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September 2004
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What's New

mar.2004
What\'s New
Mohammed Anees is the first Herpetologist in India to have incubated King Cobras
A Staff Writer
Bangalore
Noted Herpetologist Mohammed Anees here has succeeded in incubating King Cobras from 10 eggs of the deadly poisonous snake. This is the first time that King Cobra eggs have been successfully incubated by an individual in captivity. The 10 young snakes were hatched on July 29, at the home of Mohammed Anees in Bangalore.

Incubation took 70 days for young ones to appear and it involved strenuous watch on eggs which were picked up from a nest in the jungles of Coorg district in Karnataka on May 10. The young ones came out on July 29. According to Anees, the only such previous breeding-in-captivity experiment on King Cobra was carried out in a laboratory in the United States a few years ago and a couple of snakes were born.

Anees told the Islamic Voice that the King Cobra is the most poisonous snake and grows upto a length of 18.5 feet. He said it has an average lifespan of 30 years. He said King Cobra (known with its biological name of Ophiophagus hannah) is the most widely feared and respected snake and can eject 6 ml (millilitre) of poison in a single bite. He said a female King Cobra lays around 25 eggs at a time. Born venomous, the snakes are 18 inches long at birth. Mother which keeps watch during the incubation period walks out immediately after the hatchlings come out. There is no post-natal care among King cobras. King cobras normally reside in rain-forests and survive on a diet of snakes and if threatened with starvation even eat their own species of snakes.
mar.2004
What's New
Final Solution-A Stark Chronicle
A Staff Writer
"Final Solution" takes its viewers on a grim journey of Gujarat in a period of 18 months, from the February 2002 torching of 59 Hindu train riders at Godhra that sparked reprisal violence across the state, to the aftermath of the mayhem.

She hid in the cornfields, her hands tightly clamped over her son’s mouth and eyes, hearing the screams of her daughters being dragged out, raped and killed and the men folk being slaughtered.

"Did I do wrong? Had I come out to stop them, I would have been killed too..."

Filmmaker Rakesh Sharma had no answer to this woman’s question - one of the many questions that haunted him while making "Final Solution", a stark chronicle of the 2002 Gujarat violence that claimed at least 1,000 lives and destroyed many more. Though "Final Solution" is banned in India, it has won six international awards and generated tremendous interest. It has also inflamed passions, the latest instance being a students’ union row in the ideologically charged Jawaharlal Nehru University. The film was denied a film certification and can only be screened for private audiences by invitation. "I am confident my film will make it. To be honest, I was not surprised when the Censor Board rejected it," Sharma said. "If you see the kind of members there are in the preview committee, they are the last ones to clear such a film."

Sharma believes that in Mumbai, New Delhi as well as Kolkata, the Board had many members linked to the BJP.

"I could not call it anything but the Final Solution (the chilling answer to the extermination of Jews in Nazi Germany), as Gujarat seems to be following the same pattern," he says. "The segregation, ghettoisation and economic boycott is all happening in Gujarat. And this pattern only leads to ethnic cleansing."

"Final Solution" takes its viewers on a grim journey of Gujarat in a period of 18 months, from the February 2002 torching of 59 Hindu train riders at Godhra that sparked reprisal violence across the state, to the aftermath of the mayhem.

An unvarnished look at the violence that ripped two communities apart with the abetment of political groups, the documentary holds a mirror to political elements that used hate as a tool of power and won elections. At the very end of the four-part documentary comes the most shocking clip - the mind of two children, one Hindu and one Muslim. "It shook me up while filming, while editing and it still does," says Sharma. Little Preksha Joshi watches a video CD of "Ram Sevak Amar Raho" (Long live Ram worshippers) and tells Sharma that she has stopped talking to her close Muslim friend because of what 'they' did to Ram Sevaks (the Hindus killed in Godhra).

Then four-year-old Ijaz, a Muslim, tells the filmmaker he wants to be a soldier when he grows up. "I want to kill Hindus," he explains simply.

"Why?" prods Sharma. "Will you kill me? I am also a Hindu." Ijaz looks uncertain, then decides - "Not you. You are nice. You are not a Hindu."

"To him, Hindus could not be nice, because he saw them abuse, kill and strip his women relatives," recounts Sharma.

"It frightened me so much I still cannot get over it. You are poisoning young minds, is this what you want to leave behind for your children.

Sharma also shows the segregation between the two communities which continues even long after.

A case study is the Don Bosco School where 350 Hindu students were thrown out due to instigation from the VHP authorities. Sharma likens this to the dangerous political trends of the early 1930s in Germany where the Jews were being segregated. "Final Solution" therefore tries to forewarn the public to check the politics of hate and violence.

Not to be deterred, Sharma will be taking his documentary all over the US from September, 2004, to December, 2004 and will have screenings at various cities as a campaign against hate - funding.

Sharma’s complaint is that his right of expression and right to inform has been violated. According to clause 6 and 9 of the Cinematograph Act of 1952, the central government is empowered to over-run any decision or recommendation by the Censor Board.