Editorial

The verdict from the 15th General Elections could be termed serendipitous, to say the least. To expect a nearly stable government out of an issueless elections in uncertain times amid much fuzzy ideological ambience, cannot be less than a delightful surprise. The mandate carries as much a promise of relief from a rainbow of squabbling allies and pressure tactics as the inevitability of a crystallized agenda and sharp focus on goals. All of these should eventually end in better governance, peace, development and all round prosperity.

The verdict unmistakably points at popular desire to see stable governance during the next tenure of the Lok Sabha. It is a no nonsense verdict. No wonder then why the two pan-Indian parties occupy around three-fifths of the seats in Lok Sabha. With passions over Mandal and Mandir having melted completely, the voters have found no reason to continue their patronage to the merchants of those—realised or yet unrealized—dreams. The voters while handing down a much wider mandate to the Congress have punished several of its friends and foes who had for much too long chosen to rest on their laurels. Chief among those who have fallen by the wayside are RJD in Bihar, JMM from Jharkhand, Asom Gana Parishad in Assam, AIADMK in Tamil Nadu and Telugu Desam Party and other splinters of the Telugu genre in Andhra Pradesh, Indian National Lok Dal in Haryana and Himachal Vikas Party in Himachal Pradesh. Latent in the trend is the rejection of the fractious linguistic chauvinism, misplaced regional pride and caste prejudice. They have cut to size the gargantuan egos of Mayawati, two Yadavs of the Hindi belt, Chandra Babu Naidu and Jayalalitha who had successfully camouflaged their personal ambitions under partisan ideologies. However, the broom has been wielded selectively. Regional outfits like BJD and the JDU in the states of Orissa and Bihar respectively have been rewarded for ensuring a modicum of security and development in the two states. However, the BJP's marginal decline begs for more logical explanation. To be fair, the party did avoid hateful and hurtful propaganda against the minorities this time and even disapproved of young Feroze Varun Gandhi's statements against Muslims. It is also not true that Modi's prime ministerial dream muddied the water. For most Indians, Mr. Narendra Modi is still not that material and has to outgrow the image of the regional chieftain. However, the chief deficiency of the BJP lay in lack of a credible agenda. The party has reached its tether's end in its hunt for newer issues. Issue of bringing back foreign money clearly lacked the sting and raised little opposition. Party's diatribe against Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh lacked the emotive appeal. Far from it, people across the social spectrum detested a transparent and innocent individual like Dr. Singh being dubbed 'weakest PM' by the BJP. Few could have stewarded the nation's destiny amid the choppy waters as did Singh during the last five years. With Congress on comeback trail in the Hindi belt—part revival of fortunes in Uttar Pradesh, rise in Rajasthan and a robust showing in Madhya Pradesh are a few pointers—BJP's future ideological course would be watched with interest. It is to be seen if the party broadens its appeal by envisioning an inclusive society or squanders its remaining votebank by still more partisan view of India. However, it can be said with certainty that much of its present leadership will have to vacate its seat sooner than later.

Though Muslim representation has dipped to an all time low, the community need not look at the issue from communal prism. Assurance of effective security and affirmative action to negate the systemic prejudices could offset the losses. It should be welcomed from whichever quarter it comes. The BJP's realization of the futility of creating the bogeyman out of the minorities is in itself a vital gain from this election. The shift of Muslim votes away from the Marxist too should have a chastening effect on the Left. Sachar report's exposure of the plight of Muslims in West Bengal lent the Trinamool Congress a distinctive edge in the state. Combined with the Congress, it has overturned the Marxist boat. Both in Kerala and West Bengal, the Leftists are face to face with the grim existential dilemma: how to find work for the burgeoning hands without rubbishing their old economic ideology.

The stable majority for the new UPA Government will liberate the Prime Minister and the Government from vulnerabilities that limited their options in the past. The new mandate allows them the liberty to choose more dependable ones from among the allies. Similarly, it forecloses options for cloning excuses for non-performance. In the final analysis, it is time to experiment with newer ideas, infuse younger blood and put to use innovative schemes designed at addressing the popular woes and weal.

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Washington (Reuters) - The most complete analysis yet of the new H1N1 swine flu virus shows it must have been circulating undetected for years, most likely in pigs, researchers say. They said pigs are clearly a potential source of human pandemics.

“The results of the study show the global need for more systematic surveillance of influenza viruses in pigs,” Dr. Nancy Cox, chief of the influenza division at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters in a telephone briefing.

The report by Cox and international team of researchers in the journal Science said the virus “might have been circulating undetected among swine herds somewhere in the world.”

The researchers confirmed the odd mixture of human, pig and bird genes in the new virus, which has infected more than 11,000 people in 42 countries, and killed 86. The World Health Organization is poised to declare a full pandemic of the virus, which so far causes mostly mild disease in people.The researchers said it is likely other odd mixtures are infecting pigs but simply have not yet been seen. They sequenced the genetic codes of 70 different samples of the new virus from the United States and Mexico. “We can actually determine where each of the genes ... originated,” Cox said.

The new virus is a mixture of mixtures — it includes part of a so-called triple re-assortant virus first seen in 1998 that contains elements of human, bird and swine strains.

It also includes bits from so-called Eurasian strains of flu, including a segment most closely related to a sample from a patient in Hong Kong infected with a swine flu in 1999.

How this particular new mixture arose is still a mystery, the researcher said.

“Several scenarios exist, including re-assortment in Asia or the Americas, for the events that have lead to the genesis of the novel A(H1N1) virus,” they wrote. It is possible another animal acted as the so-called reservoir, which means an animal that can be infected by a pathogen but does not get sick from it. Cox noted that researchers only recently learned, for instance, that cats, from lions to house cats, can be infected with H5N1 avian flu.

“We do know that our veterinary colleagues at USDA (the U.S. Department of Agriculture) and elsewhere in the world are now looking to see if samples in freezers from pigs or other animals that might provide the missing link,” Cox said.

The researchers said they do not know how this particular virus acquired the ability to infect people. It does not have the usual mutations that allow animal viruses to jump into people and then to pass easily from one person to another.

Flu experts get worried when viruses go straight from animals to people. Usually they do not pass any further than one person — for example the feared H5N1 avian influenza virus that has infected 429 people and killed 262 of them rarely passes from person to person.

So far sampling of the new H1N1 virus shows very little genetic mutation — a sample from a patient in Mexico is virtually identical to samples from various U.S. states and other countries.

This “indicates that this virus may have been introduced into humans in sort of a single event,” Cox said. Or if more than one person was infected directly from an animal or other source, they were infected with genetically identical viruses.