
> > > > >
> > > > > Ezajur Rahman
> > > > > Kuwait
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > --- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, "junaid.sultan" junaid.sultan@
> > > wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I liked this very sweeping remark. But more than that I loved
> > the
> > > > one
> > > > > > sentence conclusion, "It shows that all is not well in the
> > Army."
> > > > > > Carry on son, we need people exactly like you.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Junaid
> > > > > > --- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, "ezajur" <Ezajur@> wrote:
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > The confusing and inconsistent behaviour of the ISPR is a good
> > > > sign.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > It shows that all is not well in the Army.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > --- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, Isha Khan bdmailer@ wrote:
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > *Khaleda 'lying': ISPR *
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Dhaka, Nov 14 (bdnews24.com)—Military public relations
> > > > > > department ISPR has
> > > > > > > > accused BNP chief Khaleda Zia for misbehaving and also
> > refuted
> > > > her
> > > > > > > > allegation of dragging her out of cantonment residence.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > The ISPR in a press release issued on Saturday night, termed
> > > > > > Khaleda's
> > > > > > > > statements made in a press briefing, held on Saturday,
> > > > 'fabricated
> > > > > > and
> > > > > > > > ill-intentioned.'
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > After the High Court deadline ended on Nov 12, the
> > cantonment
> > > > board
> > > > > > > > initiated to vacate the cantonment house at 6 Shaheed Moinul
> > > > Road.
> > > > > > The
> > > > > > > > opposition leader left her house at about 3:15 on Saturday
> > by
> > > > her
> > > > > > personal
> > > > > > > > transport and reached her Gulshan office.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > While the ISPR claimed that Khaleda had willingly left her
> > > > house,
> > > > > > the BNP
> > > > > > > > chief, in the Saturday press briefing, accused the military
> > of
> > > > > > dragging her
> > > > > > > > out of the house.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > The ISPR release said Khaleda had acted 'lethargic' while
> > she
> > > > was
> > > > > > requested
> > > > > > > > to leave the house. Khaleda, also started acting up with two
> > > > female
> > > > > > military
> > > > > > > > officials who knocked at her door. "She didn't even hesitate
> > > to
> > > > term
> > > > > > the
> > > > > > > > army members as ungrateful dogs and national enemy. She
> > yelled
> > > > in
> > > > > > front of
> > > > > > > > everyone saying, "I'm marking everyone, after assuming
> > power,
> > > > will
> > > > > > kick out
> > > > > > > > all from your jobs one by one."
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Placing proofs in support of ISPR's claim that Khaleda
> > vacated
> > > > her
> > > > > > house
> > > > > > > > willingly, the release said the cantonment board officials
> > had
> > > > gone
> > > > > > to that
> > > > > > > > house at 8am. "If she was forced, she would have been
> > dragged
> > > > out by
> > > > > > then."
> > > > > > > > "But the fact is that she left the cantonment residence in
> > her
> > > > own
> > > > > > car at
> > > > > > > > 3:15pm. This is the proof of her leaving the house
> > willingly."
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Presence of eight vehicles of ultramodern models and about
> > 50
> > > > > > helping hands
> > > > > > > > in that house of only one family reveal signs of her
> > luxurious
> > > > life,
> > > > > > the
> > > > > > > > ISPR release added. The cantonment house is at present under
> > > > police
> > > > > > keeping,
> > > > > > > > it said.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > The 2.72-acre plot was originally the official residence of
> > > the
> > > > > > army's
> > > > > > > > deputy chief of staff, a position held by Ziaur Rahman, who
> > > > later
> > > > > > became
> > > > > > > > army chief and then military ruler. Former military dictator
> > H
> > > M
> > > > > > Ershad, who
> > > > > > > > later became president, allotted the house to Khaleda and
> > her
> > > > two
> > > > > > sons
> > > > > > > > following the assassination of Ziaur Rahman, in a military
> > > coup
> > > > on
> > > > > > May 30 in
> > > > > > > > 1981.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > His widow Khaleda was given another house in Gulshan in
> > > addition
> > > > to
> > > > > > the
> > > > > > > > cantonment house, where the family had been living since the
> > > > 1970s.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > The Directorate of Military Lands and Cantonments handed a
> > > > notice on
> > > > > > Apr 20
> > > > > > > > last year asking the BNP chief to vacate her cantonment
> > > > residence.
> > > > > > Khaleda
> > > > > > > > filed a petition with the High Court challenging legality of
> > > the
> > > > > > government
> > > > > > > > notice asking her to leave the house within 15 days.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > The government maintained its stand with two separate
> > notices
> > > on
> > > > May
> > > > > > 7 and
> > > > > > > > May 24. On May 27 last year, the court stayed the notices
> > for
> > > > three
> > > > > > months
> > > > > > > > after the initial hearing. The final hearing started on June
> > 6
> > > > the
> > > > > > same
> > > > > > > > year. On Aug 23, the court asked the government to submit
> > all
> > > > files
> > > > > > in
> > > > > > > > relation to the lease of the cantonment house.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > The government gave a legal notice to Khaleda for a number
> > of
> > > > > > anomalies
> > > > > > > > regarding the allotment within the military zone.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > The allegations and irregularities for which the notice was
> > > > issued
> > > > > > include
> > > > > > > > 1) Khaleda has been carrying out political activities from
> > the
> > > > house
> > > > > > – which
> > > > > > > > goes against a condition of the allotment 2) One cannot get
> > > > > > allotment of two
> > > > > > > > government houses in the capital 3) A civilian cannot get a
> > > > resident
> > > > > > lease
> > > > > > > > within a cantonment. The government also alleged that
> > > > unauthorised
> > > > > > changes
> > > > > > > > and extensions were made to the building violating the code
> > of
> > > > > > conduct in
> > > > > > > > the military area.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > http://bdnews24.com/details.php?id=178938&cid=2
> > > > > > > > ---------------------------
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > *Privileges under Presidents Pension Ordinance,1979*
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > http://www.bd-pratidin.com/?view=details&type=pratidin&pub_no=201&cat_id\
> > \
> > > \
> > > > \
> > > > > > =1&menu_id=1&news_type_id=1&index=5
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> [Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
> To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.comYahoo! Groups Links
>
> <*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/alochona/
>
> <*> Your email settings:
> Individual Email | Traditional
>
> <*> To change settings online go to:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/alochona/join
> (Yahoo! ID required)
>
> <*> To change settings via email:
> alochona-digest@yahoogroups.com
> alochona-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
>
> <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> alochona-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
> http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>


