Change the text on Start button in XP :
Step 1 - Modify Explorer.exe File
In order to make the changes, the file explorer.exe located at C:\Windows needs to be edited. Since explorer.exe is a binary file it requires a special editor. For purposes of this article we have used Resource Hacker. Resource Hacker is a freeware utility to view, modify, rename, add, delete and extract resources in 32bit Windows executables and resource files (*.res). It incorporates an internal resource script compiler and decompiler and works on Mcft Windows 95/98/ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP operating systems.get this from h**p://delphi.icm.edu.pl/ftp/tools/ResHack.zipThe first step is to make a backup copy of the file explorer.exe located at C:\Windows\explorer. Place it in a folder somewhere on your hard drive where it will be safe. Start Resource Hacker and open explorer.exe located at C:\Windows\explorer.exe.The category we are going to be using is "String Table". Expand it by clicking the plus sign then navigate down to and expand string 37 followed by highlighting 1033. If you are using the Classic Layout rather than the XP Layout, use number 38. The right hand pane will display the stringtable. We’re going to modify item 578, currently showing the word “start” just as it displays on the current Start button.There is no magic here. Just double click on the word “start” so that it’s highlighted, making sure the quotation marks are not part of the highlight. They need to remain in place, surrounding the new text that you’ll type. Go ahead and type your new entry. In my case we used Click Me!You’ll notice that after the new text string has been entered the Compile Script button that was grayed out is now active. we won’t get into what’s involved in compiling a script, but suffice it to say it’s going to make this exercise worthwhile. Click Compile Script and then save the altered file using the Save As command on the File Menu. Do not use the Save command – Make sure to use the Save As command and choose a name for the file. Save the newly named file to C:\Windows.
Step 2 – Modify the Registry!!!
make a backup of your registry before making changes!!!Now that the modified explorer.exe has been created it’s necessary to modify the registry so the file will be recognized when the user logs on to the system. If you don’t know how to access the registry I’m not sure this article is for you, but just in case it’s a temporary memory lapse, go to Start (soon to be something else) Run and type regedit in the Open field. Navigate to:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Mcft\ Windows NT\ CurrentVersion\ WinlogonIn the right pane, double click the "Shell" entry to open the Edit String dialog box. In Value data: line, enter the name that was used to save the modified explorer.exe file. Click OK.Close Registry Editor and either log off the system and log back in, or reboot the entire system if that’s your preference. If all went as planned you should see your new Start button with the revised text.
Monday, July 14, 2008
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Friday, May 30, 2008
Chinese hackers pose serious danger to U.S. computer networks
By Shane Harris National Journal May 29, 2008
Computer hackers in China, including those working on behalf of the Chinese government and military, have penetrated deeply into the information systems of U.S. companies and government agencies, stolen proprietary information from American executives in advance of their business meetings in China, and, in a few cases, gained access to electric power plants in the United States, possibly triggering two recent and widespread blackouts in Florida and the Northeast, according to U.S. government officials and computer-security experts.
One prominent expert told National Journal he believes that China's People's Liberation Army played a role in the power outages. Tim Bennett, the former president of the Cyber Security Industry Alliance, a leading trade group, said that U.S. intelligence officials have told him that the PLA in 2003 gained access to a network that controlled electric power systems serving the northeastern United States. The intelligence officials said that forensic analysis had confirmed the source, Bennett said. "They said that, with confidence, it had been traced back to the PLA." These officials believe that the intrusion may have precipitated the largest blackout in North American history, which occurred in August of that year. A 9,300-square-mile area, touching Michigan, Ohio, New York, and parts of Canada, lost power; an estimated 50 million people were affected.
Officially, the blackout was attributed to a variety of factors, none of which involved foreign intervention. Investigators blamed "overgrown trees" that came into contact with strained high-voltage lines near facilities in Ohio owned by FirstEnergy Corp. More than 100 power plants were shut down during the cascading failure. A computer virus, then in wide circulation, disrupted the communications lines that utility companies use to manage the power grid, and this exacerbated the problem. The blackout prompted President Bush to address the nation the day it happened. Power was mostly restored within 24 hours.
There has never been an official U.S. government assertion of Chinese involvement in the outage, but intelligence and other government officials contacted for this story did not explicitly rule out a Chinese role. One security analyst in the private sector with close ties to the intelligence community said that some senior intelligence officials believe that China played a role in the 2003 blackout that is still not fully understood.
Bennett, whose former trade association includes some of the nation's largest computer security companies and who has testified before Congress on the vulnerability of information networks, also said that a blackout in February, which affected 3 million customers in South Florida, was precipitated by a cyber hacker. That outage cut off electricity along Florida's east coast, from Daytona Beach to Monroe County, and affected eight power-generating stations. Bennett said that the chief executive officer of a security firm that belonged to Bennett's trade group told him that federal officials had hired the CEO's company to investigate the blackout for evidence of a network intrusion, and to "reverse engineer" the incident to see if China had played a role.
Bennett, who now works as a private consultant, said he decided to speak publicly about these incidents to point out that security for the nation's critical electronic infrastructures remains intolerably weak and to emphasize that government and company officials haven't sufficiently acknowledged these vulnerabilities.
The Florida Blackout
A second information-security expert independently corroborated Bennett's account of the Florida blackout. According to this individual, who cited sources with direct knowledge of the investigation, a Chinese PLA hacker attempting to map Florida Power & Light's computer infrastructure apparently made a mistake. "The hacker was probably supposed to be mapping the system for his bosses and just got carried away and had a 'what happens if I pull on this' moment." The hacker triggered a cascade effect, shutting down large portions of the Florida power grid, the security expert said. "I suspect, as the system went down, the PLA hacker said something like, 'Oops, my bad,' in Chinese."
The power company has blamed "human error" for the incident, specifically an engineer who improperly disabled safety backups while working on a faulty switch. But federal officials are still investigating the matter and have not issued a final report, a spokeswoman for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said. The industry source, who conducts security research for government and corporate clients, said that hackers in China have devoted considerable time and resources to mapping the technology infrastructure of other U.S. companies. That assertion has been backed up by the current vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said last year that Chinese sources are probing U.S. government and commercial networks.
Asked whether Washington knew of hacker involvement in the two blackouts, Joel Brenner, the government's senior counterintelligence official, told National Journal, "I can't comment on that." But he added, "It's certainly possible that sort of thing could happen. The kinds of network exploitation one does to explore a network and map it and learn one's way around it has to be done whether you are going to ... steal information, bring [the network] down, or corrupt it... The possible consequences of this behavior are profound."
Brenner, who works for Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, looks for vulnerabilities in the government's information networks. He pointed to China as a source of attacks against U.S. interests. "Some [attacks], we have high confidence, are coming from government-sponsored sites," Brenner said. "The Chinese operate both through government agencies, as we do, but they also operate through sponsoring other organizations that are engaging in this kind of international hacking, whether or not under specific direction. It's a kind of cyber militia... It's coming in volumes that are just staggering."
The Central Intelligence Agency's chief cybersecurity officer, Tom Donahue, said that hackers had breached the computer systems of utility companies outside the United States and that they had even demanded ransom. Donahue spoke at a January gathering in New Orleans of security executives from government agencies and some of the nation's largest utility and energy companies. He said he suspected that some of the hackers had inside knowledge of the utility systems and that in at least one case, an intrusion caused a power outage that affected multiple cities. The CIA didn't know who launched the attacks or why, Donahue said, "but all involved intrusions through the Internet."
Donahue's public remarks, which were unprecedented at the time, prompted questions about whether power plants in the United States had been hacked. Many computer-security experts, including Bennett, believe that his admission about foreign incidents was intended to warn American companies that if intrusions hadn't already happened stateside, they certainly could. A CIA spokesman at the time said that Donahue's comments were "designed to highlight to the audience the challenges posed by potential cyber intrusions." The CIA declined National Journal's request to interview Donahue.
Cyber Espionage
In addition to disruptive attacks on networks, officials are worried about the Chinese using long-established computer-hacking techniques to steal sensitive information from government agencies and U.S. corporations.
Brenner, the U.S. counterintelligence chief, said he knows of "a large American company" whose strategic information was obtained by its Chinese counterparts in advance of a business negotiation. As Brenner recounted the story, "The delegation gets to China and realizes, 'These guys on the other side of the table know every bottom line on every significant negotiating point.' They had to have got this by hacking into [the company's] systems."
Bennett told a similar story about a large, well-known American company. (Both he and Brenner declined to provide the names of the companies.) According to Bennett, the Chinese based their starting points for negotiation on the Americans' end points.
Two sources also alleged that the hacking extends to high-level administration officials.
During a trip to Beijing in December 2007, spyware programs designed to clandestinely remove information from personal computers and other electronic equipment were discovered on devices used by Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and possibly other members of a U.S. trade delegation, according to a computer-security expert with firsthand knowledge of the spyware used. Gutierrez was in China with the Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade, a high-level delegation that includes the U.S. trade representative and that meets with Chinese officials to discuss such matters as intellectual-property rights, market access, and consumer product safety.
According to the computer-security expert, the spyware programs were designed to open communications channels to an outside system, and to download the contents of the infected devices at regular intervals. The source said that the computer codes were identical to those found in the laptop computers and other devices of several senior executives of U.S. corporations who also had their electronics "slurped" while on business in China. The source said he believes, based on conversations with U.S. officials, that the Gutierrez compromise was a source of considerable concern in the Bush administration. Another source with knowledge of the incident corroborated the computer-security expert's account.
National Journal had a series of conversations with Rich Mills, a Commerce Department spokesman. Asked whether spyware or other malicious software code was found on any electronic devices used by Gutierrez or people traveling with him in China in December 2007, Mills said he "could not confirm or deny" the computer-security expert's allegations. "I cannot comment on specific [information-technology] issues, but the Department of Commerce is actively working to safeguard sensitive information." Mills added that the source had provided some inaccurate information, but he did not address the veracity of the source's claim that the delegation was electronically compromised.
"China is indeed a counterintelligence threat, and specifically a cyber-counterintelligence threat," said Brenner, who served for four years as inspector general of the National Security Agency, the intelligence organization that electronically steals other countries' secrets. Brenner said that the American company's experience "is an example of how hard the Chinese will work at this, and how much more seriously the American corporate sector has to take the information-security issue." He called economic espionage a national security risk and said that it makes little difference to a foreign power whether it steals sensitive information from a government-operated computer or from one owned by a contractor. "If you travel abroad and are the director of research or the chief executive of a large company, you're a target," he said.
"Cyber networks are the new frontier of counterintelligence," Brenner emphasized. "If you can steal information or disrupt an organization by attacking its networks remotely, why go to the trouble of running a spy?"
Stephen Spoonamore, CEO of Cybrinth, a cybersecurity firm that works for government and corporate clients, said that Chinese hackers attempt to map the IT networks of his clients on a daily basis. He said that executives from three Fortune 500 companies, all clients, had document-stealing code planted in their computers while traveling in China, the same fate that befell Gutierrez.
Spoonamore challenged U.S. officials to be more forthcoming about the breaches that have occurred on their systems. "By not talking openly about this, they are making a truly dangerous national security problem worse," Spoonamore said. "Secrecy in this matter benefits no one. Our nation's intellectual capital, industrial secrets, and economic security are under daily and withering attack. The oceans that surround us are no protection from sophisticated hackers, working at the speed of light on behalf of nation-states and mafias. We must cease denying the scope, scale, and risks of the issue. I, and a growing number of my peers believe our nation is in grave and growing danger."
A Growing Threat
Brenner said that Chinese hackers are "very good and getting better all the time... What makes the Chinese stand out is the pervasive and relentless nature of the attacks that are coming from China."
The issue has caught Congress's attention. Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., who chairs the Homeland Security panel's Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, and Science and Technology, said that his staff has examined a range of hacker networks, from criminal syndicates to nationally supported groups. "China has been a primary concern," he said. The deepest penetrations into U.S. systems have been traced back to sources within China, Langevin noted.
(At a hearing last week, Langevin said that the private sector, which owns the vast majority of U.S. information networks, including those that operate power plants, dams, and other critical infrastructure, had taken a "halfhearted approach" to improving security. He cited a new report by the Government Accountability Office, which found that the Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation's largest power generator, "has not fully implemented appropriate security practices to secure the control systems and networks used to operate its critical infrastructures." Langevin said that the TVA "risks a disruption of its operations as the result of a cyber incident, which could impact its customers," and he expressed "little confidence that industry is taking the appropriate actions.")
The Chinese make little distinction between hackers who work for the government and those who undertake cyber adventures on its behalf. "There's a huge pool of Chinese individuals, students, academics, unemployed, whatever it may be, who are, at minimum, not discouraged from trying this out," said Rodger Baker, a senior China analyst for Stratfor, a private intelligence firm. So-called patriotic-hacker groups have launched attacks from inside China, usually aimed at people they think have offended the country or pose a threat to its strategic interests. At a minimum the Chinese government has done little to shut down these groups, which are typically composed of technologically skilled and highly nationalistic young men. Officially, Chinese military and diplomatic officials say they have no policy of attacking other governments' systems.
"This has been a growing wave in recent years," Brenner said, attributing China's cyber tactics to its global economic and political ambitions. "The Chinese are out to develop a modern economy and society in one generation... There is much about their determination that is admirable. But they're also willing to steal a lot of proprietary information to do it, and that's not admirable. And we've got to stop it as best we can."
High-profile penetrations of government systems have been occurring for several years. In 2007, an unidentified hacker broke into the e-mail system for Defense Secretary Robert Gates's office, and the Pentagon shut down about 1,500 computers in response. But officials said that the intrusion caused no harm. In 2006, a State Department employee opened an e-mail containing a Trojan horse, a program designed to install itself on a host machine to give a hacker covert access. As a result, officials cut off Internet access to the department's East Asia and Pacific region, but the department suffered no long-term problems.
The Homeland Security Department, which is responsible for protecting civilian computer systems, suffered nearly 850 attacks over a two-year period beginning in 2005, officials have said. In one instance, they found that a program designed to steal passwords had been installed on two of the department's network servers. In these and other incidents, there is considerable debate about whether the intruders stole truly valuable information that could compromise U.S. strategy or ongoing operations.
"The penetrations we've seen are on unclassified systems, which are obviously less protected than classified systems," Brenner said.
Private Sector Foot-Dragging
There is little indication that cyber intrusions, however menacing, have severely impaired government operations for very long. So why are so many officials increasingly sounding the alarm about network attacks, Chinese hacking and espionage, and the advent of cyberwar?
Part of the answer lies in officials' most recent appraisals of the cyber threat. They cite evidence that attacks are increasing in volume and appear engineered more to cause real harm than sporadic inconvenience. Without naming China, Robert Jamison, the top cybersecurity official at DHS, told reporters at a March briefing, "We're concerned that the intrusions are more frequent, and they're more targeted, and they're more sophisticated."
"In terms of breaches within government systems, it's something that has happened quite a bit over the last six, seven years," says Shannon Kellogg, the director of information-security policy for EMC Corp., which owns RSA, a top cybersecurity research firm. "But the scale of these types of breaches and attacks seems to have increased substantially."
Government officials are more concerned now than in recent years about the private sector's inability, or unwillingness, to stop these pervasive attacks. When Donahue, the CIA cybersecurity officer, warned the gathering in New Orleans about foreign hackings of power plants, some saw it as a direct challenge to American companies.
"Donahue wouldn't have said it publicly if he didn't think the threat was very large and that companies needed to fix things right now," Alan Paller, the highly regarded director of research at the SANS Institute, told The Washington Post at the time. (SANS, a cybersecurity research and education group, sponsored the January meeting in New Orleans.) Another security expert noted that in the previous 18 months, there had been "a huge increase in focused attacks on our national infrastructure networks ... and they have been coming from outside the United States."
In comments posted on Wired magazine's Danger Room blog, which is trafficked by many techno-elites who are skeptical of the administration's more boisterous public warnings, Donahue's remarks about power plants drew support. Michael Tanji, a former intelligence officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency, said that the comments weren't part of a government plot to hype the threat. "Having worked with [Donahue] on these and related issues in the past, I regret to inform conspiracy theorists that he is virulently allergic to hyperbole," Tanji said. "I've long been a skeptic of claims about being able to shut down the world from the Net... But after today, I'm starting to come around to the idea that the ignorance or intransigence of utility system owners just might merit a more robust response than has been undertaken to date."
Tanji's remarks pointed to one of the most nettlesome realities of cybersecurity policy. Because most of the infrastructure in the United States is privately owned, the government finds it exceptionally difficult to compel utility operators to better monitor their systems. The FBI and DHS have established formal groups where business operators can disclose their known vulnerabilities privately. (Companies fear that public exposure will decrease shareholder confidence or incite more hackings.) But membership in these organizations isn't compulsory. Furthermore, many of the systems that utility operators use were designed by others. Intelligence officials now worry that software developed overseas poses another layer of risk because malicious codes or backdoors can be embedded in the software at its creation. U.S. officials have singled out software manufacturers in emerging markets such as, not surprisingly, China.
