Nation Honours Sikkim's

Jan 28-03 Feb, 2003; NOW! 1 GAMMON GANGTOK, WEDNESDAY, Jan 28-03 Feb, 2004 SECURITY STAFFERS ACCUSED OF “BEATING UP” LOCAL DRIVER DETAILS ON pg 6 NOWSIKKIM MATTERS VOL 2 NO 29 ! Rs. 5 NATION HONOURS HANGING WeUP curse the telecom depart- SIKKIM’S ment often. But the next time we BSNL’S SIKKIM EXPERIENCE: start to do so, maybe we should stop and think. Given its Sikkim SON Experience, its a miracle that we still have a telecom network SISTER COLLECTS Rs. 11 crores in unpaid phone bills, Rs. 9 here. Any other organisation SANJOG’S ASHOK would have hung up its boots CHAKRA crores lost every year to theft of equipment long back. TURN TO pg 3 FOR DETAILS DETAILS ON pg 24 Panda rescue up north DETAILS ON pg 5 TOONG- NAGA WILL NOT GO THE DIKCHU WAY TURN TO pg 7 FOR DETAILS CMYK 2; NOW! ; Jan 28-03 Feb, 2004 GANGTOK JAN 28-03 FEB, 2004 ED-SPACE Trial & Error NOW! The poor and ignorant are the best guinea pigs. India hest of pharmaceutical companies on human beings SIKKIM MATTERS and some countries in Africa and Latin America have before the drugs have gone through the proper pro- often provided unscrupulous pharmaceutical com- tocols of animals testing, should have been free to Problems With Free Speech panies with human material upon whom to test un- continue with their activities with some other drug. tried drugs. The freedom to speak, like any other freedom ends where This in itself indicates the low priority given to ille- someone else’s space starts getting encroached. In the present Things seem to have improved with exposes by gal testing of drugs on women, while suggesting case, when someone else’s eardrums begin - just like the right committed activists and a slight heightening of aware- also local nexus of interest which encourages cheap to swing one’s arms ends the moment someone’s nose comes ness. The West’s offloading of discredited, banned sterilization methods. in the way. The great dictum that people should be informed at or still untested techniques on poorer countries, es- It is a test case for the status of women’s repro- all times of all things definitely holds true. But the problem is pecially among the women, had become ductive rights in India. Women in a de- not really with the theory. It is in the deliverance of this right one of the major subjects of protest for veloping country are less educated and that human limitations get amplified. The most prolific users to women’s rights groups, and Indian ac- DEEP less informed than their male counter- the right to free speech are journalists and it is also they who tivists have taken a leading part in this. parts. The consequent lack of decision are the carriers of the right to information. Earlier, they were To find that 790 women in West Ben- FOCUS making authority over their own bodies assisted along by opposition parties who “revealed stuff,” but gal have been used again for illegal test- RANJIT SINGH is used to advantage. The gainers are not the falling standards of politics has immunized people to the ing of erythromycin as a trans-cervical only the pharmaceutical companies anx- venom that the opposition spits. The printed word is, however, contraceptive is deeply disheartening. The tests were ious to beat their rivals in a life-and-death competi- still held in high regard with what gets printed in newspapers done between 1999 and 2002, at two private clinics tion to evolve newer, more convenient drugs with getting accepted as the Truth. People take it for granted that in Calcutta and South 24 Parganas, and were con- the least expense, but also local agents equally anx- we journalists have done our homework and our research be- ducted by two doctors who have been caught doing ious to make a quick buck. fore going ahead with a print. What people forget is that jour- similar illegal trials before. In the Nineties, they had The use of an untested drug puts women at high nalists are also human. We can be prejudiced, are almost al- been using the anti-malarial quinacrine as achemical risk. It is astonishing that the administration should ways opiniated and seldom do we admit mistakes. That is where sterilization method, till that was stopped. Appar- remain insensitive to the consequences of the crime the public domain gets on sticky wickets. Take for example the ently, the same doctors had also conducted similar in spite of the revelations that activists have made opinion poll fiasco of the recently held elections in five states. trials with tetracycline on women in the Eighties. in the past few years. It is now clear that erythromy- Every opinion poll projected a particular result and everyone The story is revealing on a number of counts. It is cin fails as