__._,_.___


[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.com




Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe

__,_._,___

[ALOCHONA] The pain of losing a nation



The pain of losing a nation
 
By Sudheer Sharma
 
On the northern corner of West Bengal state of India , there is a hill station-- Kalimpong, which once hosted celebrities from all over the world. The hill town, where most of the settlers are of Nepali origin, no longer retains its old charm. But until a few weeks ago the last prime minister of a country—that has lost its independence—used to live here. Kazi Lhendup Dorji, who died on 28 July this year at the ripe old age of 103, had played a pivotal role in the merger of Sikkim into India .
 
Dorji is seen as a 'traitor' in the contemporary history. He lived, and died, with the same ignominy. "Everybody accuses me of selling the country. Even if it is true, should I alone be blamed?" he asked me, when I met him in Kalimpong in November 1996. But the allegation of 'betrayal' towards one's own motherland was so powerful that Dorji could no more lead an active political life. He spent his solitary life at the 'Chakung House' in Kalimpong for several decades. Few people chose to remember Kazi when he passed away nor took pain to recall his life and times.
 
So much so that the Kazi was ignored even by Delhi . "I went out of my way to ensure the merger of Sikkim into India but after the work was done, the Indians just ignored me," Kazi told me during an interview for Jana Astha weekly, nearly 11 years ago. "Earlier, I used to be given a 'Red Carpet' welcome. Now I have to wait for weeks even to meet second grade leaders."
 
When I visited Kalimpong for the second time in 2000, Lhendup's anger towards Delhi had reached new heights. At one time, he was received warmly by Indian leaders including Jawaharlal Nehru and Mrs Indira Gandhi. But later he became a political actor whose utility had been finished and thrown away into the dustbin.
 
The origin of crisis
 
After India got independence in 1947, the Sikkim State Congress, which was established as per the advice of Nehru, launched anti-King movement. Sikkim managed to overcome the crisis then but after Indira Gandhi became Prime Minister of India, the tiny Himalayan kingdom found itself in a crisis from which it could never escape. The anti-King movement, launched by the Sikkim National Congress (SNC) under the leadership of Lhendup Dorji in 1973, led to the demise of a sovereign nation.
 
India openly supported the movement against King (Chogyal) Palden Thondup Namgyal. The then ADC to the King, Captain Sonam Yongda, claimed that soldiers of Indian Army in civil dress used to take part in the protests. Some of the protesters were brought from Darjeeling and the surrounding areas. The number of Sikkimese who took part in the protest was quite small. But that was enough.
 
Lhendup's protest movement depended mainly on Indian financial assistance. The money was made available through Intelligence Bureau (IB). "The people from IB used to visit me twice or thrice a year. An IB agent, Tejpal Sen, used to handover money to me personally," Dorji had told me in a recorded interview.
 
In fact, the main actor behind the " Mission Sikkim " was India 's external intelligence agency, RAW (Research and Analysis Wing). Set up in 1968, RAW was able to disintegrate Pakistan (and form Bangladesh ) within three years. The annexation of Sikkim was their other 'historic' success. The strategists of RAW didn't want to repeat a Bhutan in Sikkim . Bhutan managed to acquire the membership of the United Nations in 1968. So, they launched a movement under the leadership of Lhendup, which is described at great length by Ashok Raina in his book Inside RAW: The Story of India's Secret Service.
 
Raina writes that New Delhi had taken the decision to annex Sikkim in 1971, and that the RAW used the next two years to create the right conditions within Sikkim to make that happen. The key here was to use the predominantly-Hindu Sikkimese of Nepali origin who complained of discrimination from the Buddhist king and the elite to rise up. "What we felt then was that the Chogyal was unjust to us," said CD Rai, editor of Gangtok Times and ex-minister. "We thought it may be better to be Indian than to be oppressed by the king."
 
Lhendup—who belonged to the Kazi family—had a historic enmity with Sikkim 's ruling Chogyals. He said he wanted to pressurise the King through public protests but lamented that the King never came forward for reconciliation.
 
Under pressure from Delhi , the Sikkimese King was forced to hold tripartite talks with SNC and India . The talks not only curtailed royal powers, it also turned Sikkim into an Indian 'protectorate.' In the elections held in 1974, Lhendup's SNC got overwhelming majority in the parliament. The government and the king saw each other as enemies. Ultimately, the cabinet meeting, on 27th March 1975 , decided to abolish monarchy. The Sikkimese parliament endorsed it and decided to hold a referendum on the future of monarchy. Four days later, the outcome of the poll in 57 stations across the country was: 'Abolition of the monarchy.'
 
In an interview, then Agriculture Minister of Sikkim KC Pradhan recalled that the referendum was nothing but a charade. "Indian soldiers rigged the polls by pointing rifles at the hapless voters," he said. Immediately after the referendum, Kazi Lhendup moved a motion in the parliament proposing that Sikkim be annexed to India . The 32-member parliament, which had 31 members from Lhendup's SNC—passed the motion without a blink. Needless to say that the entire episode was being orchestrated by India . The then Indian envoy to Sikkim (known as 'political officer') BS Das wrote in his book The Sikkim Saga, Sikkim 's merger was necessary for Indian national interest. And we worked to that end. Maybe if the Chogyal had been smarter, and played his cards better, it wouldn't have turned out the way it did."
 