Military Response
The intelligence community's and private sector's vocal warnings and dire suspicions of Chinese hackers join a chorus of concern emanating from the Defense Department in recent months. In the most recent annual report on China's military power, the Defense Department declared publicly for the first time that attacks against government and commercial computer networks in 2007 appear to have emanated from China. "Numerous computer networks around the world, including those owned by the U.S. government, were subject to intrusions that appear to have originated within" the People's Republic of China. Although not claiming that the attacks were conducted by the Chinese government, or officially endorsed, the declaration built upon the previous year's warning that the People's Liberation Army is "building capabilities for information warfare" for possible use in "pre-emptive attacks."
The military is not waiting for China, or any other nation or hacker group, to strike a lethal cyber blow. In March, Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, the chief of U.S. Strategic Command, said that the Pentagon has its own cyberwar plans. "Our challenge is to define, shape, develop, deliver, and sustain a cyber force second to none," Chilton told the Senate Armed Services Committee. He asked appropriators for an "increased emphasis" on the Defense Department's cyber capabilities to help train personnel to "conduct network warfare."
The Air Force is in the process of setting up a Cyberspace Command, headed by a two-star general and comprising about 160 individuals assigned to a handful of bases. As Wired noted in a recent profile, Cyberspace Command "is dedicated to the proposition that the next war will be fought in the electromagnetic spectrum and that computers are military weapons." The Air Force has launched a TV ad campaign to drum up support for the new command, and to call attention to cyber war. "You used to need an army to wage a war," a narrator in the TV spot declares. "Now all you need is an Internet connection."
Defense and intelligence officials have been surprised by China's cyber advances, according to the U.S-China Economic and Security Review Commission. In November, the commission reported that "Chinese military strategists have embraced ... cyberattacks" as a weapon in their military arsenal. Gen. James Cartwright, the former head of U.S. Strategic Command and now the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told the commission that China was engaged in cyber reconnaissance, probing computer networks of U.S. agencies and corporations. He was particularly concerned about China's ability to conduct "denial-of-service" attacks, which overwhelm a computer system with massive amounts of automatically generated message traffic. Cartwright provocatively asserted that the consequences of a cyberattack "could, in fact, be in the magnitude of a weapon of mass destruction."
A former CIA official cast the cyber threat in a similarly dire terms. "We are currently in a cyber war, and war is going on today," Andrew Palowitch, who's now a consultant to U.S. Strategic Command, told an audience at Georgetown University in November. STRATCOM, headquartered at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, oversees the Defense Department's Joint Task Force-Global Network Operations, which defends military systems against cyberattack. Palowitch cited statistics, provided by Cartwright, that 37,000 reported breaches of government and private systems occurred in fiscal 2007. The Defense Department experienced almost 80,000 computer attacks, he said. Some of these assaults "reduced" the military's "operational capabilities," Palowitch noted.
Presidential Attention
President Bush has personally devoted more high-level attention to the cyberattack issue in the last year or so than he did in the first six years of his tenure combined. Many security experts are surprised that the administration is only now moving to take dramatic measures to improve the security of government networks, because some Cabinet-level and White House officials have been warning about the threat for years to just about anyone who will listen.
Until McConnell, the national intelligence director, personally drove the point home to Bush in an Oval Office meeting in 2006, there was little top-level support for a comprehensive government cybersecurity plan. "They ignored it," one former senior administration official said flatly. "McConnell has the president's ear."
McConnell, a former director of the National Security Agency, whose main job is to intercept foreign communications intelligence but which is also responsible for protecting U.S. classified information and systems, takes the computer-security issue as seriously as his counter-terrorism mission. After McConnell left the NSA, in 1996, he took over the intelligence practice at Booz Allen Hamilton, where he again turned to security problems, particularly within the nation's financial infrastructure. Working with officials from the New York Stock Exchange, McConnell developed a report for the government on network vulnerabilities; he has said that it was so revealing, the administration decided to classify it.
Lawrence Wright of The New Yorker reported earlier this year that McConnell told Bush during the 2006 Oval Office meeting, "If the 9/11 perpetrators had focused on a single U.S. bank through cyberattack and it had been successful, it would have had an order-of-magnitude greater impact on the U.S. economy." According to Wright, the president was disturbed, and then asked Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr., who was at the meeting, if McConnell was correct; Paulson assured the president that he was.
Brenner confirmed Wright's account as "a true story." And separately, a former senior administration official told National Journal of another dimension. In that meeting, McConnell also told the president that White House communications systems could be targeted for attack just as other U.S. government systems had been targeted. The intelligence chief was telling the president, "If the capability to exploit a communications device exists, we have to assume that our enemies either have it, or are trying to develop it," the former official said.
This meeting compelled the White House to craft an executive order laying out a broad and ambitious plan to shore up government-network defenses. Known internally as "the cyber initiative," it was formally issued in January. The details remain classified, but it has been reported that the order authorizes the National Security Agency to monitor federal computer networks. It also requires that the government dramatically scale back the number of points at which federal networks connect to the public Internet. The Office of Management and Budget has directed agencies to limit the total number of Internet "points of presence" to 50 by June.
Limiting connection points is analogous to pulling up drawbridges in order to defend the government's cyber infrastructure. Security experts interviewed for this story said that it shows how little the government can do, at least for now, to ward off intrusions if the first line of defense is to "unplug."
Mixed Reactions
Under the president's cyber initiative, the Homeland Security Department will be responsible for monitoring government agencies apart from the Defense Department. In March, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told National Journal that the first step is "to survey all the points" of presence. "We have no final number yet."
"The agencies' networks have grown very haphazardly. No one really knows where [the connections to the Internet] are," said Bruce McConnell, who was the chief of information technology and policy in the Office of Management and Budget. He left government in 2000. "Trying to catalogue where things are so you could turn them off is a daunting task in and of itself," said McConnell, who is not related to the intelligence chief.
Bush's cyber initiative has received mixed reviews. Generally, cyber experts favor a comprehensive approach, and they are relieved that the issue finally has the president's full attention. But some question how the program is being implemented - under a cloak of secrecy and with a heavy reliance on the intelligence community.
The sharpest criticisms are directed at the NSA, an intelligence agency whose traditional mandate is to collect information coming from outside the United States; it has no customary role monitoring networks inside the country, although this has changed in the years following the 9/11 attacks. It's not clear just how far the government's monitoring of computer networks will extend into the private sector and precisely what role the NSA will play tracking networks inside the United States, but lawmakers have already raised concerns that the cyber initiative will creep into domestic intelligence-gathering. The same kinds of technologies that are used to monitor networks for viruses and other malicious threats could be used to track domestic communications. On May 2, DHS's top overseers sent a letter to Chertoff questioning "the secrecy of the project." Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, the chairman and ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, respectively, noted that the department had requested an additional $83 million for its National Cyber Security Division; DHS had already been allocated $115 million for the cyber initiative in the 2008 omnibus appropriations bill. "This would be a nearly $200 million increase, tripling the amount of money spent on cybersecurity in DHS since 2007," the senators wrote. The full cost of implementing the president's cyber initiative is estimated to be $30 billion. The entire 2009 budget request for the Homeland Security Department is about $50 billion.
Marc Sachs, who was the director for communication infrastructure protection in the White House Office of Cyberspace Security in 2002, praised the administration for taking a bold initial step. But he said that the level of attention is 10 years overdue. Sachs noted that in 1998, President Clinton issued a directive that set ambitious infrastructure-protection goals. "I intend that the United States will take all necessary measures to swiftly eliminate any significant vulnerability to both physical and cyberattacks on our critical infrastructures, including especially our cyber systems," Clinton wrote.
Without pointing to particular policies, Brenner, the counterintelligence chief, said, "We need to take these policy declarations that we've had for 10 years and turn them into practical reality." He said the job of securing cyberspace is hardly as simple as "put two padlocks on the door... This is an incredibly open and porous and, in many cases, wireless system. Controlling cybersecurity is like controlling the air flow in a large, segmented building complex in a noxious neighborhood. You cannot be sure you are keeping all the noxious stuff out. What you've got to say is, gee, in the infirmary, we've really got to deal differently than we do in the lobby."
False Accusations?
Given the political fallout that could stem from a proven Chinese attack on power plants or theft of government secrets - not to mention the pressure to launch some sort of military response - skeptics have asked whether the Chinese really are behind so many high-profile incidents.
Brenner affirmed the widely held view that it's technologically difficult to attribute the exact source of any cyberattack and that the government needs better technologies to do so. But despite his assurances that the government has indeed sourced cyber intrusions to China, others urge caution.
"We want to find a natural enemy, so we're looking everywhere," Sachs said. He noted that some hackers launch their attacks through computers based in other countries, and that China is an easy mask. "I think all of us should remember that not everything you see online is truthful."
Another former administration official echoed those sentiments. "I think it's a little bit naive to suggest that everything that says it comes from China comes from China," said Amit Yoran, the first director of DHS's National Cyber Security Division, who left the post in 2004.
But there is little to no doubt, including among skeptics, that China is vigorously pursuing offensive cyber capabilities. Military analysts say that the Chinese know their armed forces cannot match America's in a head-on confrontation, and they realize their nuclear arsenal pales in comparison. These imbalances have forced Chinese military planners to adopt what the Pentagon calls "asymmetric" techniques - tactics that aim at a foe's vulnerabilities - in order to counter, or at least deter, U.S. military power.
"There has been much writing on information warfare among China's military thinkers, who indicate a strong conceptual understanding of its methods and uses," according to the Pentagon's annual report on China's military power. The report stated that "there is no evidence of a formal Chinese ... doctrine" but noted that the People's Liberation Army has "established information-warfare units to develop viruses to attack enemy computer systems and networks."
U.S. military officials see cyber warfare as one arrow in a quiver of asymmetric techniques to disrupt an enemy's command-and-control systems. The Chinese strategy, according to this line of thinking, is not to defeat U.S. military forces but to make it harder for them to operate.
China's military history has been defined by asymmetric warfare, said Harry Harding, an expert on Chinese domestic politics and U.S.-China relations, who teaches at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs. Cyber warfare is just one of the more recent tactics. If the U.S. government tries to protect its systems, the Chinese will simply attack the private sector; he cited the financial services industry as an obvious target. "I have no doubt that China is doing this," Harding said.
Bennett, the former head of the Cyber Security Industry Alliance, said that if China has penetrated power plants and the power grid, it serves as a show of force to the United States and is likely meant to deter any U.S. military intervention on behalf of Taiwan. He noted that the Florida blackout occurred only a few days after the Navy shot down a failing U.S. satellite with a missile designed to intercept inbound ballistic missiles. A year earlier, the Chinese had downed one of their own satellites in orbit. The Bush administration has pursued ballistic missile defense systems, and Taiwan has sought that technology from the United States.
Cyber War
The Chinese are not alone, of course, in their pursuit of cyber warfare. The Air Force is setting up the Cyberspace Command, the 10th command in the service's history.
"The next kind of warfare will be asymmetric warfare," Gen. William Lord, the provisional commander, said during a roundtable discussion at the Council of Foreign Relations in March. "Who is going to take on the United States Army, Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force, and U.S. Navy as probably the most powerful force on the face of the planet?"
Lord didn't limit his remarks to China. He said that cyber criminals and other "bad guys" were as much a concern for the military. He also pointed to a massive cyberattack launched last year against computers in Estonia, in which Russian hackers - perhaps operating at Moscow's behest - tried to take down the country's systems in retaliation for Estonia's decision to move a statue commemorating fallen Soviet troops, a statue that Russians living in Estonia love but that native-born Estonians don't. The attack has been billed as the first "cyber war" because of the overwhelming electronic force brought to bear on the tiny country of 1.3 million people.
"I had an opportunity to speak with the minister of defense from Estonia," Lord said. "He was attacked by 1 million computers."
The Estonia attack probably shook nerves more than it caused long-term damage. But it served as a potent example of how determined, coordinated hackers could gang up on a foreign government. It has also created profound policy questions about what qualifies as war in cyberspace.
"The problem with this kind of warfare," Lord said, "is determining who is the enemy, what is their intent, and where are they, and then what can you do about it?"
Brenner, the senior U.S. counterintelligence official, said, "Another country knows that if it starts taking out our satellites, that would be an act of war." But "if they were to take out certain parts of our infrastructure, electronically, that could be regarded as an act of war," he said. "It's not my job to say that."
NATO officials are reluctantly struggling with that question, too. At a ministerial meeting in June 2007, Defense Secretary Gates asked the allied members to consider defining cyberattacks in the context of traditional warfare. Cyber war is still abstract, and there are no international conventions that govern military conduct on a digital battlefield.
"The U.S. government doesn't really have a policy on the use of these techniques," said Michael Vatis, a former director of the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center. "The closest analogy is to covert actions," he said, meaning spy operations undertaken by intelligence agencies against foreign governments. "They take place, and people have strong suspicions about [who's responsible]. But as long as they're not able to prove it, there's very little that they can do about it. And so there's often not as much outrage expressed."
Staff Correspondent Bruce Stokes contributed to this article.
By Shane Harris National Journal May 29, 2008
Computer hackers in China, including those working on behalf of the Chinese government and military, have penetrated deeply into the information systems of U.S. companies and government agencies, stolen proprietary information from American executives in advance of their business meetings in China, and, in a few cases, gained access to electric power plants in the United States, possibly triggering two recent and widespread blackouts in Florida and the Northeast, according to U.S. government officials and computer-security experts.
One prominent expert told National Journal he believes that China's People's Liberation Army played a role in the power outages. Tim Bennett, the former president of the Cyber Security Industry Alliance, a leading trade group, said that U.S. intelligence officials have told him that the PLA in 2003 gained access to a network that controlled electric power systems serving the northeastern United States. The intelligence officials said that forensic analysis had confirmed the source, Bennett said. "They said that, with confidence, it had been traced back to the PLA." These officials believe that the intrusion may have precipitated the largest blackout in North American history, which occurred in August of that year. A 9,300-square-mile area, touching Michigan, Ohio, New York, and parts of Canada, lost power; an estimated 50 million people were affected.
Officially, the blackout was attributed to a variety of factors, none of which involved foreign intervention. Investigators blamed "overgrown trees" that came into contact with strained high-voltage lines near facilities in Ohio owned by FirstEnergy Corp. More than 100 power plants were shut down during the cascading failure. A computer virus, then in wide circulation, disrupted the communications lines that utility companies use to manage the power grid, and this exacerbated the problem. The blackout prompted President Bush to address the nation the day it happened. Power was mostly restored within 24 hours.
There has never been an official U.S. government assertion of Chinese involvement in the outage, but intelligence and other government officials contacted for this story did not explicitly rule out a Chinese role. One security analyst in the private sector with close ties to the intelligence community said that some senior intelligence officials believe that China played a role in the 2003 blackout that is still not fully understood.
Bennett, whose former trade association includes some of the nation's largest computer security companies and who has testified before Congress on the vulnerability of information networks, also said that a blackout in February, which affected 3 million customers in South Florida, was precipitated by a cyber hacker. That outage cut off electricity along Florida's east coast, from Daytona Beach to Monroe County, and affected eight power-generating stations. Bennett said that the chief executive officer of a security firm that belonged to Bennett's trade group told him that federal officials had hired the CEO's company to investigate the blackout for evidence of a network intrusion, and to "reverse engineer" the incident to see if China had played a role.
Bennett, who now works as a private consultant, said he decided to speak publicly about these incidents to point out that security for the nation's critical electronic infrastructures remains intolerably weak and to emphasize that government and company officials haven't sufficiently acknowledged these vulnerabilities.
The Florida Blackout
A second information-security expert independently corroborated Bennett's account of the Florida blackout. According to this individual, who cited sources with direct knowledge of the investigation, a Chinese PLA hacker attempting to map Florida Power & Light's computer infrastructure apparently made a mistake. "The hacker was probably supposed to be mapping the system for his bosses and just got carried away and had a 'what happens if I pull on this' moment." The hacker triggered a cascade effect, shutting down large portions of the Florida power grid, the security expert said. "I suspect, as the system went down, the PLA hacker said something like, 'Oops, my bad,' in Chinese."
The power company has blamed "human error" for the incident, specifically an engineer who improperly disabled safety backups while working on a faulty switch. But federal officials are still investigating the matter and have not issued a final report, a spokeswoman for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said. The industry source, who conducts security research for government and corporate clients, said that hackers in China have devoted considerable time and resources to mapping the technology infrastructure of other U.S. companies. That assertion has been backed up by the current vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said last year that Chinese sources are probing U.S. government and commercial networks.