trans-cervical contraceptive. It is also got it wrong. How many apologized? Fact remains that as media remarkable that doctors, who have been proven to clear that the crime was discovered when everything persons we misunderstand the right to free speech. This right be completely unethical, conducting tests at the be- is only the right to be heard. Not a right that guarantees the was over - nothing disrupted the process of testing. right to be believed. That would be wrong. After all there is also an individual’s basic human right to hold an opinion. An opin- NEPAL ion admittedly based on information, but not one that is forced. It is perhaps that faculty that the people need to polish up as OPEN SECRET! they prepare for polls. They can be prepared to be inundated with information. They should develop the intelligence to whet PUBLIC KNOWS BUT Two days later, senior journal- to convince that the Bheri-Karnali it, to sift through it and to judge it. Everyone else, us media- ARMY FEIGNS ists at an interaction organised by autonomous province was merely persons included, will be using every angle of the right to free IGNORANCE ON the RNA at its Bhadrakali head- a prelude to capturing state power speech from now on, perhaps you should stress that right to JAJARKOT quarters heard the top brass claim at the centre. He said, “The fact Free Thought now. he Maoists’ invitation to that they had no knowledge of the that we have not launched any CORRIGENDUM journalists and human Jajarkot meeting. Army spokes- major attack of late does not mean Last week’s issue of NOW! misprinted the date-line. The issue, Vol. Trights activists to attend man Deepak Gurung said that a that we have become weak. This 1 No. 28 got published as for the week 14-20 January, when it should their mass meeting in Jajarkot on helicopter on patrol had retaliated is all part of our new policy.” The have read 21-27 January. The error is regretted. 19 January came more than a when the rebels opened fire. He rebels had now entered the phase publisher week before the event. Everybody did not have casualty figures. of counter-attack after the earlier knew that the rebels intended to At a time when the army has phase of political equilibrium. THANK YOU Mr. CM FOR columns of your esteemed paper. declare the Bheri-Karnali region been claiming successes in intel- The Maoists’ Bheri-Karnali NAMCHI GYM Power failures have become a as their autonomous province. ligence gathering, which human regional commissar, using the In today’s ever-changing world of routine in Namok Busty and are Why had the rebels chosen to rights activists hope would lead nom de guerre ‘Pratik’, warned, development and new technolo- causing much inconvenience to disclose the details of the meet- to fewer killing of innocents by “The present silence should be gies like computers and faxes, the the people here. The Class X and ing? Were they not fearful of an the security forces, the claim of understood as the calm before the simpler joys of life sometimes get Class XII examinations are just organised response by the Royal “we did not know” was shocking. storm.” (For his part, a senior overlooked. Better homes, better round the corner and we have to Nepali Army? In retrospect, they The inability to mount an of- RNA commander at the roads and better departmental spend the evenings without elec- almost seemed to have known that fensive might have had to do with Bhadrakali interaction cautioned, stores are being built and yet one tricity. The power transformer the military would not attack. a number of factors: a strategic “You must understand that the cannot find a here is not What the military did conduct military failure, lack of transport Maoists are not lying low. They decent place to functioning was an ineffectual aerial exer- logistics or a laudable unwilling- have been made to lie low.”) shoot a ball or LETTERS properly and it cise, dropping some bombs from ness to cause casualties amongst The government at the centre, swing a racket and the energy is is old and needs immediate re- a helicopter on the flank of a hill villagers coerced to attend. meanwhile, was dismissive of the spent strolling down the streets or placement. Houses and new con- on the other side from where the The Maoist show of bravado claims emanating from Jajarkot. trying out new highs. nections have increased in the Maoist-called rally was being in Jajarkot was important for an “They are merely an outfit of Hence, we would like to ex- area but the transformer still re- held at Birendra Aishwarya insurgent group that has been un- some armed bands,” said Minis- tend our gratitude and apprecia- mains the same.

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