But Chogyal didn't play his cards well. When Sikkim was undergoing turmoil, the Chogyal visited Kathmandu in 1974 to attend the coronation ceremony of King Birendra. According to insiders, King Birendra, Chinese deputy premier Chen Li Yan and Pakistan 's envoy advised Chogyal not to return to Sikkim . "They narrated a 'master plan' to save Sikkim from Indian hands but the King didn't accept," said Captain Yongda. "It was because the King couldn't think even in his dreams that India could use force to annex Sikkim ."
 
A 'double game'
 
In fact, India was playing a 'double game.' On one hand, it was supporting Lhendup in whatever way possible against the King. On the other hand, it was assuring the king that monarchy would survive in Sikkim . The Chogyal was also an honorary Major General of the Indian Army. He never thought that his 'own army' would act against him. It was only an illusion.
 
The Chogyal of Sikkim was in his palace on the morning of 6 April 1975 when the roar of army trucks climbing the steep streets of Gangtok brought him running to the window. There were Indian soldiers everywhere, they had surrounded the palace, and short rapid bursts of machine gun fire could be heard. Basanta Kumar Chhetri, a 19-year-old guard at the palace's main gate, was struck by a bullet and killed—the first casualty of the takeover. The 5,000-strong Indian force didn't take more than 30 minutes to subdue the palace guards who numbered only 243. By 12:45 pm it was all over, Sikkim ceased to exist as an independent kingdom.
 
The Chogyal also lost the second opportunity. The Sikkim Guards had the capacity to stop the Indian Army for two hours. If the Chogyal had informed Beijing and Islamabad about the Indian invasion from the transmitter set up at his palace, both the countries had assured him—during the Kathmandu meeting—that they would instruct their security forces to open fire along the borders with India . Chinese army could even travel to Gangtok to rescue the Chogyal.
 
Captured palace guards, hands raised high, were packed into trucks and taken away, singing: "Dela sil, li gi, gang changka chibso" (May my country keep blooming like a flower). But by then, the Indian tri-colour had replaced the Sikkimese flag at the palace where the 12th king of the Namgyal dynasty was held prisoner. "The Chogyal was a great believer in India . He had huge respect for Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. Not in his wildest dreams did he think India would ever gobble up his kingdom," recalls Captain Sonam Yongda, the Chogyal's aide-de-camp. Nehru himself had told journalist Kuldip Nayar in 1960: "Taking a small country like Sikkim by force would be like shooting a fly with a rifle." Ironically it was Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi who cited "national interest" to make Sikkim the 22nd state of the Indian union.
 
During a meeting, former Chief Minister of Sikkim BB Gurung told me that the King and Lhendup were just fighting a proxy war. "The real battle was between an American and a Belgian lady." If that was true, the real victor was the third lady—Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
 
Two Foreign Ladies
 
Chogyal Palden met the 24-year-old New Yorker, Hope Cook, in Darjeeling in 1963 and married her. For Cook, this was a dream come true: to become the queen of an independent kingdom in Shangri-la. She started taking the message of Sikkimese independence to the youth, and the allegations started flying thick and fast that she was a CIA agent. These were the coldest years of the Cold War, and there was a tendency in India to see a "foreign hand" behind everything so it was not unusual for the American queen to be labelled a CIA agent. However, as Hope Cook's relations with Delhi deteriorated, so did her marriage with the Chogyal. In 1973, she took her two children and went back to New York . She hasn't returned to Sikkim since.
 
Then there was Elisa-Maria, daughter of a Belgian father and German mother who left her Scottish husband in Burma and married Kazi Lhendup Dorji in Delhi in 1957. The two couldn't have been more different. Elisa-Maria wanted to be Sikkim 's First Lady, but Hope Cook stood in the way. "She didn't just want to be the wife of an Indian chief minister; she wanted to be the wife of the prime minister of an independent Sikkim ." With that kind of an ambition, it was not surprising that with annexation, neither Hope Cook nor Elisa-Maria got what they wanted.
 
Meanwhile, in New Delhi Indira Gandhi was going from strength to strength, and India was flexing its muscles. The 1971 Bangladesh war and the atomic test in 1974 gave Delhi the confidence to take care of Sikkim once and for all. Indira Gandhi was concerned that Sikkim may show independent tendencies and become a UN member like Bhutan did in 1971, and she also didn't take kindly to the three Himalayan kingdoms, Bhutan, Sikkim and Nepal, getting too cosy with each other.
 
When the Indian troops moved in there was general jubilation on the streets of Gangtok. It was in fact in faraway Kathmandu that there were reverberations. Beijing expressed grave concern. But in the absence of popular protests against the Indian move, there was only muted reaction at the United Nations in New York . It was only later that there were contrary opinions within India —(Former Indian Prime Minister) Morarji Desai said in 1978 that the merger was a mistake. Even Sikkimese political leaders who fought for the merger said it was a blunder and worked to roll it back. But by then, it was already too late.
 
Lhendup Dorji became the first chief minister of the Indian state of Sikkim and retained the post until 1979. The Indian government conferred on him 'Padma Bhusan' in 2002 and he was also awarded the 'Sikkim Ratna' by the state government in 2004.
 
Despite such "rewards," Lhendup and his wife Elisa spent their last years in Kalimpong repenting their past deeds. After the death of his wife in 1990, Lhendup was forced to lead a solitary life. He neither had any children nor relatives to take care of him. He cut himself off from his own people to avoid their wrath and hatred.
 
In the elections held in 1979, Lhendup's SNC failed to bag even a single seat in the Sikkim 's legislature. This effectively brought to an end to his political career. At one time, when he had gone to file his nomination, his name was missing from the electoral roll. In his resolve to dethrone the Chogyal dynasty that had 400-year-old history in Sikkim , Lhendup ended up delivering his motherland into the lap of India . In return, all he got was a life haunted from the shadow of the past and an ignominious death.
 
(Sharma is the editor of NEPAL weekly magazine and can be reached at sudheer@kantipur.com.np. This article has been adapted from his original article in the magazine and published here with the author's consent.—Ed.)
 