Asked whether Washington knew of hacker involvement in the two blackouts, Joel Brenner, the government's senior counterintelligence official, told National Journal, "I can't comment on that." But he added, "It's certainly possible that sort of thing could happen. The kinds of network exploitation one does to explore a network and map it and learn one's way around it has to be done whether you are going to ... steal information, bring [the network] down, or corrupt it... The possible consequences of this behavior are profound."
Brenner, who works for Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, looks for vulnerabilities in the government's information networks. He pointed to China as a source of attacks against U.S. interests. "Some [attacks], we have high confidence, are coming from government-sponsored sites," Brenner said. "The Chinese operate both through government agencies, as we do, but they also operate through sponsoring other organizations that are engaging in this kind of international hacking, whether or not under specific direction. It's a kind of cyber militia... It's coming in volumes that are just staggering."
The Central Intelligence Agency's chief cybersecurity officer, Tom Donahue, said that hackers had breached the computer systems of utility companies outside the United States and that they had even demanded ransom. Donahue spoke at a January gathering in New Orleans of security executives from government agencies and some of the nation's largest utility and energy companies. He said he suspected that some of the hackers had inside knowledge of the utility systems and that in at least one case, an intrusion caused a power outage that affected multiple cities. The CIA didn't know who launched the attacks or why, Donahue said, "but all involved intrusions through the Internet."
Donahue's public remarks, which were unprecedented at the time, prompted questions about whether power plants in the United States had been hacked. Many computer-security experts, including Bennett, believe that his admission about foreign incidents was intended to warn American companies that if intrusions hadn't already happened stateside, they certainly could. A CIA spokesman at the time said that Donahue's comments were "designed to highlight to the audience the challenges posed by potential cyber intrusions." The CIA declined National Journal's request to interview Donahue.
Cyber Espionage
In addition to disruptive attacks on networks, officials are worried about the Chinese using long-established computer-hacking techniques to steal sensitive information from government agencies and U.S. corporations.
Brenner, the U.S. counterintelligence chief, said he knows of "a large American company" whose strategic information was obtained by its Chinese counterparts in advance of a business negotiation. As Brenner recounted the story, "The delegation gets to China and realizes, 'These guys on the other side of the table know every bottom line on every significant negotiating point.' They had to have got this by hacking into [the company's] systems."
Bennett told a similar story about a large, well-known American company. (Both he and Brenner declined to provide the names of the companies.) According to Bennett, the Chinese based their starting points for negotiation on the Americans' end points.
Two sources also alleged that the hacking extends to high-level administration officials.
During a trip to Beijing in December 2007, spyware programs designed to clandestinely remove information from personal computers and other electronic equipment were discovered on devices used by Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and possibly other members of a U.S. trade delegation, according to a computer-security expert with firsthand knowledge of the spyware used. Gutierrez was in China with the Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade, a high-level delegation that includes the U.S. trade representative and that meets with Chinese officials to discuss such matters as intellectual-property rights, market access, and consumer product safety.
According to the computer-security expert, the spyware programs were designed to open communications channels to an outside system, and to download the contents of the infected devices at regular intervals. The source said that the computer codes were identical to those found in the laptop computers and other devices of several senior executives of U.S. corporations who also had their electronics "slurped" while on business in China. The source said he believes, based on conversations with U.S. officials, that the Gutierrez compromise was a source of considerable concern in the Bush administration. Another source with knowledge of the incident corroborated the computer-security expert's account.
National Journal had a series of conversations with Rich Mills, a Commerce Department spokesman. Asked whether spyware or other malicious software code was found on any electronic devices used by Gutierrez or people traveling with him in China in December 2007, Mills said he "could not confirm or deny" the computer-security expert's allegations. "I cannot comment on specific [information-technology] issues, but the Department of Commerce is actively working to safeguard sensitive information." Mills added that the source had provided some inaccurate information, but he did not address the veracity of the source's claim that the delegation was electronically compromised.
"China is indeed a counterintelligence threat, and specifically a cyber-counterintelligence threat," said Brenner, who served for four years as inspector general of the National Security Agency, the intelligence organization that electronically steals other countries' secrets. Brenner said that the American company's experience "is an example of how hard the Chinese will work at this, and how much more seriously the American corporate sector has to take the information-security issue." He called economic espionage a national security risk and said that it makes little difference to a foreign power whether it steals sensitive information from a government-operated computer or from one owned by a contractor. "If you travel abroad and are the director of research or the chief executive of a large company, you're a target," he said.
"Cyber networks are the new frontier of counterintelligence," Brenner emphasized. "If you can steal information or disrupt an organization by attacking its networks remotely, why go to the trouble of running a spy?"
Stephen Spoonamore, CEO of Cybrinth, a cybersecurity firm that works for government and corporate clients, said that Chinese hackers attempt to map the IT networks of his clients on a daily basis. He said that executives from three Fortune 500 companies, all clients, had document-stealing code planted in their computers while traveling in China, the same fate that befell Gutierrez.
Spoonamore challenged U.S. officials to be more forthcoming about the breaches that have occurred on their systems. "By not talking openly about this, they are making a truly dangerous national security problem worse," Spoonamore said. "Secrecy in this matter benefits no one. Our nation's intellectual capital, industrial secrets, and economic security are under daily and withering attack. The oceans that surround us are no protection from sophisticated hackers, working at the speed of light on behalf of nation-states and mafias. We must cease denying the scope, scale, and risks of the issue. I, and a growing number of my peers believe our nation is in grave and growing danger."
A Growing Threat
Brenner said that Chinese hackers are "very good and getting better all the time... What makes the Chinese stand out is the pervasive and relentless nature of the attacks that are coming from China."
The issue has caught Congress's attention. Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., who chairs the Homeland Security panel's Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, and Science and Technology, said that his staff has examined a range of hacker networks, from criminal syndicates to nationally supported groups. "China has been a primary concern," he said. The deepest penetrations into U.S. systems have been traced back to sources within China, Langevin noted.
(At a hearing last week, Langevin said that the private sector, which owns the vast majority of U.S. information networks, including those that operate power plants, dams, and other critical infrastructure, had taken a "halfhearted approach" to improving security. He cited a new report by the Government Accountability Office, which found that the Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation's largest power generator, "has not fully implemented appropriate security practices to secure the control systems and networks used to operate its critical infrastructures." Langevin said that the TVA "risks a disruption of its operations as the result of a cyber incident, which could impact its customers," and he expressed "little confidence that industry is taking the appropriate actions.")
The Chinese make little distinction between hackers who work for the government and those who undertake cyber adventures on its behalf. "There's a huge pool of Chinese individuals, students, academics, unemployed, whatever it may be, who are, at minimum, not discouraged from trying this out," said Rodger Baker, a senior China analyst for Stratfor, a private intelligence firm. So-called patriotic-hacker groups have launched attacks from inside China, usually aimed at people they think have offended the country or pose a threat to its strategic interests. At a minimum the Chinese government has done little to shut down these groups, which are typically composed of technologically skilled and highly nationalistic young men. Officially, Chinese military and diplomatic officials say they have no policy of attacking other governments' systems.
"This has been a growing wave in recent years," Brenner said, attributing China's cyber tactics to its global economic and political ambitions. "The Chinese are out to develop a modern economy and society in one generation... There is much about their determination that is admirable. But they're also willing to steal a lot of proprietary information to do it, and that's not admirable. And we've got to stop it as best we can."
High-profile penetrations of government systems have been occurring for several years. In 2007, an unidentified hacker broke into the e-mail system for Defense Secretary Robert Gates's office, and the Pentagon shut down about 1,500 computers in response. But officials said that the intrusion caused no harm. In 2006, a State Department employee opened an e-mail containing a Trojan horse, a program designed to install itself on a host machine to give a hacker covert access. As a result, officials cut off Internet access to the department's East Asia and Pacific region, but the department suffered no long-term problems.
The Homeland Security Department, which is responsible for protecting civilian computer systems, suffered nearly 850 attacks over a two-year period beginning in 2005, officials have said. In one instance, they found that a program designed to steal passwords had been installed on two of the department's network servers. In these and other incidents, there is considerable debate about whether the intruders stole truly valuable information that could compromise U.S. strategy or ongoing operations.
"The penetrations we've seen are on unclassified systems, which are obviously less protected than classified systems," Brenner said.
Private Sector Foot-Dragging
There is little indication that cyber intrusions, however menacing, have severely impaired government operations for very long. So why are so many officials increasingly sounding the alarm about network attacks, Chinese hacking and espionage, and the advent of cyberwar?
Part of the answer lies in officials' most recent appraisals of the cyber threat. They cite evidence that attacks are increasing in volume and appear engineered more to cause real harm than sporadic inconvenience. Without naming China, Robert Jamison, the top cybersecurity official at DHS, told reporters at a March briefing, "We're concerned that the intrusions are more frequent, and they're more targeted, and they're more sophisticated."
"In terms of breaches within government systems, it's something that has happened quite a bit over the last six, seven years," says Shannon Kellogg, the director of information-security policy for EMC Corp., which owns RSA, a top cybersecurity research firm. "But the scale of these types of breaches and attacks seems to have increased substantially."
Government officials are more concerned now than in recent years about the private sector's inability, or unwillingness, to stop these pervasive attacks. When Donahue, the CIA cybersecurity officer, warned the gathering in New Orleans about foreign hackings of power plants, some saw it as a direct challenge to American companies.
"Donahue wouldn't have said it publicly if he didn't think the threat was very large and that companies needed to fix things right now," Alan Paller, the highly regarded director of research at the SANS Institute, told The Washington Post at the time. (SANS, a cybersecurity research and education group, sponsored the January meeting in New Orleans.) Another security expert noted that in the previous 18 months, there had been "a huge increase in focused attacks on our national infrastructure networks ... and they have been coming from outside the United States."
In comments posted on Wired magazine's Danger Room blog, which is trafficked by many techno-elites who are skeptical of the administration's more boisterous public warnings, Donahue's remarks about power plants drew support. Michael Tanji, a former intelligence officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency, said that the comments weren't part of a government plot to hype the threat. "Having worked with [Donahue] on these and related issues in the past, I regret to inform conspiracy theorists that he is virulently allergic to hyperbole," Tanji said. "I've long been a skeptic of claims about being able to shut down the world from the Net... But after today, I'm starting to come around to the idea that the ignorance or intransigence of utility system owners just might merit a more robust response than has been undertaken to date."
Tanji's remarks pointed to one of the most nettlesome realities of cybersecurity policy. Because most of the infrastructure in the United States is privately owned, the government finds it exceptionally difficult to compel utility operators to better monitor their systems. The FBI and DHS have established formal groups where business operators can disclose their known vulnerabilities privately. (Companies fear that public exposure will decrease shareholder confidence or incite more hackings.) But membership in these organizations isn't compulsory. Furthermore, many of the systems that utility operators use were designed by others. Intelligence officials now worry that software developed overseas poses another layer of risk because malicious codes or backdoors can be embedded in the software at its creation. U.S. officials have singled out software manufacturers in emerging markets such as, not surprisingly, China.
Military Response
The intelligence community's and private sector's vocal warnings and dire suspicions of Chinese hackers join a chorus of concern emanating from the Defense Department in recent months. In the most recent annual report on China's military power, the Defense Department declared publicly for the first time that attacks against government and commercial computer networks in 2007 appear to have emanated from China. "Numerous computer networks around the world, including those owned by the U.S. government, were subject to intrusions that appear to have originated within" the People's Republic of China. Although not claiming that the attacks were conducted by the Chinese government, or officially endorsed, the declaration built upon the previous year's warning that the People's Liberation Army is "building capabilities for information warfare" for possible use in "pre-emptive attacks."
The military is not waiting for China, or any other nation or hacker group, to strike a lethal cyber blow. In March, Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, the chief of U.S. Strategic Command, said that the Pentagon has its own cyberwar plans. "Our challenge is to define, shape, develop, deliver, and sustain a cyber force second to none," Chilton told the Senate Armed Services Committee. He asked appropriators for an "increased emphasis" on the Defense Department's cyber capabilities to help train personnel to "conduct network warfare."
The Air Force is in the process of setting up a Cyberspace Command, headed by a two-star general and comprising about 160 individuals assigned to a handful of bases. As Wired noted in a recent profile, Cyberspace Command "is dedicated to the proposition that the next war will be fought in the electromagnetic spectrum and that computers are military weapons." The Air Force has launched a TV ad campaign to drum up support for the new command, and to call attention to cyber war. "You used to need an army to wage a war," a narrator in the TV spot declares. "Now all you need is an Internet connection."
Defense and intelligence officials have been surprised by China's cyber advances, according to the U.S-China Economic and Security Review Commission. In November, the commission reported that "Chinese military strategists have embraced ... cyberattacks" as a weapon in their military arsenal. Gen. James Cartwright, the former head of U.S. Strategic Command and now the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told the commission that China was engaged in cyber reconnaissance, probing computer networks of U.S. agencies and corporations. He was particularly concerned about China's ability to conduct "denial-of-service" attacks, which overwhelm a computer system with massive amounts of automatically generated message traffic. Cartwright provocatively asserted that the consequences of a cyberattack "could, in fact, be in the magnitude of a weapon of mass destruction."
A former CIA official cast the cyber threat in a similarly dire terms. "We are currently in a cyber war, and war is going on today," Andrew Palowitch, who's now a consultant to U.S. Strategic Command, told an audience at Georgetown University in November. STRATCOM, headquartered at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, oversees the Defense Department's Joint Task Force-Global Network Operations, which defends military systems against cyberattack. Palowitch cited statistics, provided by Cartwright, that 37,000 reported breaches of government and private systems occurred in fiscal 2007. The Defense Department experienced almost 80,000 computer attacks, he said. Some of these assaults "reduced" the military's "operational capabilities," Palowitch noted.
Presidential Attention
President Bush has personally devoted more high-level attention to the cyberattack issue in the last year or so than he did in the first six years of his tenure combined. Many security experts are surprised that the administration is only now moving to take dramatic measures to improve the security of government networks, because some Cabinet-level and White House officials have been warning about the threat for years to just about anyone who will listen.
Until McConnell, the national intelligence director, personally drove the point home to Bush in an Oval Office meeting in 2006, there was little top-level support for a comprehensive government cybersecurity plan. "They ignored it," one former senior administration official said flatly. "McConnell has the president's ear."
McConnell, a former director of the National Security Agency, whose main job is to intercept foreign communications intelligence but which is also responsible for protecting U.S. classified information and systems, takes the computer-security issue as seriously as his counter-terrorism mission. After McConnell left the NSA, in 1996, he took over the intelligence practice at Booz Allen Hamilton, where he again turned to security problems, particularly within the nation's financial infrastructure. Working with officials from the New York Stock Exchange, McConnell developed a report for the government on network vulnerabilities; he has said that it was so revealing, the administration decided to classify it.
Lawrence Wright of The New Yorker reported earlier this year that McConnell told Bush during the 2006 Oval Office meeting, "If the 9/11 perpetrators had focused on a single U.S. bank through cyberattack and it had been successful, it would have had an order-of-magnitude greater impact on the U.S. economy." According to Wright, the president was disturbed, and then asked Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr., who was at the meeting, if McConnell was correct; Paulson assured the president that he was.
Brenner confirmed Wright's account as "a true story." And separately, a former senior administration official told National Journal of another dimension. In that meeting, McConnell also told the president that White House communications systems could be targeted for attack just as other U.S. government systems had been targeted. The intelligence chief was telling the president, "If the capability to exploit a communications device exists, we have to assume that our enemies either have it, or are trying to develop it," the former official said.
This meeting compelled the White House to craft an executive order laying out a broad and ambitious plan to shore up government-network defenses. Known internally as "the cyber initiative," it was formally issued in January. The details remain classified, but it has been reported that the order authorizes the National Security Agency to monitor federal computer networks. It also requires that the government dramatically scale back the number of points at which federal networks connect to the public Internet. The Office of Management and Budget has directed agencies to limit the total number of Internet "points of presence" to 50 by June.
Limiting connection points is analogous to pulling up drawbridges in order to defend the government's cyber infrastructure. Security experts interviewed for this story said that it shows how little the government can do, at least for now, to ward off intrusions if the first line of defense is to "unplug."
Mixed Reactions
Under the president's cyber initiative, the Homeland Security Department will be responsible for monitoring government agencies apart from the Defense Department. In March, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told National Journal that the first step is "to survey all the points" of presence. "We have no final number yet."
"The agencies' networks have grown very haphazardly. No one really knows where [the connections to the Internet] are," said Bruce McConnell, who was the chief of information technology and policy in the Office of Management and Budget. He left government in 2000. "Trying to catalogue where things are so you could turn them off is a daunting task in and of itself," said McConnell, who is not related to the intelligence chief.