__._,_.___


[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.com




Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe

__,_._,___

[ALOCHONA] Ferdous Ahmed Qureshi on army



Ferdous Ahmed Qureshi on army
 
 
 
 


__._,_.___


[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.com




Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe

__,_._,___

[ALOCHONA] It’s not personal



It's not personal
 
Rumi Ahmed
 
 The manner in which the leader of the opposition and former prime minister Khaleda Zia was evicted from her cantonment residence was outright shocking to most observers of Bangladesh politics. Not only the physical eviction itself, but the way the opposition leader was literally pushed out of her home of 38 years by an overwhelming government force, speaks volumes of its 'autocratic' mentality. The whole chain of events surrounding the eviction process was totally unforeseen in the history of democratic Bangladesh.

Notable in the chain of events were the mind-blowing fast tracking of judiciary, manipulation of hazy legal jargons, and ultimately bypassing of the highest judiciary to push forward with the government's agenda to remove the opposition leader from her home. The media manipulation of the event was also unprecedented for a democratic government. Advancing on what the previous military-controlled regime did, from the day before the incident, the media was fed with concocted stories of Khaleda Zia leaving her home willingly. And on the day of the event and the day after, the naked dishonesty and partisanship of the defence department's press wing, ISPR, was simultaneously a painful reminder of the demise of the armed forces as neutral public servants and the last nail in the coffin of an institutional balance of power under present government.

Repeated notions were made that all these were about Khaleda Zia's personal household and this was not a national issue. The major brunt of the criticism focused on this theme that rather than talking about national issues, the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is only concerned about its leader's home. However, the critiques forget the fact that when a person is the leader of the opposition and a major national leader, politically motivated eviction of that person is no longer a personal issue. In any democracy, the leader of the opposition is an institution, probably the second most important institution of the nation after the president or the prime minister. Like the way whatever aircraft the US president boards becomes the Air Force One, whatever household the opposition leader lives in, also becomes part of a national institution. We have to understand that when the nation spends unlimited resources for the safe living, travelling and security of the prime minister or the president, it's not done for just a person. The nation never complains or questions about the resources spent on the persons who are our president or prime minister. Prime minister's home or security is not a personal issue, and neither is the opposition leader's home.

Not only as a powerful pillar of our democracy, the opposition leader as an institution is also important for its symbolic value as the counterbalance to the overwhelming power of government machinery. The leader of the opposition is the face of main pressure group that keeps the ruling party under check. The difference between public following of the leader ruling the nation and the leader of the opposition has never been big in Bangladesh. What has made the winning margin is the number of people who will switch side and decide their vote depending on the quality of the governance. The opposition leader represents a big portion of the nation. She/ he definitely is a force any democratic government must respect.

Rightly so for a democratic system, the political organisations are spread extensively throughout every corner of the country. Both the major political parties are present in every village of the country. These activists speak for the people of their village. Any disapproval of government actions will be expressed via these activists. When activists from the ruling side try to overpower and uproot the opposition activists, the opposition grass roots try to hold their ground. These forces, united together, collectively make the opposition. The opposition leader represents the dissenting voices of nation.

If the leader of the opposition is treated like the way Khaleda Zia has been treated, we can well imagine what repression awaits those village, thana or district level activists who are trying to hold the ground and speak out about people's dissents against the government.

And precisely for this reason, the eviction of the opposition leader is not an individual's personal property issue. It is one of our most important national issues.

It is very true that BNP government's record in dealing with the institution of the opposition leader is not so positive. But BNP's bad acts do not justify what the current government just did. If that is the case, if such justifications are made, then this eviction will justify worse actions when power changes hand.

Throughout the good governance movement during last BNP regime and during the military-controlled caretaker regime, numerous times the nation was told of the bad effects of politicisation of institutions and the need to protect the integrity of our institutions. This government came to power with a promise to stop the decline of our institutions and protect the institutions by keeping them above political misuse. But in sharp contrast to the promises made, we have just watched how the most empowered institution of the government, i.e. the Prime Minister's office, by politicising other institutions like the attorney general's office and defence department, shamelessly undermines the second most important institution, the leader of the opposition.

For a state to stand tall against all the storms, it needs more than one pillar. The institutions are the pillars of the state. If one institution becomes too strong to engulf other institutions and play with the second most powerful institution of democracy like a toy, the state is weakened significantly.

The opposition leader's house is definitely not a personal property issue. It is a matter of national concern.

——————————————
Rumi Ahmed is a blogger and human rights activist. He can be reached at rumi_ahmed@yahoo.com

http://opinion.bdnews24.com/2010/11/28/it%e2%80%99s-not-personal/#more-1173



__._,_.___


[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.com




Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe

__,_._,___

[ALOCHONA] Interesting times



Interesting times

 

Humayun Gauhar

Pakistan Today  28th November 2010

 

We certainly do live in interesting times, but I regard it as a great blessing rather than a curse, as our Chinese friends would have it. We have seen the world change repeatedly from the end of World War II to the current ongoing economic diminishment of America and Europe and so much in between that I would run out of space.

 

Essentially, the rousing plank of world wars is ideology that exploits the lowest common denominator to get public support – fascism versus democracy, secularism versus religion, capitalism versus communism – all to do with dominance and maximizing economic advantage. They bubble and boil in the cauldron of power until one day some incident leads to the lethal brew spilling over and the cold world war becomes hot. Just as the assassination of Franz Ferdinand (Archduke of Austria-Este, Austro-Hungarian and Royal Prince of Hungary and of Bohemia and Heir Presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne) in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, triggered off World War I; the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the invasion of the Soviet Union turned Hitler's European war into World War II; the US-Soviet standoff that we called the Cold War was in reality World War III (fought mostly by intelligence and, when unavoidable, by proxy), and the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan triggered off its demise and the advent of the uni-polar world; the tragic events of September 11, 2001, triggered off World War IV, that America named the 'War Against Terror', fought again with a new and most potent kind of weapon yet – the human bomb – and against a new kind of enemy – 'Shadows' cast by Frankenstein's monsters of America's own creation – Non-State Actors Versus State Actors. What next?

 

The impending and unavoidable defeat of the US and its allies in World War IV and the huge amount of money borrowed and wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan has triggered the demise of the uni-polar and the advent of a multi-polar world, even if it doesn't signal the end of World War IV just yet. For that we will have to wait for the second great economic downturn, which may be upon us faster than we imagine.

 

Because World War IV is led by the US on one side and Muslim militants on the other, some believe it to be a war between secularism and Islam or even the recent Judeo-Christian Combine versus Islam. Yet others would like to believe that it is the coming of Armageddon, when Christians and Jews will jointly fight the forces of the anti-Christ (which Christian fascists consider Islam to be) until the latter are decimated and Israel truly comes into being, unchallenged and unbothered. As you can see, the world may have changed many a time but the high incidence of fruitcakes in it remains undiminished. It is a war that America is losing. And it is a war that has triggered off its economic diminishment if not collapse because it brought its economic contradictions to the fore.

 

The US brought this upon itself by getting involved in two unnecessary wars, one contrived. It exposed the structural weaknesses in its economy, its sorry economic condition brought on by reckless borrowing and the acute state of bankruptcy of its financial institutions due to reckless management and weak regulation driven by greed and avarice. While we blame greedy bankers for taking huge salaries and even bigger bonuses, we forget that what they did was entirely legal, though immoral. The laws and the system allowed them to be both greedy and immoral. It was this same greed and immorality, duality and megalomania driven by the hegemony drive that informed America's relations with other states, especially of the Third World. It could not last. It had to implode. It did.

 

All claims of having "got over the hump", "green shoots", "turnaround" and "recovery" are so much poppycock. They just cannot help misleading their own people and the world, underlining the amorality of capitalism. They have done nothing to correct the acute fundamental and structural flaws in their economy and their financial institutions. All their bailouts were throwing bad money after worse to bail out banks and bankers, not to make ideological adjustments to the capitalist free market ideology and bail out those who suffered at the hands of corrupt banks. America's total indebtedness is even worse than it was in October 2008, when the downslide started. Many of its states, particularly its richest, California, are bankrupt. The dollar has lost value and is continuing to lose value. Unemployment is at a long-time high. Manufacturing is receding. Banks are not lending and people are not borrowing. This does not portend well for a consumption-based economy. America's total debt is at least as much as its GDP, some half of it to China. Credit Default Swaps of between $50-60 trillion overhang, like dark, ominous clouds threatening a mega storm. The commercial real estate bust is neigh. No, the fundamentals, already terrible, have got worse.

 

The only thing that has saved the American economy so far from utter collapse is China, because it too would suffer woefully were America to go belly up. America is its biggest customer. How people with the wisdom of the Chinese could put most of their eggs in one basket and make their economy so dependent on the health of someone else's mismanaged economy stupefies me. They should have started boosting domestic consumption years ago in order to weather just such an eventuality. They could easily have done this since their domestic consumption is very low and savings very high, and thus gradually reduced their dependence on exporting to America, which they are beginning to do now. I can only put it down to the rapid drive for economic development. It has been so rapid that it has left the world breathless. Perhaps it was high-speed economic progress that caused a temporary suspension of the fabled Chinese wisdom and their genetic long-term thinking. The backlash had to come.

 

This does not mean that China will not wrest maximum advantage out of this flux, but at a pace that doesn't adversely impact its economy. As you see the Yuan revalue you will also see the mighty dollar recede. Soon, oil will not be traded in US dollars alone and new oil bourses will start coming up, ending the dollar's monopoly in oil. As to the over $4 trillion debt the US owes China, plus some of the Chinese surplus of $2 trillion lying in dollars, the only way out that I can see is debt-equity swaps, which means that China will end up owning a lot of America's prime family silver. That's the way the cookie crumbles. That's the swing of the pendulum.

 

The Euro could collapse too. It is a currency without a father – or many fathers, to be precise. They need to devalue, but if they do, it could accelerate the economic collapse of Spain, the UK, Italy and Portugal – Greece and Ireland have already gone that way. The British Pound has become marginalized.

 

But don't simply write America off so fast. Whatever happens, it will retain the most precious asset of all that makes a country primus inter pares. It has the world's largest and most advanced knowledge bank. No one else comes close in comparison. As long as they have that and they start seeing sense – which can only come with the end of juvenile recklessness and the advent of some wisdom – America will remain a power to contend with. Wisdom is not new to America. Its founding fathers had it by the bucketful, more than collectively seen at any one time. It was this wisdom that led America to become the world's first (largely) consensual hegemon rather than the usual coercive hegemon, as the European colonialists had been.

 

Actually, we are a very lucky people, living in times in which history is being made by the minute. I am following the growing tensions between China and India, China and America's cyber wars, China and the US... you should too.



__._,_.___


[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.com




Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe

__,_._,___

[ALOCHONA] Fw: 'Graft in India: Rotten to the crore?'





--- On Sat, 11/27/10, Zoglul Husain <zoglul@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:


The Economist     Saturday November 27th 2010 
 
Graft in India

Rotten to the crore?

Coping with the aftermath of a massive scam

 

Even Manmohan has been tarnished
 
SONIA GANDHI, the head of the ruling Congress party, laments that India's "moral universe" is shrinking, as newspapers fill with ever more galling cases of political corruption. Manmohan Singh, the prime minister, says he feels like a schoolboy facing a series of agonising tests as scandals break one after another. Ratan Tata, head of the Tata Group, hints that the scourge is hurting the economy; officials' expectations of bribes, he said, put him off launching a domestic airline.
It is tempting to hope this "season of scams" will concentrate the minds of India's leaders. This month Congress sacked two prominent officials over graft. Suresh Kalmadi, who oversaw the Commonwealth games in Delhi in October, was sent running on November 9th as evidence of dubious contracts emerged. On the same day the party also toppled Ashok Chavan, chief minister of Maharashtra state, over a housing scam. His relatives and associates had taken flats in a new tower block that was supposedly set aside for veterans and war widows.
The fallout from the dodgy sale of 2G mobile-telephone licences nearly three years ago will be much worse. On November 14th Mr Singh at last forced a coalition ally, Andimuthu Raja, to quit as telecoms minister. Mr Raja had refused to auction the licences, preferring to dish them out in an underhand and chaotic way, awarding 120 in a single day. Favoured companies bought permits for a song. In the process, the state may have forfeited revenues worth a staggering 176,000 "crore" rupees (a crore is 10m: almost $40 billion in all), to judge by their resale value and by the sums raised by the auction of 3G airwaves.
 