Bush's cyber initiative has received mixed reviews. Generally, cyber experts favor a comprehensive approach, and they are relieved that the issue finally has the president's full attention. But some question how the program is being implemented - under a cloak of secrecy and with a heavy reliance on the intelligence community.
The sharpest criticisms are directed at the NSA, an intelligence agency whose traditional mandate is to collect information coming from outside the United States; it has no customary role monitoring networks inside the country, although this has changed in the years following the 9/11 attacks. It's not clear just how far the government's monitoring of computer networks will extend into the private sector and precisely what role the NSA will play tracking networks inside the United States, but lawmakers have already raised concerns that the cyber initiative will creep into domestic intelligence-gathering. The same kinds of technologies that are used to monitor networks for viruses and other malicious threats could be used to track domestic communications. On May 2, DHS's top overseers sent a letter to Chertoff questioning "the secrecy of the project." Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, the chairman and ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, respectively, noted that the department had requested an additional $83 million for its National Cyber Security Division; DHS had already been allocated $115 million for the cyber initiative in the 2008 omnibus appropriations bill. "This would be a nearly $200 million increase, tripling the amount of money spent on cybersecurity in DHS since 2007," the senators wrote. The full cost of implementing the president's cyber initiative is estimated to be $30 billion. The entire 2009 budget request for the Homeland Security Department is about $50 billion.
Marc Sachs, who was the director for communication infrastructure protection in the White House Office of Cyberspace Security in 2002, praised the administration for taking a bold initial step. But he said that the level of attention is 10 years overdue. Sachs noted that in 1998, President Clinton issued a directive that set ambitious infrastructure-protection goals. "I intend that the United States will take all necessary measures to swiftly eliminate any significant vulnerability to both physical and cyberattacks on our critical infrastructures, including especially our cyber systems," Clinton wrote.
Without pointing to particular policies, Brenner, the counterintelligence chief, said, "We need to take these policy declarations that we've had for 10 years and turn them into practical reality." He said the job of securing cyberspace is hardly as simple as "put two padlocks on the door... This is an incredibly open and porous and, in many cases, wireless system. Controlling cybersecurity is like controlling the air flow in a large, segmented building complex in a noxious neighborhood. You cannot be sure you are keeping all the noxious stuff out. What you've got to say is, gee, in the infirmary, we've really got to deal differently than we do in the lobby."
False Accusations?
Given the political fallout that could stem from a proven Chinese attack on power plants or theft of government secrets - not to mention the pressure to launch some sort of military response - skeptics have asked whether the Chinese really are behind so many high-profile incidents.
Brenner affirmed the widely held view that it's technologically difficult to attribute the exact source of any cyberattack and that the government needs better technologies to do so. But despite his assurances that the government has indeed sourced cyber intrusions to China, others urge caution.
"We want to find a natural enemy, so we're looking everywhere," Sachs said. He noted that some hackers launch their attacks through computers based in other countries, and that China is an easy mask. "I think all of us should remember that not everything you see online is truthful."
Another former administration official echoed those sentiments. "I think it's a little bit naive to suggest that everything that says it comes from China comes from China," said Amit Yoran, the first director of DHS's National Cyber Security Division, who left the post in 2004.
But there is little to no doubt, including among skeptics, that China is vigorously pursuing offensive cyber capabilities. Military analysts say that the Chinese know their armed forces cannot match America's in a head-on confrontation, and they realize their nuclear arsenal pales in comparison. These imbalances have forced Chinese military planners to adopt what the Pentagon calls "asymmetric" techniques - tactics that aim at a foe's vulnerabilities - in order to counter, or at least deter, U.S. military power.
"There has been much writing on information warfare among China's military thinkers, who indicate a strong conceptual understanding of its methods and uses," according to the Pentagon's annual report on China's military power. The report stated that "there is no evidence of a formal Chinese ... doctrine" but noted that the People's Liberation Army has "established information-warfare units to develop viruses to attack enemy computer systems and networks."
U.S. military officials see cyber warfare as one arrow in a quiver of asymmetric techniques to disrupt an enemy's command-and-control systems. The Chinese strategy, according to this line of thinking, is not to defeat U.S. military forces but to make it harder for them to operate.
China's military history has been defined by asymmetric warfare, said Harry Harding, an expert on Chinese domestic politics and U.S.-China relations, who teaches at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs. Cyber warfare is just one of the more recent tactics. If the U.S. government tries to protect its systems, the Chinese will simply attack the private sector; he cited the financial services industry as an obvious target. "I have no doubt that China is doing this," Harding said.
Bennett, the former head of the Cyber Security Industry Alliance, said that if China has penetrated power plants and the power grid, it serves as a show of force to the United States and is likely meant to deter any U.S. military intervention on behalf of Taiwan. He noted that the Florida blackout occurred only a few days after the Navy shot down a failing U.S. satellite with a missile designed to intercept inbound ballistic missiles. A year earlier, the Chinese had downed one of their own satellites in orbit. The Bush administration has pursued ballistic missile defense systems, and Taiwan has sought that technology from the United States.
Cyber War
The Chinese are not alone, of course, in their pursuit of cyber warfare. The Air Force is setting up the Cyberspace Command, the 10th command in the service's history.
"The next kind of warfare will be asymmetric warfare," Gen. William Lord, the provisional commander, said during a roundtable discussion at the Council of Foreign Relations in March. "Who is going to take on the United States Army, Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force, and U.S. Navy as probably the most powerful force on the face of the planet?"
Lord didn't limit his remarks to China. He said that cyber criminals and other "bad guys" were as much a concern for the military. He also pointed to a massive cyberattack launched last year against computers in Estonia, in which Russian hackers - perhaps operating at Moscow's behest - tried to take down the country's systems in retaliation for Estonia's decision to move a statue commemorating fallen Soviet troops, a statue that Russians living in Estonia love but that native-born Estonians don't. The attack has been billed as the first "cyber war" because of the overwhelming electronic force brought to bear on the tiny country of 1.3 million people.
"I had an opportunity to speak with the minister of defense from Estonia," Lord said. "He was attacked by 1 million computers."
The Estonia attack probably shook nerves more than it caused long-term damage. But it served as a potent example of how determined, coordinated hackers could gang up on a foreign government. It has also created profound policy questions about what qualifies as war in cyberspace.
"The problem with this kind of warfare," Lord said, "is determining who is the enemy, what is their intent, and where are they, and then what can you do about it?"
Brenner, the senior U.S. counterintelligence official, said, "Another country knows that if it starts taking out our satellites, that would be an act of war." But "if they were to take out certain parts of our infrastructure, electronically, that could be regarded as an act of war," he said. "It's not my job to say that."
NATO officials are reluctantly struggling with that question, too. At a ministerial meeting in June 2007, Defense Secretary Gates asked the allied members to consider defining cyberattacks in the context of traditional warfare. Cyber war is still abstract, and there are no international conventions that govern military conduct on a digital battlefield.
"The U.S. government doesn't really have a policy on the use of these techniques," said Michael Vatis, a former director of the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center. "The closest analogy is to covert actions," he said, meaning spy operations undertaken by intelligence agencies against foreign governments. "They take place, and people have strong suspicions about [who's responsible]. But as long as they're not able to prove it, there's very little that they can do about it. And so there's often not as much outrage expressed."
Staff Correspondent Bruce Stokes contributed to this article.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Jihadi terror victims: 3674 Indians (as of May 14, 2008 since Jan. 2004). Rulers are busy making money.
And media is busy glorifying these money-spinners...
The UPA regime led by Sonia Gandhi and jaalra-ed by the Substitute Hon'ble PM Manmohan Singh consists of cuddlers of the merchants of death.
Media cries foul when there is a security breach for Sonia's Karnataka election propaganda. Media keeps reckoning the count of victims of Jihadi terror, providing no comment on the role played by the cuddlers of the merchants of death.
Swapan is right. Of course, there is death of outrage. He adds: "India is confronted by home-grown, ideologically-driven terror. The Government doesn't want to admit it. Nor does it plan to act against it for fear of unsettling people who vote en bloc. It persists with its hypocrisy and double-speak on the cynical belief that the Kuffar-e-Hind is incapable of responding in a united way. "
Swapan, the only unity of UPA is unity in staying in power and continuing to loot the nation's treasury. Vote-bank? Aha, roll on to the Swiss bank. The list of account holders in Luxembourg LTG Group banks is yet to be called for by the Government; that list will be a revelation. The German Government has announced that it would share information on accounts held in the tax haven with any Government that wanted it. http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/03/28/stories/2008032850180800.htm
This unity in skullduggery is a blot on Bharatam – that the people of Bharatam have allowed such a rogues' gallery of chamcha-s to be in sattaa who do not care about securing the life and limb of citizens of the nation who have given to themselves a Constitution which has been reduced to a scrap of paper by the Belgian-honored lady who has contributed to making Belgium the third largest trading party of the country – after USA and UK. No wonder the Order of Leopold is perceived to be a glorious honour for the Italian-born prima donna.
kalyan
Blast bags were made in China16 May 2008, 0625 hrs IST,TNN
JAIPUR: Investigations have revealed that the bags used for the blasts carried brand name Boneno, and are of Chinese make. They are not available in local markets, and may have been brought from outside. IG Pankaj Singh told TOI that the explosives were strapped to handle-bars. Meanwhile, the police released sketches of three more suspects late on Thursday based on descriptions given by owners and attendants of the cycle shops from where the bombers had bought the vehicles of death. On Thursday, they managed to identify at least four other shops, and the sketches were prepared on the basis of descriptions from the shop employees who sold off the bikes. That the bikes were bought from separate shops was confirmed by the fact that all of them carried locks of different make. Singh said that the sketches were credible because the buyer in all the cases remained in the shop for almost an hour to get the lock installed giving the shop staff ample time to have a good look at his face. In all five sketches released till now, the man shown is about 20-25 years old. The cops said that, going by the way they spoke, none of them seemed to be a native of Rajasthan. They all bought the bike without haggling. Police sources also said that at least 5-6 bikes were sold on May 13, the day of the blast. While 3 of the cycles were of Avon make, 2 were Atlas. The remaining for bikes were all of separate make Hercules, Penny, Surya and Apollo. In the Boneno bags, the bomb parcel was hidden under newly bought underwears of a very popular brand. In one of the bicycles, it was wrapped in the April 4 edition of local newspaper Daily News. The cops said that the ball bearings were of a "particularly damaging variety" and were placed in a "curve" in such a way that when the bomb exploded the shrapnel burst out ahead, and not up, causing maximum damage till close to 100 feet. That they were planted in congested bazars only added to their lethality.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/3045563.cms
Chronology of major bomb attacks in India 13 May 2008, 2353 hrs IST,AFP
NEW DELHI: The following is a list of recent major bomb blasts in India that police suspect were linked to sectarian groups: May 13, 2008: At least 60 people killed and 150 wounded in what police said was a terror attack in the popular tourist city of Jaipur in Rajasthan. November 23, 2007: At least 13 people were killed from serial blasts outside courts in three cities in Uttar Pradesh. August 25, 2007: At least 43 people killed and more than 70 others injured as two bombs rock a crowded outdoor auditorium and a popular eatery in Hyderabad. May 18, 2007: At least 10 killed and more than a dozen injured in blast at 17th century Mecca mosque in Hyderabad. February 19, 2007: Sixty-eight people killed and dozens more injured after four explosions on board the Lahore-bound Samjhauta Express. September 8, 2006: Thirty-eight people killed and more than 100 injured in three nearly simultaneous blasts, including one in a mosque, in the town of Malegaon in Maharashtra. July 11, 2006: Seven bomb blasts in a period of 11 minutes on Mumbai's suburban trains. A total of 186 people were killed and more than 800 injured. April 14, 2006: Fourteen people, including a woman and a girl, injured in two explosions at New Delhi's Jama Masjid, after Friday evening prayers. March 7, 2006: Twenty-eight killed and 62 injured after three bombs rip through the holy city of Varanasi. October 29, 2005: More than 60 people killed and nearly 200 injured when three bombs explode ahead of Diwali in New Delhi. August 25, 2004: Six people die in two car bomb blasts in Mumbai. March 13, 2003: Eleven people killed in a bomb attack aboard a commuter train in Mumbai. September 24, 2002 : At least 31 people killed in a militant attack on a temple in Gujarat. December 13, 2001: Fourteen people die, including five gunmen, in an attack on Parliament. October 1, 2001: Forty people killed in a suicide attack on the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/3037370.cms
Only zero tolerance can end terrorSwapan Dasgupta (Pioneer May 18, 2008)
The serial blasts in Jaipur on May 14 were apparently the 21st successful operation (outside Jammu & Kashmir) by radical Islamists against the people of India. The 70 or so people who died horrible deaths last Tuesday joined the 3,674 Indians who are known to have been killed by a galaxy of terrorists in the 50-month period from January 2004. The statistics, diligently collated by The Times of India, suggest that India is second only to Iraq in the number of people killed by terrorists. The "merchants of death" have never had it so good.
The story of Incredible India is truly remarkable. It would be difficult discovering too many societies where a Government tries to cover up its pathetic helplessness by projecting the organised killings of the aam aadmi --commuters on suburban trains, scientists attending seminars, housewives shopping for Diwali and devotees worshipping at temples -- as karma and cruel fate. In normal democratic societies, the existence of well-organised terror networks would have prompted outrage. In India, it has prompted a curious response: A blend of capitulation and denial.
The capitulation has been shamefully brazen. In trying to dispel the assertion that terrorists don't deserve human rights, the UPA Government has gone out of its way to assert that terror suspects shouldn't suffer any discrimination. The architect of the Coimbatore bomb blasts, for example, turned his prison cell into a massage parlour before the authorities engineered his acquittal. The convicted perpetrator of the attack on Parliament idles away his time in prison with the full knowledge that the Government lacks the anatomical wherewithal to carry out the punishment awarded to him by courts.
For liberal India -- UPA represents its most disfigured face -- the important thing about terror is to deny its existence as far as possible. It has become almost a ritual for the Centre to greet every jihadi orgy with the assertion that we must not be provoked into enacting strong anti-terrorist legislation. For the English-language TV channels, the so-called "spirit of Mumbai" or the tale of Jaipur's "resilience", is invariably contrasted with the savage response of Gujarat to the carnage in Godhra.
It's one thing to invoke the gritty, stiff upper-lip approach as a byword for quiet determination. It's another thing to believe, like the infamous Mohammed Shah, that Delhi is still a fair distance away, and declare an unending happy hour for terrorist marauders. To mindlessly repeat after every outrage that terrorists are "cowards" is to miss the point. The issue is not about the lack of personal integrity of the bombers. It's about why the Centre has been emasculated by the terrorists.
It can hardly be the case that even someone as vacuously inept as Home Minister Shivraj Patil approves these attacks on what the Indian Mujahedeen email called the Kuffar-e-Hind (infidels of India). Like the inflation monster which threatens to eat up the Congress electorally in Karnataka, terrorists have alienated the UPA Government from large chunks of urban India. Yet, why is the Congress hellbent on courting unpopularity by persisting with its appeasement of terror?
After every terrorist atrocity, every religious head worth his name has invariably denounced the terrorists and prayed earnestly for peace. A massive conference was organised in Deoband some months ago to inform the terrorists that killing innocent civilians is theologically unsound. Therefore, if electoral support is what the UPA is after -- a legitimate preoccupation in a democracy -- why isn't the Manmohan Singh Government hitting the terrorists hard, and where it hurts? Logically speaking, by adopting a robust anti-terror policy the Government could have clawed its way back on popularity charts.
Unfortunately, there is a striking mismatch between reality as projected by breathless TV anchors and the truth in real life. There has been mounting evidence to show that the bombers are not foreign disruptionists who merely "sneak" into India, carry out an operation and then disappear into their cubby holes in Pakistan and Bangladesh. The post-mortem of every terrorist outrage points to local networks of radical extremism that act as facilitators. The leadership of the Student's Islamic Movement (they have dispensed with the "India" suffix) isn't foreigners; they are people who can quite legitimately claim Indian passports.
India is confronted by home-grown, ideologically-driven terror. The Government doesn't want to admit it. Nor does it plan to act against it for fear of unsettling people who vote en bloc. It persists with its hypocrisy and double-speak on the cynical belief that the Kuffar-e-Hind is incapable of responding in a united way.
No wonder there is growing liberal indignation at Rajasthan Government's decision to deport illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. If people have entered India without valid papers, they deserve to be expelled -- whether Bangladesh likes it or not. The compulsion is greater if it is established that Bangladeshi ghettos have served as sanctuaries for HUJI and other terror groups. Yet, just days after the outrage there is liberal clamour to keep many corners of Rajasthan forever Bangladeshi.
An effective anti-terror policy can be built on a combination of effective policing and social deterrence. That India needs a dedicated federal counter-terrorism body is undeniable. It is heartening that even the Congress has come around to this position. However, efficient policing and accurate Intelligence have to be complemented by all-round vigilance. A zero tolerance policy on terrorism implies creating an environment that discourages local support to bombers. All deterrence is based on fear of recrimination. Anti-terror strategies in India are hamstrung because support networks of terror enjoy political patronage. Our cities will become safer once the bombers and facilitators realise that every crime will be met by active intolerance.
And media is busy glorifying these money-spinners...
The UPA regime led by Sonia Gandhi and jaalra-ed by the Substitute Hon'ble PM Manmohan Singh consists of cuddlers of the merchants of death.
Media cries foul when there is a security breach for Sonia's Karnataka election propaganda. Media keeps reckoning the count of victims of Jihadi terror, providing no comment on the role played by the cuddlers of the merchants of death.
Swapan is right. Of course, there is death of outrage. He adds: "India is confronted by home-grown, ideologically-driven terror. The Government doesn't want to admit it. Nor does it plan to act against it for fear of unsettling people who vote en bloc. It persists with its hypocrisy and double-speak on the cynical belief that the Kuffar-e-Hind is incapable of responding in a united way. "
Swapan, the only unity of UPA is unity in staying in power and continuing to loot the nation's treasury. Vote-bank? Aha, roll on to the Swiss bank. The list of account holders in Luxembourg LTG Group banks is yet to be called for by the Government; that list will be a revelation. The German Government has announced that it would share information on accounts held in the tax haven with any Government that wanted it. http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/03/28/stories/2008032850180800.htm
This unity in skullduggery is a blot on Bharatam – that the people of Bharatam have allowed such a rogues' gallery of chamcha-s to be in sattaa who do not care about securing the life and limb of citizens of the nation who have given to themselves a Constitution which has been reduced to a scrap of paper by the Belgian-honored lady who has contributed to making Belgium the third largest trading party of the country – after USA and UK. No wonder the Order of Leopold is perceived to be a glorious honour for the Italian-born prima donna.
kalyan
Blast bags were made in China16 May 2008, 0625 hrs IST,TNN
JAIPUR: Investigations have revealed that the bags used for the blasts carried brand name Boneno, and are of Chinese make. They are not available in local markets, and may have been brought from outside. IG Pankaj Singh told TOI that the explosives were strapped to handle-bars. Meanwhile, the police released sketches of three more suspects late on Thursday based on descriptions given by owners and attendants of the cycle shops from where the bombers had bought the vehicles of death. On Thursday, they managed to identify at least four other shops, and the sketches were prepared on the basis of descriptions from the shop employees who sold off the bikes. That the bikes were bought from separate shops was confirmed by the fact that all of them carried locks of different make. Singh said that the sketches were credible because the buyer in all the cases remained in the shop for almost an hour to get the lock installed giving the shop staff ample time to have a good look at his face. In all five sketches released till now, the man shown is about 20-25 years old. The cops said that, going by the way they spoke, none of them seemed to be a native of Rajasthan. They all bought the bike without haggling. Police sources also said that at least 5-6 bikes were sold on May 13, the day of the blast. While 3 of the cycles were of Avon make, 2 were Atlas. The remaining for bikes were all of separate make Hercules, Penny, Surya and Apollo. In the Boneno bags, the bomb parcel was hidden under newly bought underwears of a very popular brand. In one of the bicycles, it was wrapped in the April 4 edition of local newspaper Daily News. The cops said that the ball bearings were of a "particularly damaging variety" and were placed in a "curve" in such a way that when the bomb exploded the shrapnel burst out ahead, and not up, causing maximum damage till close to 100 feet. That they were planted in congested bazars only added to their lethality.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/3045563.cms
Chronology of major bomb attacks in India 13 May 2008, 2353 hrs IST,AFP
NEW DELHI: The following is a list of recent major bomb blasts in India that police suspect were linked to sectarian groups: May 13, 2008: At least 60 people killed and 150 wounded in what police said was a terror attack in the popular tourist city of Jaipur in Rajasthan. November 23, 2007: At least 13 people were killed from serial blasts outside courts in three cities in Uttar Pradesh. August 25, 2007: At least 43 people killed and more than 70 others injured as two bombs rock a crowded outdoor auditorium and a popular eatery in Hyderabad. May 18, 2007: At least 10 killed and more than a dozen injured in blast at 17th century Mecca mosque in Hyderabad. February 19, 2007: Sixty-eight people killed and dozens more injured after four explosions on board the Lahore-bound Samjhauta Express. September 8, 2006: Thirty-eight people killed and more than 100 injured in three nearly simultaneous blasts, including one in a mosque, in the town of Malegaon in Maharashtra. July 11, 2006: Seven bomb blasts in a period of 11 minutes on Mumbai's suburban trains. A total of 186 people were killed and more than 800 injured. April 14, 2006: Fourteen people, including a woman and a girl, injured in two explosions at New Delhi's Jama Masjid, after Friday evening prayers. March 7, 2006: Twenty-eight killed and 62 injured after three bombs rip through the holy city of Varanasi. October 29, 2005: More than 60 people killed and nearly 200 injured when three bombs explode ahead of Diwali in New Delhi. August 25, 2004: Six people die in two car bomb blasts in Mumbai. March 13, 2003: Eleven people killed in a bomb attack aboard a commuter train in Mumbai. September 24, 2002 : At least 31 people killed in a militant attack on a temple in Gujarat. December 13, 2001: Fourteen people die, including five gunmen, in an attack on Parliament. October 1, 2001: Forty people killed in a suicide attack on the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/3037370.cms
Only zero tolerance can end terrorSwapan Dasgupta (Pioneer May 18, 2008)
The serial blasts in Jaipur on May 14 were apparently the 21st successful operation (outside Jammu & Kashmir) by radical Islamists against the people of India. The 70 or so people who died horrible deaths last Tuesday joined the 3,674 Indians who are known to have been killed by a galaxy of terrorists in the 50-month period from January 2004. The statistics, diligently collated by The Times of India, suggest that India is second only to Iraq in the number of people killed by terrorists. The "merchants of death" have never had it so good.
The story of Incredible India is truly remarkable. It would be difficult discovering too many societies where a Government tries to cover up its pathetic helplessness by projecting the organised killings of the aam aadmi --commuters on suburban trains, scientists attending seminars, housewives shopping for Diwali and devotees worshipping at temples -- as karma and cruel fate. In normal democratic societies, the existence of well-organised terror networks would have prompted outrage. In India, it has prompted a curious response: A blend of capitulation and denial.
The capitulation has been shamefully brazen. In trying to dispel the assertion that terrorists don't deserve human rights, the UPA Government has gone out of its way to assert that terror suspects shouldn't suffer any discrimination. The architect of the Coimbatore bomb blasts, for example, turned his prison cell into a massage parlour before the authorities engineered his acquittal. The convicted perpetrator of the attack on Parliament idles away his time in prison with the full knowledge that the Government lacks the anatomical wherewithal to carry out the punishment awarded to him by courts.
For liberal India -- UPA represents its most disfigured face -- the important thing about terror is to deny its existence as far as possible. It has become almost a ritual for the Centre to greet every jihadi orgy with the assertion that we must not be provoked into enacting strong anti-terrorist legislation. For the English-language TV channels, the so-called "spirit of Mumbai" or the tale of Jaipur's "resilience", is invariably contrasted with the savage response of Gujarat to the carnage in Godhra.
It's one thing to invoke the gritty, stiff upper-lip approach as a byword for quiet determination. It's another thing to believe, like the infamous Mohammed Shah, that Delhi is still a fair distance away, and declare an unending happy hour for terrorist marauders. To mindlessly repeat after every outrage that terrorists are "cowards" is to miss the point. The issue is not about the lack of personal integrity of the bombers. It's about why the Centre has been emasculated by the terrorists.
It can hardly be the case that even someone as vacuously inept as Home Minister Shivraj Patil approves these attacks on what the Indian Mujahedeen email called the Kuffar-e-Hind (infidels of India). Like the inflation monster which threatens to eat up the Congress electorally in Karnataka, terrorists have alienated the UPA Government from large chunks of urban India. Yet, why is the Congress hellbent on courting unpopularity by persisting with its appeasement of terror?
After every terrorist atrocity, every religious head worth his name has invariably denounced the terrorists and prayed earnestly for peace. A massive conference was organised in Deoband some months ago to inform the terrorists that killing innocent civilians is theologically unsound. Therefore, if electoral support is what the UPA is after -- a legitimate preoccupation in a democracy -- why isn't the Manmohan Singh Government hitting the terrorists hard, and where it hurts? Logically speaking, by adopting a robust anti-terror policy the Government could have clawed its way back on popularity charts.
Unfortunately, there is a striking mismatch between reality as projected by breathless TV anchors and the truth in real life. There has been mounting evidence to show that the bombers are not foreign disruptionists who merely "sneak" into India, carry out an operation and then disappear into their cubby holes in Pakistan and Bangladesh. The post-mortem of every terrorist outrage points to local networks of radical extremism that act as facilitators. The leadership of the Student's Islamic Movement (they have dispensed with the "India" suffix) isn't foreigners; they are people who can quite legitimately claim Indian passports.
India is confronted by home-grown, ideologically-driven terror. The Government doesn't want to admit it. Nor does it plan to act against it for fear of unsettling people who vote en bloc. It persists with its hypocrisy and double-speak on the cynical belief that the Kuffar-e-Hind is incapable of responding in a united way.
No wonder there is growing liberal indignation at Rajasthan Government's decision to deport illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. If people have entered India without valid papers, they deserve to be expelled -- whether Bangladesh likes it or not. The compulsion is greater if it is established that Bangladeshi ghettos have served as sanctuaries for HUJI and other terror groups. Yet, just days after the outrage there is liberal clamour to keep many corners of Rajasthan forever Bangladeshi.
An effective anti-terror policy can be built on a combination of effective policing and social deterrence. That India needs a dedicated federal counter-terrorism body is undeniable. It is heartening that even the Congress has come around to this position. However, efficient policing and accurate Intelligence have to be complemented by all-round vigilance. A zero tolerance policy on terrorism implies creating an environment that discourages local support to bombers. All deterrence is based on fear of recrimination. Anti-terror strategies in India are hamstrung because support networks of terror enjoy political patronage. Our cities will become safer once the bombers and facilitators realise that every crime will be met by active intolerance.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
'Nuclear deal with US does not compromise sovereignty'
Former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, one of the principal figures behind the May 1998 nuclear tests that shook the world, wants the country to "go ahead" with the civil nuclear deal with the United States.
Abdul Kalam, in an interview, sought to play down fears that the deal would compromise national security. "We can at any time withdraw [from the deal]," he said.
It was the first time that Abdul Kalam, who was among a handful of top scientists present at the site of the nuclear tests in Pokhran on May 11 and 13, has spoken out in favour of the deal that has been the subject of intense debate and political controversy in India.
Abdul Kalam, who was chief of the Defence Research and Development Organisation at the time, was feted as a national hero though the tests drew worldwide censure. A decade later, he asserts the tests were a step in the right direction and a very satisfying experience personally. Here are excerpts from the interview:
You once said that "unless India stands up to the world, no one will respect us. In this world, fear has no place. Only strength respects strength". Do you still believe in this maxim?
abdul Kalam: Yes. The philosophy of strength respecting strength is valid any time, as long as the earth orbits around the sun.
Ten years later, do you think the nuclear tests were a good idea? It did polarise the world and there were economic sanctions against India.
Yes. I think so. If one looks back, we faced technological and economic sanctions after 1998 but it also brought the realisation that "we can do it."
Scientists in diverse disciplines have worked for self-reliance and achieved success with the cryogenic engine, the flight control system for the LCA (light combat aircraft) and carbide fuel processing in the nuclear field. Similarly, the industry and service sectors have shown marked growth and our economy has been on the ascendant from 2003. World leaders converged on India. It has been consistently growing at 8 to 9 per cent. All this clearly shows that our decision was a landmark decision for the country.
Should the government go ahead with the civilian nuclear deal with the US? Do you share the view that it compromises India's sovereignty?
We should go ahead with the civilian nuclear deal. It does not compromise our sovereignty. We can at any time withdraw, if any national security need arises in future.
You are widely regarded as the central figure in India's drive to join the small club of nuclear-armed nations. Where do you see India in another 10 years?
We will see India as a developed nation. Those below the poverty line will be virtually zero. The literacy level could go beyond 90 per cent. There will be employment opportunity for all, both in the urban and rural areas.
You have never hidden your passion for a powerful India. Do you count the 1998 tests as one of the memorable moments in your career?
The launch of the SLV3 in 1980 to put the Rohini satellite in orbit using an indigenous rocket system was a big moment. The launch of the Agni missile in 1989 was another high. The adoption of the "Vision 2020" document was also memorable as was the country's march into the nuclear weapons club in 1998.
Former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, one of the principal figures behind the May 1998 nuclear tests that shook the world, wants the country to "go ahead" with the civil nuclear deal with the United States.
Abdul Kalam, in an interview, sought to play down fears that the deal would compromise national security. "We can at any time withdraw [from the deal]," he said.
It was the first time that Abdul Kalam, who was among a handful of top scientists present at the site of the nuclear tests in Pokhran on May 11 and 13, has spoken out in favour of the deal that has been the subject of intense debate and political controversy in India.
Abdul Kalam, who was chief of the Defence Research and Development Organisation at the time, was feted as a national hero though the tests drew worldwide censure. A decade later, he asserts the tests were a step in the right direction and a very satisfying experience personally. Here are excerpts from the interview:
You once said that "unless India stands up to the world, no one will respect us. In this world, fear has no place. Only strength respects strength". Do you still believe in this maxim?
abdul Kalam: Yes. The philosophy of strength respecting strength is valid any time, as long as the earth orbits around the sun.
Ten years later, do you think the nuclear tests were a good idea? It did polarise the world and there were economic sanctions against India.
Yes. I think so. If one looks back, we faced technological and economic sanctions after 1998 but it also brought the realisation that "we can do it."
Scientists in diverse disciplines have worked for self-reliance and achieved success with the cryogenic engine, the flight control system for the LCA (light combat aircraft) and carbide fuel processing in the nuclear field. Similarly, the industry and service sectors have shown marked growth and our economy has been on the ascendant from 2003. World leaders converged on India. It has been consistently growing at 8 to 9 per cent. All this clearly shows that our decision was a landmark decision for the country.
Should the government go ahead with the civilian nuclear deal with the US? Do you share the view that it compromises India's sovereignty?
We should go ahead with the civilian nuclear deal. It does not compromise our sovereignty. We can at any time withdraw, if any national security need arises in future.
You are widely regarded as the central figure in India's drive to join the small club of nuclear-armed nations. Where do you see India in another 10 years?
We will see India as a developed nation. Those below the poverty line will be virtually zero. The literacy level could go beyond 90 per cent. There will be employment opportunity for all, both in the urban and rural areas.
You have never hidden your passion for a powerful India. Do you count the 1998 tests as one of the memorable moments in your career?
The launch of the SLV3 in 1980 to put the Rohini satellite in orbit using an indigenous rocket system was a big moment. The launch of the Agni missile in 1989 was another high. The adoption of the "Vision 2020" document was also memorable as was the country's march into the nuclear weapons club in 1998.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
IBM Launches Effort to Address Shortage of Hispanic Students in Technology Careers
ARMONK, NY - 12 May 2008: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today convened an inaugural summit titled "America's Competitiveness: Hispanic Participation in Technology Careers," an effort to bring together leaders in business, education, government, and community organizations to find ways to increase the number of Hispanic students pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering and math in the United States.
The effort is aimed at a looming problem resulting from the significant decline in the numbers of Hispanic students pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (or STEM). This decline could affect America's competitiveness in the increasingly global market. Demographic data show that the Hispanic community is expected to constitute 25 percent of the overall U.S. population by mid-century, making the U.S. home to the largest Hispanic population in the world. Meanwhile, Hispanic students dropping out of high school are at a 24 percent rate.
To address the issue, IBM along with ExxonMobil, Lockheed Martin and Univision, and 150 other leaders will meet on May 5 and 6 in New York, to examine the ways the Hispanic community can improve their participation in STEM.
"The Hispanic community is one of the fastest growing in the country and young Latinos are rapidly joining our workforce," said U.S. Senator Robert Menendez. "It is important that they have the option to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math, not only so they can fully develop their potential, but also so they can become professionals in areas that are vital to our economy, our security, our future as a nation. I salute IBM for this important initiative and hope this summit will open up new roads to success for our Hispanic youth."