 
Even Mr Singh, who is generally seen as a saintly technocrat floating above the fray, has been dragged down into the muck. Most unusually, the Supreme Court chided him last week. His sin was to act too slowly against his coalition partner. Congress, lacking a majority, relies on Mr Raja's party, the DMK, for parliamentary support.
The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) scents blood. It has blocked parliament to force a public inquiry into the 2G affair. More than 20 years ago a similar investigation seemed to show that a Congress government was bribed by Bofors, a Swedish artillery supplier. They lost the next general election.
But Congress retorts that the BJP's record is no cleaner. It has been trying to show its resolve against corruption by pushing for the resignation of one of its own, B.S. Yeddyurappa, the chief minister of Karnataka state. He stands accused of giving away public land and taking money from a mining firm. Yet on November 24th he defied the BJP's national leaders and stayed on, casting doubt on the BJP's credibility in any fight against corruption.
The ex-boss of an anti-graft commission, Pratyush Sinha, threw his hands up in despair in September, saying his job was thankless and lamenting that increasingly materialistic Indians were becoming "utterly corrupt". His complaints were writ large this month in a report by an American think-tank, Global Financial Integrity, which suggested that since 1948 India had lost over $460 billion in illicit financial flows, much of it through corruption.
The report concluded that the problem would worsen as the economy grows and incomes become more unequal. The moral universe may be getting smaller but, despite the shifting of a few high-profile figures, it seems that India is ready to do little more than shrug.
 
http://www.economist.com/node/17583050?story_id=17583050.
 
 



__._,_.___


[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.com




Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe

__,_._,___

[ALOCHONA] The vicious culture of Hartal.



Hartal or a general strike is a unique political tool in the Indian subcontinent. The Bengali hartal is synonymous for the Hindi word Bandh. During the British colonial rule Mahatma Gandhi used Satyagraha to protest against the British rule. No established administration wants to face a general strike but this infamous and feared tool is very conveniently used by every political party whenever they are in the opposition. To any civilized citizen hartal is an ugly force which unleashes the unruly to disrupt normal life and destroys property and sometimes life too. On the day of hartal every effort is made by the organizers to destabilize administration by destroying public and private property which causes colossal loses to the national economy. The ruling Awami League knows very well the powers of a hartal, its political and economic consequences. During the past Awami League administration we even saw a general strike called by the government itself.     

 

But this general strike called by the opposition BNP is to protest Begum Zia's expulsion from a government residence, not to protest against any specific government policy. A personal matter has turned into a national political crisis for BNP. To the general public a hartal is always an unwelcome event. The common man does not gain anything from it other than misery and total discomfort. The most worrying part of the Bangladeshi politics is its rudderless direction. There is no common ground where the major political parties see eye to eye. They conduct politics to grab power and everything else is secondary.

 

The time has come for the political parties in Bangladesh to realize that if politics is not conducted with civility the ideals of democracy will continue to suffer. During the Pakistani misrule we resorted to strikes to bring a vital point home; Leave us alone. Now this vicious culture must be trashed once for all. To sort out issues the political parties must seat and talk in the spirit of democracy. The Bengali nation fought for a sovereign disciplined government of their own not anarchy. The politicians must know what helps the nation and what jeopardizes its future.

 

Akbar Hussain



 

 



__._,_.___


[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.com




Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe

__,_._,___

[ALOCHONA] Root cause of american mental illness



Root  cause  of  american  mental  illness

 

Here, medical journalist and Pulitzer Prize nominee Whitaker discusses how the widespread use of psychiatric drugs has contributed to the increase in mental illness.

Tens of millions of Americans have been made crazy — due to their use of or withdrawal from psychiatric drugs. That's the conclusion of two books written by award-winning health science writer Whitaker.

In his first book, Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill, Whitaker explained the history of the treatment of those with severe mental illness, and the 600 percent increase in the disabilities of psychiatric drug-takers.

His latest book, Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America, documents the powerful forces behind psychopharmacology, and follows the money behind those forces.

Dr. Gary Kohls, reviewing the books in the Online Journal, notes:

"Psychiatric drugs, whose developers, marketers and salespersons are all in the employ of the giant drug companies, are far more dangerous than the drug and psychiatric industries are willing to admit: These drugs, it turns out, are fully capable of disabling — often permanently — body, brain and spirit."

Sources:

  Online Journal August 26, 2010

  Video Transcript

 

 

Depression used to have a very good outcome. If you came to your physician with symptoms of depression 40 or even 30 years ago, he would tell you that you could and would get better. You'd be assured that most depressive episodes run their course and terminate with virtually complete recovery, without specific interventions such as drug treatment.

But as Whitaker points out in his books, something changed in the field of diagnosing and treating depression in the last few decades, and that something has led to a 600 percent increase in persons on government (Social Security) disability due to mental illness!

Today's Approach to Mental Health = Drugs

 

So what happened between 1974 and today to make the prognosis of depression go from one with a positive outcome to one that essentially disables you for life?

You don't need a medical degree to figure it out.

Just turn on your TV, and what do you see?

Advertisements that all but hypnotize you into believing that this drug or that will help you feel better – especially if it turns out that you're one of the two-thirds of people on antidepressants who aren't getting better.

As Whitaker points out in his interview with me, that's the Abilify ad, which basically is telling you to step up onto the next rung on the psychiatric drug ladder and add an antipsychotic drug, because what they're giving you on the lower rung – antidepressants – don't work.