The magnitude of the nation's STEM career gap is most apparent in the field of engineering where the need for talent is increasing at three times the rate of other professions. This demand is countered by trends that demonstrate few American students are entering STEM-related studies.
"IBM is deeply committed to galvanizing the U.S. corporate sector and other stakeholders in addressing the serious shortage of professionals in STEM careers, particularly in the Hispanic community," stated Nicholas M. Donofrio, Executive Vice President, Innovation and Technology. "This summit is a call to action to challenge business leaders to address an issue that could undermine the country's leadership in today's global economy."
Participants of this strategic gathering will be presented with newly released reports commissioned by the IBM International Foundation from respected research organizations like The Tomás Rivera Policy Institute and Public Agenda, which outline the challenges and opportunities to the nation's Hispanic community and their partners as regards the pursuit of STEM careers.
Among the key findings of The Public Agenda study, "A Matter of Trust," released today in conjunction with the conference, reveals a deep-seated anxiety within the Hispanic Community about attaining a college education despite it being a requirement for a decent job and middle-class life in nine of ten young Hispanic adult households. The reasons identified in the study are:
Nearly half of Hispanic parents say it is a serious problem that students are not taught enough math and science.
Hispanic parents are more likely to support making sure U.S. standards match those in Europe and Japan.
Less than half of Hispanic young adults believe that qualified students can find a way to pay for college.
"Education and higher education in particular are even more highly-prized and respected among Hispanic parents than among parents in general, despite some erroneous conventional wisdom to the contrary," state authors Paul Gasbarra and Jean Johnson, of the Public Agenda. "Overall... far too many Hispanic families are underserved by public education -- and to a significantly greater degree than the general population."
As a means of enabling Spanish-language-only parents to better communicate with teachers -- one of the needs outlined in the Public Agenda study -- IBM is today announcing that it will provide its automatic two-way, English-Spanish, e-mail translation and web translation software called ¡TradúceloAhora! to all U.S. schools at no cost to them.
Additionally, schools and nonprofit organizations will be given unlimited use of the ¡TradúceloAhora! software. And Hispanic older adults and those with disabilities can access the free translation software along with other free software called AccessibilityWorks that helps them view web pages in a customized format for easier and more effective reading and navigation on the web.
And, according to The Tomás Rivera Policy Institute (TRPI), which also today released the report, "STEM Professions: Opportunities and Challenges for Latinos," the fastest growing ethnic group in the U.S. also suffers from a worse gender gap in STEM careers compared with Asians and African Americans.
The TRPI report, however, noted some signs of optimism: "As the youngest and fastest growing ethnic group in the U.S. today," state the authors, Maria Teresa V. Taningco, Ann Bessie Mathew and Harry Pachon. "Latinos have a unique opportunity to aim high and to strive for STEM careers, given the high demand in these fields."
In response to the need to provide mentors for Hispanic students, IBM commits to expanding the MentorPlace program to focus on school districts in the U.S. with a significant number of Hispanic students, and matching them with IBM employees who can serve as their online mentors.
Additionally, IBM will expand its cascade mentoring program - currently at the University of Arizona at Tucson - to at least 3 universities in California, New York and Texas.
The cascading mentoring program is an internet based system that enables professional mentors, university students, and K-12 students to engage in a three-way mentoring relationship through secure online discussions. These discussions focus on past academic experiences and exploration of what could be in terms of future goals and opportunities.
This program completed its third year in Tucson, Arizona and involved IBM employees, the University of Arizona SHPE (Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers) Student Chapter, and students from two high schools.
In addition, IBM is making further commitments aimed at bolstering early education resources with innovative technology tools for the classroom:
IBM also will make a donation of 1,000 KidSmart units at early childhood centers in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami and New York - in neighborhoods that support the Hispanic community.
IBM commits to expanding the Reading Companion grant program - a web- based, voice recognition technology that helps adults and children gain literacy skills - to any school district in the U.S. that is interested, with a special focus on school districts with a significant number of Hispanics.
Key moderators and facilitators will lead attendees in highly focused work groups designed to encourage dialogue and develop actionable strategies to increase Hispanic participation in STEM-related curriculum. Confirmed moderators include Tom Luce, Chief Executive Officer, National Math and Science Initiative, Inc. (former Assistant Secretary, Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development); Irving Wladawsky-Berger, Chairman Emeritus, IBM Academy of Technology and Visiting Professor of Engineering Systems, MIT; Stanley Litow, President of the IBM International Foundation and Vice President, Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Affairs, IBM Corporation; and Adalio Sanchez, Vice President of Corporate Strategy, IBM Corporation.
The issue of skills and the need for America to produce more graduates with degrees in math, science, engineering and technology also will be addressed.
"The shift to a digital economy in the last 10 years requires that young people be prepared to enter the workforce with '21st Century skills,'" said AMD Chairman and CEO Hector Ruiz. "Fostering STEM skills is critically important in developing an adept workforce to fill the jobs of this expanding digital economy."
In keeping with its commitment to the development of STEM professionals for the future, IBM has been in collaboration with over 5,000 premier universities and over 100,000 business partners globally to prepare students with 21st century skills for jobs in the new IT workforce.
In the U.S. alone, IBM has trained faculty at over 3,150 institutions on software skills and over 150 on mainframe skills. Students and future STEM professionals can also access the IBM Academic Initiative which includes an online portal that provides access to FREE software and hardware as well as training and course materials. Also through the web, IBM offers hundreds of resources for integration into college curricula to help teach students how to master the fast-growing market of open technologies. Perhaps most significantly, IBM is working with more than 150 leading universities to promote the global adoption of a new academic discipline, Service Science Management and Engineering (SSME).
ARMONK, NY - 12 May 2008: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today convened an inaugural summit titled "America's Competitiveness: Hispanic Participation in Technology Careers," an effort to bring together leaders in business, education, government, and community organizations to find ways to increase the number of Hispanic students pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering and math in the United States.
The effort is aimed at a looming problem resulting from the significant decline in the numbers of Hispanic students pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (or STEM). This decline could affect America's competitiveness in the increasingly global market. Demographic data show that the Hispanic community is expected to constitute 25 percent of the overall U.S. population by mid-century, making the U.S. home to the largest Hispanic population in the world. Meanwhile, Hispanic students dropping out of high school are at a 24 percent rate.
To address the issue, IBM along with ExxonMobil, Lockheed Martin and Univision, and 150 other leaders will meet on May 5 and 6 in New York, to examine the ways the Hispanic community can improve their participation in STEM.
"The Hispanic community is one of the fastest growing in the country and young Latinos are rapidly joining our workforce," said U.S. Senator Robert Menendez. "It is important that they have the option to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math, not only so they can fully develop their potential, but also so they can become professionals in areas that are vital to our economy, our security, our future as a nation. I salute IBM for this important initiative and hope this summit will open up new roads to success for our Hispanic youth."
The magnitude of the nation's STEM career gap is most apparent in the field of engineering where the need for talent is increasing at three times the rate of other professions. This demand is countered by trends that demonstrate few American students are entering STEM-related studies.
"IBM is deeply committed to galvanizing the U.S. corporate sector and other stakeholders in addressing the serious shortage of professionals in STEM careers, particularly in the Hispanic community," stated Nicholas M. Donofrio, Executive Vice President, Innovation and Technology. "This summit is a call to action to challenge business leaders to address an issue that could undermine the country's leadership in today's global economy."
Participants of this strategic gathering will be presented with newly released reports commissioned by the IBM International Foundation from respected research organizations like The Tomás Rivera Policy Institute and Public Agenda, which outline the challenges and opportunities to the nation's Hispanic community and their partners as regards the pursuit of STEM careers.
Among the key findings of The Public Agenda study, "A Matter of Trust," released today in conjunction with the conference, reveals a deep-seated anxiety within the Hispanic Community about attaining a college education despite it being a requirement for a decent job and middle-class life in nine of ten young Hispanic adult households. The reasons identified in the study are:
Nearly half of Hispanic parents say it is a serious problem that students are not taught enough math and science.
Hispanic parents are more likely to support making sure U.S. standards match those in Europe and Japan.
Less than half of Hispanic young adults believe that qualified students can find a way to pay for college.
"Education and higher education in particular are even more highly-prized and respected among Hispanic parents than among parents in general, despite some erroneous conventional wisdom to the contrary," state authors Paul Gasbarra and Jean Johnson, of the Public Agenda. "Overall... far too many Hispanic families are underserved by public education -- and to a significantly greater degree than the general population."
As a means of enabling Spanish-language-only parents to better communicate with teachers -- one of the needs outlined in the Public Agenda study -- IBM is today announcing that it will provide its automatic two-way, English-Spanish, e-mail translation and web translation software called ¡TradúceloAhora! to all U.S. schools at no cost to them.
Additionally, schools and nonprofit organizations will be given unlimited use of the ¡TradúceloAhora! software. And Hispanic older adults and those with disabilities can access the free translation software along with other free software called AccessibilityWorks that helps them view web pages in a customized format for easier and more effective reading and navigation on the web.
And, according to The Tomás Rivera Policy Institute (TRPI), which also today released the report, "STEM Professions: Opportunities and Challenges for Latinos," the fastest growing ethnic group in the U.S. also suffers from a worse gender gap in STEM careers compared with Asians and African Americans.
The TRPI report, however, noted some signs of optimism: "As the youngest and fastest growing ethnic group in the U.S. today," state the authors, Maria Teresa V. Taningco, Ann Bessie Mathew and Harry Pachon. "Latinos have a unique opportunity to aim high and to strive for STEM careers, given the high demand in these fields."
In response to the need to provide mentors for Hispanic students, IBM commits to expanding the MentorPlace program to focus on school districts in the U.S. with a significant number of Hispanic students, and matching them with IBM employees who can serve as their online mentors.
Additionally, IBM will expand its cascade mentoring program - currently at the University of Arizona at Tucson - to at least 3 universities in California, New York and Texas.
The cascading mentoring program is an internet based system that enables professional mentors, university students, and K-12 students to engage in a three-way mentoring relationship through secure online discussions. These discussions focus on past academic experiences and exploration of what could be in terms of future goals and opportunities.
This program completed its third year in Tucson, Arizona and involved IBM employees, the University of Arizona SHPE (Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers) Student Chapter, and students from two high schools.
In addition, IBM is making further commitments aimed at bolstering early education resources with innovative technology tools for the classroom:
IBM also will make a donation of 1,000 KidSmart units at early childhood centers in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami and New York - in neighborhoods that support the Hispanic community.
IBM commits to expanding the Reading Companion grant program - a web- based, voice recognition technology that helps adults and children gain literacy skills - to any school district in the U.S. that is interested, with a special focus on school districts with a significant number of Hispanics.
Key moderators and facilitators will lead attendees in highly focused work groups designed to encourage dialogue and develop actionable strategies to increase Hispanic participation in STEM-related curriculum. Confirmed moderators include Tom Luce, Chief Executive Officer, National Math and Science Initiative, Inc. (former Assistant Secretary, Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development); Irving Wladawsky-Berger, Chairman Emeritus, IBM Academy of Technology and Visiting Professor of Engineering Systems, MIT; Stanley Litow, President of the IBM International Foundation and Vice President, Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Affairs, IBM Corporation; and Adalio Sanchez, Vice President of Corporate Strategy, IBM Corporation.
The issue of skills and the need for America to produce more graduates with degrees in math, science, engineering and technology also will be addressed.
"The shift to a digital economy in the last 10 years requires that young people be prepared to enter the workforce with '21st Century skills,'" said AMD Chairman and CEO Hector Ruiz. "Fostering STEM skills is critically important in developing an adept workforce to fill the jobs of this expanding digital economy."
In keeping with its commitment to the development of STEM professionals for the future, IBM has been in collaboration with over 5,000 premier universities and over 100,000 business partners globally to prepare students with 21st century skills for jobs in the new IT workforce.
In the U.S. alone, IBM has trained faculty at over 3,150 institutions on software skills and over 150 on mainframe skills. Students and future STEM professionals can also access the IBM Academic Initiative which includes an online portal that provides access to FREE software and hardware as well as training and course materials. Also through the web, IBM offers hundreds of resources for integration into college curricula to help teach students how to master the fast-growing market of open technologies. Perhaps most significantly, IBM is working with more than 150 leading universities to promote the global adoption of a new academic discipline, Service Science Management and Engineering (SSME).
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Astrology. citisizm:
waiting ur responce
spicmcay@gmail.com
bantizeal@gmail.com
Jyotisha is a discipline enunciated by great Yogis and therefore its handling by common people has many limitations. True Ayanamsa or the correct mathematical abstraction of the ecliptic into Zodiac was rediscovered in 1994 by Sri. Chandra Hari. Rasicakra ( Malayalam),1996 and Hindu Zodiac and Ancient Astronomy ( English ), 2001 are the two important books of Chandra Hari. How the formless or incomprehensible time can be modeled with the limb structure of a Man among the spatial rasis formed within the 27 nakshatras?
waiting ur responce
spicmcay@gmail.com
bantizeal@gmail.com
Jyotisha is a discipline enunciated by great Yogis and therefore its handling by common people has many limitations. True Ayanamsa or the correct mathematical abstraction of the ecliptic into Zodiac was rediscovered in 1994 by Sri. Chandra Hari. Rasicakra ( Malayalam),1996 and Hindu Zodiac and Ancient Astronomy ( English ), 2001 are the two important books of Chandra Hari. How the formless or incomprehensible time can be modeled with the limb structure of a Man among the spatial rasis formed within the 27 nakshatras?