In his research, Whitaker has conclusively shown that in most cases these drugs work no better than a placebo – and can also have serious side effects, including causing even more serious mental disorders than the one you're being treated for!

I've discussed this in previous articles, such as this one in 2002. And earlier this month, I wrote about how drug companies have hidden clinical trials that showed negative effects, or no efficacy at all, as Whitaker describes in his work.

When it comes to side effects, many people are aware of the most common ones, such as sexual dysfunction and sleeplessness. And if you go back to the TV, you'll see that some of these negative effects are mentioned in the ads – albeit so quickly you don't really have time to think about them.

But did you know that some of the worst side effects aren't even classified as such?

Or that others, like substantial weight gain and increased glucose and lipid metabolism, can be so unpleasant that people on these drugs just stop taking them?

A Terrible Side Effect They Don't Publicize

In fact, a 2005 study in the New England Journal of Medicine reported that 74 percent of schizophrenic patients in one study quit taking their medication either because of its inefficacy (it didn't work); or because it had intolerable side effects, or other unwanted problems.

Another factor that is rarely discussed is the potent addictive potential of these drugs.

And perhaps the worst "side effect" of all is that they can cause you to acquire a more severe form of mental illness than you started with!

That's right – as Whitaker found during his thousands of hours of research on the topic – after what might be an initial uplift in your condition, antidepressant drug users tend to spiral downward into a chronic course of long-term depression.

You can also end up becoming bipolar, or developing various types of psychoses, meaning that you'll need to "graduate" to a new or additional medication, often an anti-psychotic drug that blocks dopamine receptors in your brain.

The cyclic effect of these drugs causing the very problems they were designed to cure is something Whitaker discusses in-depth in his book.

The Money Behind the Madness

As a result of this vicious cycle, where the drugs deepen the mental health problems they're designed to treat. Spending on psychiatric drugs has risen from about $600 million a year in 1985, to more than $40 billion a year today, while disability rates due to depression and bipolar illness have skyrocketed!

Not exactly what you would expect to find if these drugs were actually working as advertised.

How we came to this point is a story in itself, which Whitaker has explored at depth and relates with finesse.

I urge you to read both his books (Mad in America, and Anatomy of an Epidemic) to get the full story, but in short, he explains it like this: In the 1970s psychiatry as a discipline was under siege, with lots of therapists entering the field. To make matters worse, an old stand-by anxiety drug was beginning to be deemed too addictive and harmful to use.

Because of this, sales of psychiatric drugs had dropped. As a result, psychiatry did a sort of gathering of the troops, and decided that one way to save the industry as well as their jobs was to rewrite their job descriptions and the field of psychiatry itself.

This led to the creation of a new diagnostic manual, in which the definitions of mood problems such depression suddenly changed to medical disorders – thus diagnosable only by a physician or psychiatrist, and treatable by prescriptions that only those physicians/psychiatrists could write.

 

To sell this new idea to the public, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) decided to align itself with none other than the very pharmaceutical companies that had a financial stake in this new paradigm – and the rest, as they say, is history.

Big Pharma moved in, sponsoring so-called scientific presentations, hiring academic physicians and people major medical schools to do their sales talks, and sending the money flowing through academic grants, fellowships, and funding of studies -- all designed to "help" your mental health with the aid of their drugs.

And now, in a sad reflection of the old adage, "He who pays the piper calls the tune," psychiatry is a vicious circle of diagnosis, drugs, and more drugs as one illness leads to the next.

The bottom line is that the real cause of the explosion in mental illness is, first, the money behind the medications, and second, a flawed system that depends on drugs that merely transforms one problem into another.

Exercise: One of Nature's Best Alternatives to Maintaining Good Mental Health

Fortunately, more and more research is coming out in support of natural, drug-free ways to maintain or achieve good mental health. Much of that research is showing that simple strategies such as dietary changes and physical activity can significantly assist your recovery.

For example:

A Duke University team studied three groups that tried exercise only; exercise plus drugs; and drugs only, to see what treatment best treated depression. They found that after six weeks, the drug-only group was doing a tiny bit better than the other two groups.

They hypothesized that the best stay-well rate would be those with drugs plus exercise.

But they were wrong!

Ten months later, it was the exercise-only group that was most successful in maintaining wellness! In fact, according to a September 22, 2000 Duke University press release:

"After demonstrating that 30 minutes of brisk exercise three times a week is just as effective as drug therapy in relieving the symptoms of major depression in the short term, medical center researchers have now shown that continued exercise greatly reduces the chances of the depression returning.

The new study, which followed the same participants for an additional six months, found that patients who continued to exercise after completing the initial trial were much less likely to see their depression return than the other patients.

 

Only 8 percent of patients in the exercise group had their depression return, while 38 percent of the drug-only group and 31 percent of the exercise-plus-drug group relapsed."

While the researchers weren't exactly sure why exercise worked better than the drug used in this study – Zoloft – they speculated that active participation in their get-well program was the key difference for the exercise-only group.

"Simply taking a pill is very passive," said study leader James Blumenthal. "Patients who exercised may have felt a greater sense of mastery over their condition and gained a greater sense of accomplishment. They may have felt more self-confident and competent because they were able to do it themselves, and attributed their improvement to their ability to exercise.

 

"Findings from these studies indicate that a modest exercise program is an effective and robust treatment for patients with major depression. And if these motivated patients continue with their exercise, they have a much better chance of not seeing their depression return."

That's right: In this study of 156 participants diagnosed with major depressive disorder, the researchers found that the best drug of all was the feeling that they were actively in control of determining their own outcomes!

The Duke researchers were not exercise specialists and it is likely that they overlooked exercises that work your white muscle fibers, like the Peak Fitness Techniques, which could work even better.

Yoga – A Gentle Way to Exercise Depression

Yoga is another proven way to address depression and avoid medications. Recent research confirms that yoga not only enhances mood, and has positive effects over other physical activities, but also helps increase brain gamma aminobutyric (GABA) levels.