Tracing the evidence of Lord Ram and his times
Mil Gaye Ram! – Part I
Tracing evidence of Lord Ram and his times Report: Rahul Sinha Adapted by: Deepak Nagpal India is a land of Gods and Goddesses. India is a secular land where various religions thrive. And India is a land where people are both deeply religious and pioneers in science. However, recent developments have shown that this trait of being both religious as well as scientific leads to clashes – clashes between those who have certain beliefs and those who don’t. The most prominent example to cite here is the ‘Ram Setu’ issue. Who would have ever thought that one day, India will fight over the existence of its very own ‘Lord Ram’ – the most worshipped Hindu God, who is also referred to as ‘Maryada Purushottam’ or the Perfect Man. In Hindu mythology, Ram is considered to be the seventh avatar (incarnation) of Lord Vishnu – the protector of all existence. Zee News’ Initiative With so many controversies around and the very existence of Lord Ram being questioned in the land to which He belonged, Zee News thought it’s worthwhile to find answers to some very pertinent questions: Is Ramayana a true story or just a mythological text? Did Ram really exist? Did he have an ardent devotee in Hanuman? Was Ram exiled from Ayodhya? Did he spend years of exile in Chitrakoot? Was his wife Sita abducted? Is there any place called Ravan’s Lanka? What kept our hope alive was the fact that when India had Ram’s Ayodhya (in Uttar Pradesh), there must be something in Sri Lanka which will lend proof to the belief that Ram in not a myth, but a reality. So we thought we need to go back to places which are connected with Ram. The two major points our search focussed on were Chitrakoot in India and the neighbouring Sri Lanka. A Zee News team led by Rahul Sinha then set out on a journey to find Ram. But did they find Him? Find out and judge for yourself…first hand… At Chitrakoot We begin our journey at Chitrakoot, in Madhya Pradesh. Here, there’s a rock where, it is believed, Ram, Lakshman and Sita used to rest during their stay as part of their 14-year-long ‘vanvaas’ (exile). This place is known as ‘Ram Shayya’. Many tourists who visit Chitrakoot know about Kamakhya mountain, but only a handful are aware of the existence of Ram Shayya. We found three separate marks of Ram, Sita and his dhanush (arrow) on the rock. It is believed that these marks were formed when the two slept here. According to a local priest, the hard rock turned into a soft rock when Ram and Sita slept there. It is because of this softness of the rock that the marks were formed. While we were in Chitrakoot, local priests also took us to a place called Sphatic Shila where they showed us the footmarks of Ram, Lakshman and Sita. We also got the chance to see some footmarks at Janaki Kund which are believed to be of Sita. Janaki Kund & Sita Kund The place where Sita used to take bath during her stay at Chitrakoot is known as Janaki Kund. We also came across a ‘havan bedi’ where Sita used to perform ‘havan’ after taking bath. This havan bedi was built by Sita and local priests recite Ramayana even now during morning and evening everyday. Apart from Janaki Kund, there’s a place called Sita Kund. It is located inside a cave in the mountains surrounding Chitrakoot. It is believed that Sita had taken bath here. The water in the Sita Kund is of Godavari river. What’s interesting is that the river vanishes after entering the cave and nobody has so far been able to figure out where it disappears. Hanuman Dhara In Chitrakoot’s dense forest, there’s a place known as Hanuman Dhara. We had to climb nearly 650 steps to reach this place. What we saw here was a very old, ancient-looking statue of Hanuman and from its right, water was flowing out of the mountain. However, a pipe has now been attached to this opening in the rocky mountain to control the flowing water. It is believed that even after reducing Ravan’s Lanka to ashes, the fire inside an angry Hanuman remained intact. After the war ended, Hanuman requested Ram to help douse the fire inside his body. It is then that Ram shot an arrow and a fountain sprung from the mountain. Since then this place has come to be known as Hanuman Dhara. This flowing water disappears after falling on Hanuman’s statue from the pipe. This gave birth to many questions inside the minds of our team members. We tried to find the source of the water but couldn’t find any. Also located right above Hanuman Dhara is a small room called Sita Rasoi where we saw a small rolling pin (chakla belan) made on a rock. It is believed Sita used to cook food here. And We Find Tulsidas’ Ramcharitmanas Not faraway from Chitrakoot is Rajapur. Here, we were told, the original Ramcharitmanas written by Tulsidas is kept inside a house. A person named Ramashrya Das has been taking care of this highly important mythological text. What made us sad was the fact that only one ‘adhyay’ (chapter) of the Ramcharitmanas is secure. All other chapters have been stolen. We got the chance to see the text from a close range. The chapter was written on a paper with hand-made ink. Ramashrya told us that the style of writing at that time was quite different from now. At that time, only seven lines were written on each page. The chapter, which is secure, has a total of 170 pages and 326 couplets. Focus Shifts To Sri Lanka Our search for Ram and the Ramayana in India’s Chitrakoot ends here, but we travel next to Sri Lanka – the same place where it is believed Ravan used to live. But how much of that is true, we find in the next part of this series. We have told you about the evidence of Ramayana which we found in Chitrakoot. We now take our journey further – into Sri Lanka. Across The Sea As the team reached the coast of Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu, what we saw around was the blue sea – the same sea which Lord Ram and his vaanar sena (army of monkeys) crossed to reach Ravan’s Lanka, to rescue Sita. Ravan’s Lanka is now known as Sri Lanka – India’s neighbour in the south. But as we set our foot on Sri Lanka’s soil, several questions came to our mind – Is this really Ravan’s Lanka? Is this the place where ‘Lanka Naresh’ Ravan brought Sita after abducting her? Is this the same place which Hanuman set on fire with his burning tail? Questions were many, the place unknown and nobody around to answer them. But we had a hope – a hope to find some evidence of Ram’s existence. In Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo, we didn’t find too many people around who knew about either Ram or Ravan. But we were asked to visit nearby Norliya if really wanted to find something concrete. The Breakthrough In Norliya, we met a Delhi-based Indian named Harinder Sikka at a popular golf course. We were on cloud nine when we came to know that Sikka himself had been doing research on Ramayana for years. It was the most unexpected thing we had ever imagined that would happen to us. It was a real breakthrough in our search for Ram. Sikka’s love for golf had brought him to Sri Lanka and it was during his interaction with local friends on the epic Ramayana that he decided to do a research on the topic. Ashok Vatika Discovered We were left surprised when Sikka told us that barely five kilometres from where we were standing now, was located one of the most important places mentioned in Ramayana – the Ashok Vatika. This is the place where Sita stayed after Ravan abducted her from India. In Sri Lanka, Ashok Vatika is known as Sita Ella. The place had statues of Lord Ram, his brother Lakshman, Sita and Hanuman. By their look, the statues seemed to be hundreds of years old. However, a local resident, named Romilla, corrected us, saying the statues were nearly 5,500 years old. The statues seemed to have been carved out of nearby rocks. When we enquired about the ‘Ashok Vriksh’, Romilla told us that the famous tree was no more. But standing in its place was a hundreds of years old tree. It is believed that Hanuman first met Sita at this place. At Ashok Vatika Not many people in Sri Lanka know the significance behind Ashok Vatika and treat it like any other picnic spot. However, several Indians have come together and are now turning this place into a temple. Also, paintings have been put up there to help locals understand the Ramayana-related events that took place at Ashok Vatika. We, along with Romilla, also went to a stream called Sita Jharna that flows right under Ashok Vatika. It is believed that Sita used to bathe here during her captivity at Ashok Vatika. The stream is surrounded by huge and dense mountains. Nobody knows where water in the stream comes from and disappears after accumulating in a ‘kund’. What’s fascinating is the fact that water level in the kund remains same throughout the year. The disappearing of water at Sita Jharna in Ashok Vatika, and at Sita Kund and Hanuman Dhara in Chitrakoot hints at some form of connection between the three – and also makes one believe that something miraculous is happening at all three places. Hanuman’s Footmark Romilla next took us to that part of Ashok Vatika where, it is believed, a giant footmark of Hanuman is imprinted. According to beliefs, Hanuman appeared in his gigantic form before Sita for the first time here. This footmark was formed then. Sri Lankan government’s archaeological department has conducted a survey and found that the marks, located on a rock near Sita Jharna, are around 6,000 years old. If viewed from a distance, the footmark resembles that of a huge monkey. It is believed that Hanuman appeared in his gigantic form before Sita to make her believe that Ram’s vaanar sena had the strength and capability to fight Ravan’s army. Sleeping Divinity The next place we visited in our sear.
Waiting fo ur Kind Responce
bantizeal@gmail.com,spicmcay@gmail.com
Mil Gaye Ram! – Part I
Tracing evidence of Lord Ram and his times Report: Rahul Sinha Adapted by: Deepak Nagpal India is a land of Gods and Goddesses. India is a secular land where various religions thrive. And India is a land where people are both deeply religious and pioneers in science. However, recent developments have shown that this trait of being both religious as well as scientific leads to clashes – clashes between those who have certain beliefs and those who don’t. The most prominent example to cite here is the ‘Ram Setu’ issue. Who would have ever thought that one day, India will fight over the existence of its very own ‘Lord Ram’ – the most worshipped Hindu God, who is also referred to as ‘Maryada Purushottam’ or the Perfect Man. In Hindu mythology, Ram is considered to be the seventh avatar (incarnation) of Lord Vishnu – the protector of all existence. Zee News’ Initiative With so many controversies around and the very existence of Lord Ram being questioned in the land to which He belonged, Zee News thought it’s worthwhile to find answers to some very pertinent questions: Is Ramayana a true story or just a mythological text? Did Ram really exist? Did he have an ardent devotee in Hanuman? Was Ram exiled from Ayodhya? Did he spend years of exile in Chitrakoot? Was his wife Sita abducted? Is there any place called Ravan’s Lanka? What kept our hope alive was the fact that when India had Ram’s Ayodhya (in Uttar Pradesh), there must be something in Sri Lanka which will lend proof to the belief that Ram in not a myth, but a reality. So we thought we need to go back to places which are connected with Ram. The two major points our search focussed on were Chitrakoot in India and the neighbouring Sri Lanka. A Zee News team led by Rahul Sinha then set out on a journey to find Ram. But did they find Him? Find out and judge for yourself…first hand… At Chitrakoot We begin our journey at Chitrakoot, in Madhya Pradesh. Here, there’s a rock where, it is believed, Ram, Lakshman and Sita used to rest during their stay as part of their 14-year-long ‘vanvaas’ (exile). This place is known as ‘Ram Shayya’. Many tourists who visit Chitrakoot know about Kamakhya mountain, but only a handful are aware of the existence of Ram Shayya. We found three separate marks of Ram, Sita and his dhanush (arrow) on the rock. It is believed that these marks were formed when the two slept here. According to a local priest, the hard rock turned into a soft rock when Ram and Sita slept there. It is because of this softness of the rock that the marks were formed. While we were in Chitrakoot, local priests also took us to a place called Sphatic Shila where they showed us the footmarks of Ram, Lakshman and Sita. We also got the chance to see some footmarks at Janaki Kund which are believed to be of Sita. Janaki Kund & Sita Kund The place where Sita used to take bath during her stay at Chitrakoot is known as Janaki Kund. We also came across a ‘havan bedi’ where Sita used to perform ‘havan’ after taking bath. This havan bedi was built by Sita and local priests recite Ramayana even now during morning and evening everyday. Apart from Janaki Kund, there’s a place called Sita Kund. It is located inside a cave in the mountains surrounding Chitrakoot. It is believed that Sita had taken bath here. The water in the Sita Kund is of Godavari river. What’s interesting is that the river vanishes after entering the cave and nobody has so far been able to figure out where it disappears. Hanuman Dhara In Chitrakoot’s dense forest, there’s a place known as Hanuman Dhara. We had to climb nearly 650 steps to reach this place. What we saw here was a very old, ancient-looking statue of Hanuman and from its right, water was flowing out of the mountain. However, a pipe has now been attached to this opening in the rocky mountain to control the flowing water. It is believed that even after reducing Ravan’s Lanka to ashes, the fire inside an angry Hanuman remained intact. After the war ended, Hanuman requested Ram to help douse the fire inside his body. It is then that Ram shot an arrow and a fountain sprung from the mountain. Since then this place has come to be known as Hanuman Dhara. This flowing water disappears after falling on Hanuman’s statue from the pipe. This gave birth to many questions inside the minds of our team members. We tried to find the source of the water but couldn’t find any. Also located right above Hanuman Dhara is a small room called Sita Rasoi where we saw a small rolling pin (chakla belan) made on a rock. It is believed Sita used to cook food here. And We Find Tulsidas’ Ramcharitmanas Not faraway from Chitrakoot is Rajapur. Here, we were told, the original Ramcharitmanas written by Tulsidas is kept inside a house. A person named Ramashrya Das has been taking care of this highly important mythological text. What made us sad was the fact that only one ‘adhyay’ (chapter) of the Ramcharitmanas is secure. All other chapters have been stolen. We got the chance to see the text from a close range. The chapter was written on a paper with hand-made ink. Ramashrya told us that the style of writing at that time was quite different from now. At that time, only seven lines were written on each page. The chapter, which is secure, has a total of 170 pages and 326 couplets. Focus Shifts To Sri Lanka Our search for Ram and the Ramayana in India’s Chitrakoot ends here, but we travel next to Sri Lanka – the same place where it is believed Ravan used to live. But how much of that is true, we find in the next part of this series. We have told you about the evidence of Ramayana which we found in Chitrakoot. We now take our journey further – into Sri Lanka. Across The Sea As the team reached the coast of Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu, what we saw around was the blue sea – the same sea which Lord Ram and his vaanar sena (army of monkeys) crossed to reach Ravan’s Lanka, to rescue Sita. Ravan’s Lanka is now known as Sri Lanka – India’s neighbour in the south. But as we set our foot on Sri Lanka’s soil, several questions came to our mind – Is this really Ravan’s Lanka? Is this the place where ‘Lanka Naresh’ Ravan brought Sita after abducting her? Is this the same place which Hanuman set on fire with his burning tail? Questions were many, the place unknown and nobody around to answer them. But we had a hope – a hope to find some evidence of Ram’s existence. In Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo, we didn’t find too many people around who knew about either Ram or Ravan. But we were asked to visit nearby Norliya if really wanted to find something concrete. The Breakthrough In Norliya, we met a Delhi-based Indian named Harinder Sikka at a popular golf course. We were on cloud nine when we came to know that Sikka himself had been doing research on Ramayana for years. It was the most unexpected thing we had ever imagined that would happen to us. It was a real breakthrough in our search for Ram. Sikka’s love for golf had brought him to Sri Lanka and it was during his interaction with local friends on the epic Ramayana that he decided to do a research on the topic. Ashok Vatika Discovered We were left surprised when Sikka told us that barely five kilometres from where we were standing now, was located one of the most important places mentioned in Ramayana – the Ashok Vatika. This is the place where Sita stayed after Ravan abducted her from India. In Sri Lanka, Ashok Vatika is known as Sita Ella. The place had statues of Lord Ram, his brother Lakshman, Sita and Hanuman. By their look, the statues seemed to be hundreds of years old. However, a local resident, named Romilla, corrected us, saying the statues were nearly 5,500 years old. The statues seemed to have been carved out of nearby rocks. When we enquired about the ‘Ashok Vriksh’, Romilla told us that the famous tree was no more. But standing in its place was a hundreds of years old tree. It is believed that Hanuman first met Sita at this place. At Ashok Vatika Not many people in Sri Lanka know the significance behind Ashok Vatika and treat it like any other picnic spot. However, several Indians have come together and are now turning this place into a temple. Also, paintings have been put up there to help locals understand the Ramayana-related events that took place at Ashok Vatika. We, along with Romilla, also went to a stream called Sita Jharna that flows right under Ashok Vatika. It is believed that Sita used to bathe here during her captivity at Ashok Vatika. The stream is surrounded by huge and dense mountains. Nobody knows where water in the stream comes from and disappears after accumulating in a ‘kund’. What’s fascinating is the fact that water level in the kund remains same throughout the year. The disappearing of water at Sita Jharna in Ashok Vatika, and at Sita Kund and Hanuman Dhara in Chitrakoot hints at some form of connection between the three – and also makes one believe that something miraculous is happening at all three places. Hanuman’s Footmark Romilla next took us to that part of Ashok Vatika where, it is believed, a giant footmark of Hanuman is imprinted. According to beliefs, Hanuman appeared in his gigantic form before Sita for the first time here. This footmark was formed then. Sri Lankan government’s archaeological department has conducted a survey and found that the marks, located on a rock near Sita Jharna, are around 6,000 years old. If viewed from a distance, the footmark resembles that of a huge monkey. It is believed that Hanuman appeared in his gigantic form before Sita to make her believe that Ram’s vaanar sena had the strength and capability to fight Ravan’s army. Sleeping Divinity The next place we visited in our sear.