In this study, participants who practiced yoga three times a week for an hour increased brain gamma aminobutyric (GABA) levels over another group that walked three times a week for an hour.

A similar study in 2007 reported the same thing, leading researchers to believe that the practice of yoga could be an alternative treatment for depression and anxiety, disorders associated with low GABA levels.

If you've followed my articles even a little while, you also know that EFT, or the Emotional Freedom Technique, is an exercise involving only your fingers and mind that I highly recommend for optimizing emotional health. Based on the same energy meridians used in traditional acupuncture to treat physical and emotional ailments for over 5,000 years, this technique works without needles, while using positive affirmations.

Nutrition Also Plays an Important Part

As Whitaker and I discuss in this interview, nutrition is another key player in evidence-based alternatives to drugs.

It's already known that many additives, preservatives and food colorants can cause behavioral changes, and sugar should definitely be on this list as well.

One of the most recent and highly plausible theories that explain sugar's impact on your mood and mental health is the connection between sugar and chronic inflammation.

Other studies have also found significant links between high-sugar diets and mental health problems such as depression and schizophrenia, even though they were not focused on the presence of inflammation per se.

For example, a 2004 study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry found that a higher dietary intake of refined sugar and dairy products predicted a worse 2-year outcome of schizophrenia.

As explained by Dr. Russell Blaylock, high sugar content and starchy carbohydrates lead to excessive insulin release, which can lead to falling blood sugar levels, or hypoglycemia. Hypoglycemia, in turn, causes your brain to secrete glutamate in levels that can cause agitation, depression, anger, anxiety, panic attacks and an increase in suicide risk.

The dietary answer for treating depression is to severely limit sugars, especially fructose, as well as grains.

The Importance of Omega-3 Fats for a Healthy Mind

Studies also show that omega-3 fats may positively influence outcome in depressive disorders. Low plasma concentrations of DHA (a type of omega-3 fat) is associated with low concentrations of brain serotonin. This decreased amount of serotonin can be associated with depression and suicide.

Not getting enough animal based omega-3 fats is known to change the levels and functioning of both serotonin and dopamine (which plays a role in feelings of pleasure), as well as compromise the blood-brain barrier, which normally protects your brain from unwanted matter gaining access.

Omega-3 deficiency can also decrease normal blood flow to your brain, an interesting finding given that studies show people with depression have compromised blood flow to a number of brain regions.

Finally, omega-3 deficiency also causes a 35 percent reduction in brain phosphatidylserine (PS) levels, which is relevant considering that PS has documented antidepressant activity in humans.

Omega-3 fats such as those in krill oil have actually been found to work just as well as antidepressants in preventing the signs of depression, but without any of the side effects. In fact, throughout my years of medical practice I've had large numbers of patients be able to stop their antidepressants once they started taking omega-3 fats.

So if you are currently struggling with depression, taking a high-quality, animal-based omega-3 fat supplement daily is a simple and smart choice … but it is only one important part of my overall recommendations for treating depression.

How the Sun Can Influence a "Sunnier Disposition"

Another essential nutrient in the treatment of depression is vitamin D.

One study found people with the lowest levels of vitamin D were 11 times more prone to be depressed than those who received healthy doses.

And, according to a study published in the September 9, 2010 issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, maintaining proper levels of vitamin D, and particularly Vitamin D3, in utero and during early infancy can even help prevent a much more serious mental disorder – schizophrenia.

The study showed that newborn babies born with low vitamin D levels were more likely to develop schizophrenia later in life – leading researchers to suggest that perhaps vitamin D supplements might be all you need to prevent this devastating illness.

The researchers also looked at other populations, such as dark-skinned ethnic groups living in cold countries, and residents of highly urban areas who aren't exposed to regular sunlight like those in rural areas, concluding that:

"It may be feasible to reduce the incidence of schizophrenia in this group by a staggering 87 percent" by simply giving them Vitamin D supplements!

I strongly recommend optimizing your vitamin D levels, either by sunlight exposure, a safe tanning bed, or taking a high-quality vitamin D supplement, to your list of depression fighters.

Salt is Also a Natural Antidepressant…

Interestingly, simple sodium deficiency also creates many symptoms that are nearly identical to those of major depression, such as:

loss of appetite

loss of capacity to experience pleasure and joy

difficulty concentrating

excessive fatigue

general sense of exhaustion

To learn more about the importance of natural salt for optimal brain function and mood regulation, please see my previous article Is Salt Nature's Antidepressant?

What To Do if You're Already on Medication for Depression

If you've already been diagnosed with depression or a more serious mental illness, it is vitally important you do NOT stop your medication cold-turkey! Doing so could be dangerous to both your mental and physical health.

What you want is a cautious approach to discontinuing these drugs – and you need to do this with the assistance of a qualified and knowledgeable clinician who can slowly wean you off them over a period of a few weeks or months.

Ideally, this would be someone who has roots in natural health, and who will help you use natural, healthy options such as dietary changes, exercise, and some energy psychology approaches to do this.

Having a professional help you also means you'll have a mentor who will guide you through the physical and emotional changes you'll experience as you leave the drugs behind, including any uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms.

Mental Health is Often Inseparable from Physical Health

I want to reiterate that depression can indeed be a very serious condition. If left untreated it can have a devastating impact on just about every aspect of your life and can actually kill you by leading to suicide.

However drugs are very rarely the answer.

So please actively investigate and use the natural treatments I've suggested the above, ideally with the support and guidance of a knowledgeable natural health care practitioner.

Always remember that these three primary factors -- exercise, addressing emotional stress, and eating right -- will make you feel at the top of your game. Whether you want to overcome depression, feel happier or just want to stay healthy, these are the lifestyle changes that will get you there.

 

Related Links:

  The Most Effective Treatment for Depression Isn't Drugs – But You'll Never Hear that from Your Psychiatrist

  Best-Kept Secret for Treating Depression

  Treatment Options for Treating Depression

 

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/10/06/the-real-cause-of-americas-mental-illness-problem.aspx

 





__._,_.___


[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.com




Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe

__,_._,___