Waiting fo ur Kind Responce
bantizeal@gmail.com,spicmcay@gmail.com
Tracing the evidence of Lord Ram and his times
Mil Gaye Ram! – Part I
Tracing evidence of Lord Ram and his times Report: Rahul Sinha Adapted by: Deepak Nagpal India is a land of Gods and Goddesses. India is a secular land where various religions thrive. And India is a land where people are both deeply religious and pioneers in science. However, recent developments have shown that this trait of being both religious as well as scientific leads to clashes – clashes between those who have certain beliefs and those who don’t. The most prominent example to cite here is the ‘Ram Setu’ issue. Who would have ever thought that one day, India will fight over the existence of its very own ‘Lord Ram’ – the most worshipped Hindu God, who is also referred to as ‘Maryada Purushottam’ or the Perfect Man. In Hindu mythology, Ram is considered to be the seventh avatar (incarnation) of Lord Vishnu – the protector of all existence. Zee News’ Initiative With so many controversies around and the very existence of Lord Ram being questioned in the land to which He belonged, Zee News thought it’s worthwhile to find answers to some very pertinent questions: Is Ramayana a true story or just a mythological text? Did Ram really exist? Did he have an ardent devotee in Hanuman? Was Ram exiled from Ayodhya? Did he spend years of exile in Chitrakoot? Was his wife Sita abducted? Is there any place called Ravan’s Lanka? What kept our hope alive was the fact that when India had Ram’s Ayodhya (in Uttar Pradesh), there must be something in Sri Lanka which will lend proof to the belief that Ram in not a myth, but a reality. So we thought we need to go back to places which are connected with Ram. The two major points our search focussed on were Chitrakoot in India and the neighbouring Sri Lanka. A Zee News team led by Rahul Sinha then set out on a journey to find Ram. But did they find Him? Find out and judge for yourself…first hand… At Chitrakoot We begin our journey at Chitrakoot, in Madhya Pradesh. Here, there’s a rock where, it is believed, Ram, Lakshman and Sita used to rest during their stay as part of their 14-year-long ‘vanvaas’ (exile). This place is known as ‘Ram Shayya’. Many tourists who visit Chitrakoot know about Kamakhya mountain, but only a handful are aware of the existence of Ram Shayya. We found three separate marks of Ram, Sita and his dhanush (arrow) on the rock. It is believed that these marks were formed when the two slept here. According to a local priest, the hard rock turned into a soft rock when Ram and Sita slept there. It is because of this softness of the rock that the marks were formed. While we were in Chitrakoot, local priests also took us to a place called Sphatic Shila where they showed us the footmarks of Ram, Lakshman and Sita. We also got the chance to see some footmarks at Janaki Kund which are believed to be of Sita. Janaki Kund & Sita Kund The place where Sita used to take bath during her stay at Chitrakoot is known as Janaki Kund. We also came across a ‘havan bedi’ where Sita used to perform ‘havan’ after taking bath. This havan bedi was built by Sita and local priests recite Ramayana even now during morning and evening everyday. Apart from Janaki Kund, there’s a place called Sita Kund. It is located inside a cave in the mountains surrounding Chitrakoot. It is believed that Sita had taken bath here. The water in the Sita Kund is of Godavari river. What’s interesting is that the river vanishes after entering the cave and nobody has so far been able to figure out where it disappears. Hanuman Dhara In Chitrakoot’s dense forest, there’s a place known as Hanuman Dhara. We had to climb nearly 650 steps to reach this place. What we saw here was a very old, ancient-looking statue of Hanuman and from its right, water was flowing out of the mountain. However, a pipe has now been attached to this opening in the rocky mountain to control the flowing water. It is believed that even after reducing Ravan’s Lanka to ashes, the fire inside an angry Hanuman remained intact. After the war ended, Hanuman requested Ram to help douse the fire inside his body. It is then that Ram shot an arrow and a fountain sprung from the mountain. Since then this place has come to be known as Hanuman Dhara. This flowing water disappears after falling on Hanuman’s statue from the pipe. This gave birth to many questions inside the minds of our team members. We tried to find the source of the water but couldn’t find any. Also located right above Hanuman Dhara is a small room called Sita Rasoi where we saw a small rolling pin (chakla belan) made on a rock. It is believed Sita used to cook food here. And We Find Tulsidas’ Ramcharitmanas Not faraway from Chitrakoot is Rajapur. Here, we were told, the original Ramcharitmanas written by Tulsidas is kept inside a house. A person named Ramashrya Das has been taking care of this highly important mythological text. What made us sad was the fact that only one ‘adhyay’ (chapter) of the Ramcharitmanas is secure. All other chapters have been stolen. We got the chance to see the text from a close range. The chapter was written on a paper with hand-made ink. Ramashrya told us that the style of writing at that time was quite different from now. At that time, only seven lines were written on each page. The chapter, which is secure, has a total of 170 pages and 326 couplets. Focus Shifts To Sri Lanka Our search for Ram and the Ramayana in India’s Chitrakoot ends here, but we travel next to Sri Lanka – the same place where it is believed Ravan used to live. But how much of that is true, we find in the next part of this series. We have told you about the evidence of Ramayana which we found in Chitrakoot. We now take our journey further – into Sri Lanka. Across The Sea As the team reached the coast of Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu, what we saw around was the blue sea – the same sea which Lord Ram and his vaanar sena (army of monkeys) crossed to reach Ravan’s Lanka, to rescue Sita. Ravan’s Lanka is now known as Sri Lanka – India’s neighbour in the south. But as we set our foot on Sri Lanka’s soil, several questions came to our mind – Is this really Ravan’s Lanka? Is this the place where ‘Lanka Naresh’ Ravan brought Sita after abducting her? Is this the same place which Hanuman set on fire with his burning tail? Questions were many, the place unknown and nobody around to answer them. But we had a hope – a hope to find some evidence of Ram’s existence. In Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo, we didn’t find too many people around who knew about either Ram or Ravan. But we were asked to visit nearby Norliya if really wanted to find something concrete. The Breakthrough In Norliya, we met a Delhi-based Indian named Harinder Sikka at a popular golf course. We were on cloud nine when we came to know that Sikka himself had been doing research on Ramayana for years. It was the most unexpected thing we had ever imagined that would happen to us. It was a real breakthrough in our search for Ram. Sikka’s love for golf had brought him to Sri Lanka and it was during his interaction with local friends on the epic Ramayana that he decided to do a research on the topic. Ashok Vatika Discovered We were left surprised when Sikka told us that barely five kilometres from where we were standing now, was located one of the most important places mentioned in Ramayana – the Ashok Vatika. This is the place where Sita stayed after Ravan abducted her from India. In Sri Lanka, Ashok Vatika is known as Sita Ella. The place had statues of Lord Ram, his brother Lakshman, Sita and Hanuman. By their look, the statues seemed to be hundreds of years old. However, a local resident, named Romilla, corrected us, saying the statues were nearly 5,500 years old. The statues seemed to have been carved out of nearby rocks. When we enquired about the ‘Ashok Vriksh’, Romilla told us that the famous tree was no more. But standing in its place was a hundreds of years old tree. It is believed that Hanuman first met Sita at this place. At Ashok Vatika Not many people in Sri Lanka know the significance behind Ashok Vatika and treat it like any other picnic spot. However, several Indians have come together and are now turning this place into a temple. Also, paintings have been put up there to help locals understand the Ramayana-related events that took place at Ashok Vatika. We, along with Romilla, also went to a stream called Sita Jharna that flows right under Ashok Vatika. It is believed that Sita used to bathe here during her captivity at Ashok Vatika. The stream is surrounded by huge and dense mountains. Nobody knows where water in the stream comes from and disappears after accumulating in a ‘kund’. What’s fascinating is the fact that water level in the kund remains same throughout the year. The disappearing of water at Sita Jharna in Ashok Vatika, and at Sita Kund and Hanuman Dhara in Chitrakoot hints at some form of connection between the three – and also makes one believe that something miraculous is happening at all three places. Hanuman’s Footmark Romilla next took us to that part of Ashok Vatika where, it is believed, a giant footmark of Hanuman is imprinted. According to beliefs, Hanuman appeared in his gigantic form before Sita for the first time here. This footmark was formed then. Sri Lankan government’s archaeological department has conducted a survey and found that the marks, located on a rock near Sita Jharna, are around 6,000 years old. If viewed from a distance, the footmark resembles that of a huge monkey. It is believed that Hanuman appeared in his gigantic form before Sita to make her believe that Ram’s vaanar sena had the strength and capability to fight Ravan’s army. Sleeping Divinity The next place we visited in our sear.
Waiting fo ur Kind Responce
bantizeal@gmail.com,spicmcay@gmail.com
Mil Gaye Ram! – Part I
Tracing evidence of Lord Ram and his times Report: Rahul Sinha Adapted by: Deepak Nagpal India is a land of Gods and Goddesses. India is a secular land where various religions thrive. And India is a land where people are both deeply religious and pioneers in science. However, recent developments have shown that this trait of being both religious as well as scientific leads to clashes – clashes between those who have certain beliefs and those who don’t. The most prominent example to cite here is the ‘Ram Setu’ issue. Who would have ever thought that one day, India will fight over the existence of its very own ‘Lord Ram’ – the most worshipped Hindu God, who is also referred to as ‘Maryada Purushottam’ or the Perfect Man. In Hindu mythology, Ram is considered to be the seventh avatar (incarnation) of Lord Vishnu – the protector of all existence. Zee News’ Initiative With so many controversies around and the very existence of Lord Ram being questioned in the land to which He belonged, Zee News thought it’s worthwhile to find answers to some very pertinent questions: Is Ramayana a true story or just a mythological text? Did Ram really exist? Did he have an ardent devotee in Hanuman? Was Ram exiled from Ayodhya? Did he spend years of exile in Chitrakoot? Was his wife Sita abducted? Is there any place called Ravan’s Lanka? What kept our hope alive was the fact that when India had Ram’s Ayodhya (in Uttar Pradesh), there must be something in Sri Lanka which will lend proof to the belief that Ram in not a myth, but a reality. So we thought we need to go back to places which are connected with Ram. The two major points our search focussed on were Chitrakoot in India and the neighbouring Sri Lanka. A Zee News team led by Rahul Sinha then set out on a journey to find Ram. But did they find Him? Find out and judge for yourself…first hand… At Chitrakoot We begin our journey at Chitrakoot, in Madhya Pradesh. Here, there’s a rock where, it is believed, Ram, Lakshman and Sita used to rest during their stay as part of their 14-year-long ‘vanvaas’ (exile). This place is known as ‘Ram Shayya’. Many tourists who visit Chitrakoot know about Kamakhya mountain, but only a handful are aware of the existence of Ram Shayya. We found three separate marks of Ram, Sita and his dhanush (arrow) on the rock. It is believed that these marks were formed when the two slept here. According to a local priest, the hard rock turned into a soft rock when Ram and Sita slept there. It is because of this softness of the rock that the marks were formed. While we were in Chitrakoot, local priests also took us to a place called Sphatic Shila where they showed us the footmarks of Ram, Lakshman and Sita. We also got the chance to see some footmarks at Janaki Kund which are believed to be of Sita. Janaki Kund & Sita Kund The place where Sita used to take bath during her stay at Chitrakoot is known as Janaki Kund. We also came across a ‘havan bedi’ where Sita used to perform ‘havan’ after taking bath. This havan bedi was built by Sita and local priests recite Ramayana even now during morning and evening everyday. Apart from Janaki Kund, there’s a place called Sita Kund. It is located inside a cave in the mountains surrounding Chitrakoot. It is believed that Sita had taken bath here. The water in the Sita Kund is of Godavari river. What’s interesting is that the river vanishes after entering the cave and nobody has so far been able to figure out where it disappears. Hanuman Dhara In Chitrakoot’s dense forest, there’s a place known as Hanuman Dhara. We had to climb nearly 650 steps to reach this place. What we saw here was a very old, ancient-looking statue of Hanuman and from its right, water was flowing out of the mountain. However, a pipe has now been attached to this opening in the rocky mountain to control the flowing water. It is believed that even after reducing Ravan’s Lanka to ashes, the fire inside an angry Hanuman remained intact. After the war ended, Hanuman requested Ram to help douse the fire inside his body. It is then that Ram shot an arrow and a fountain sprung from the mountain. Since then this place has come to be known as Hanuman Dhara. This flowing water disappears after falling on Hanuman’s statue from the pipe. This gave birth to many questions inside the minds of our team members. We tried to find the source of the water but couldn’t find any. Also located right above Hanuman Dhara is a small room called Sita Rasoi where we saw a small rolling pin (chakla belan) made on a rock. It is believed Sita used to cook food here. And We Find Tulsidas’ Ramcharitmanas Not faraway from Chitrakoot is Rajapur. Here, we were told, the original Ramcharitmanas written by Tulsidas is kept inside a house. A person named Ramashrya Das has been taking care of this highly important mythological text. What made us sad was the fact that only one ‘adhyay’ (chapter) of the Ramcharitmanas is secure. All other chapters have been stolen. We got the chance to see the text from a close range. The chapter was written on a paper with hand-made ink. Ramashrya told us that the style of writing at that time was quite different from now. At that time, only seven lines were written on each page. The chapter, which is secure, has a total of 170 pages and 326 couplets. Focus Shifts To Sri Lanka Our search for Ram and the Ramayana in India’s Chitrakoot ends here, but we travel next to Sri Lanka – the same place where it is believed Ravan used to live. But how much of that is true, we find in the next part of this series. We have told you about the evidence of Ramayana which we found in Chitrakoot. We now take our journey further – into Sri Lanka. Across The Sea As the team reached the coast of Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu, what we saw around was the blue sea – the same sea which Lord Ram and his vaanar sena (army of monkeys) crossed to reach Ravan’s Lanka, to rescue Sita. Ravan’s Lanka is now known as Sri Lanka – India’s neighbour in the south. But as we set our foot on Sri Lanka’s soil, several questions came to our mind – Is this really Ravan’s Lanka? Is this the place where ‘Lanka Naresh’ Ravan brought Sita after abducting her? Is this the same place which Hanuman set on fire with his burning tail? Questions were many, the place unknown and nobody around to answer them. But we had a hope – a hope to find some evidence of Ram’s existence. In Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo, we didn’t find too many people around who knew about either Ram or Ravan. But we were asked to visit nearby Norliya if really wanted to find something concrete. The Breakthrough In Norliya, we met a Delhi-based Indian named Harinder Sikka at a popular golf course. We were on cloud nine when we came to know that Sikka himself had been doing research on Ramayana for years. It was the most unexpected thing we had ever imagined that would happen to us. It was a real breakthrough in our search for Ram. Sikka’s love for golf had brought him to Sri Lanka and it was during his interaction with local friends on the epic Ramayana that he decided to do a research on the topic. Ashok Vatika Discovered We were left surprised when Sikka told us that barely five kilometres from where we were standing now, was located one of the most important places mentioned in Ramayana – the Ashok Vatika. This is the place where Sita stayed after Ravan abducted her from India. In Sri Lanka, Ashok Vatika is known as Sita Ella. The place had statues of Lord Ram, his brother Lakshman, Sita and Hanuman. By their look, the statues seemed to be hundreds of years old. However, a local resident, named Romilla, corrected us, saying the statues were nearly 5,500 years old. The statues seemed to have been carved out of nearby rocks. When we enquired about the ‘Ashok Vriksh’, Romilla told us that the famous tree was no more. But standing in its place was a hundreds of years old tree. It is believed that Hanuman first met Sita at this place. At Ashok Vatika Not many people in Sri Lanka know the significance behind Ashok Vatika and treat it like any other picnic spot. However, several Indians have come together and are now turning this place into a temple. Also, paintings have been put up there to help locals understand the Ramayana-related events that took place at Ashok Vatika. We, along with Romilla, also went to a stream called Sita Jharna that flows right under Ashok Vatika. It is believed that Sita used to bathe here during her captivity at Ashok Vatika. The stream is surrounded by huge and dense mountains. Nobody knows where water in the stream comes from and disappears after accumulating in a ‘kund’. What’s fascinating is the fact that water level in the kund remains same throughout the year. The disappearing of water at Sita Jharna in Ashok Vatika, and at Sita Kund and Hanuman Dhara in Chitrakoot hints at some form of connection between the three – and also makes one believe that something miraculous is happening at all three places. Hanuman’s Footmark Romilla next took us to that part of Ashok Vatika where, it is believed, a giant footmark of Hanuman is imprinted. According to beliefs, Hanuman appeared in his gigantic form before Sita for the first time here. This footmark was formed then. Sri Lankan government’s archaeological department has conducted a survey and found that the marks, located on a rock near Sita Jharna, are around 6,000 years old. If viewed from a distance, the footmark resembles that of a huge monkey. It is believed that Hanuman appeared in his gigantic form before Sita to make her believe that Ram’s vaanar sena had the strength and capability to fight Ravan’s army. Sleeping Divinity The next place we visited in our sear.
Waiting fo ur Kind Responce
bantizeal@gmail.com,spicmcay@gmail.com
..:: Put Yourself On The Path To Change ::..
Change may be the only permanent thing in life, though there aremany who can't look change in the eye. But it is not difficult, ifyou follow the points mentioned here.Change is something that most of us shy away from. The reason couldbe that the changes are, very often, forced on us. What if wechanged ourselves by choice, rather than compulsion?Well, before that, you might want to know why we should changeourselves. Change is basically a change in our perception of lifechanges. Once our perception changes, our attitudes and beliefsystems change. Vedanta scholars say that once one's attitudechanges for the better he has located the first step towards self-realisation, the ultimate goal of man.There is only one master key to the door called 'changing oneself'and it lies with the individual. Nobody else can do it for him. Atbest, outside factors can influence a person, but change has to bewrought by the individual.Any change is possible when one is aware, when one knows where andwhen to apply the knowledge that one has gleaned. Knowledge comeswhen a person has sifted and sieved information that he hasgathered. For this too, one needs to be aware of what's important,relevant and so on.In other words, awareness is not something that springs to a personat a particular age or stage. It is something to which one remainssensitised and which increases as one's knowledge increases.There are five stages a human being generally goes through beforechange happens in him. The first step is crisis. A diabetic has tochange his diet and his style of living when the diagnosis has beenmade. The moment he accepts the necessity to change and decides torespond to the call, he has crossed the first step.The second stage is hard work. This calls for a lot of mentalexercise. For the diabetic, he has to first get his goals in view.What are his immediate goals? Live, and comfortably too, enjoyinglife as best as he can. His homework begins here. He has to becomeaware of the necessity of change, the consequences that he may haveto face in the event of not changing and the changes that he willhave to implement. He has to change his diet, take his food,medicines and injections (if advised) on time. His activities shouldallow him time for these necessities. If he does not change his lifestyle, he could land up with other debilitating or life threateningdiseases that could cramp his living. He has to make his choice. Itis a mental decision at this stage. While it is possible that onemay feel overwhelmed at the very thought of changing, there is noescape from the fact that he has to do it.Making a commitment to yourself about going ahead and implementingthe changes is the third and most important step in the process ofchange. The relief that comes with making the decision defiesdescription -- it has to be experienced.Consider this -- you have not actually implemented the change youdesire. But if you are able to take a concrete decision it willenhance your self-worth.The fourth stage is the temptation to backtrack, because of the painthat you did not bargain for. There may be moments of frustrationwhen you will be tempted to give up and go back. 'Let the kidneyfail, I'll face it then. I can't take this regimen now', is afrequent cry that diabetics give vent to. Push yourself. Ask akidney patient or a relative about kidney failure. The diabetic willsoon realise that saying a firm 'no' to temptation is worth it. Themiracle will happen.A diabetic patient cannot be cured, but he can control the diseaseby diet control, exercise and medication. With such a lifestyle youwon't need insulin injection.The last factor is the realisation that you have changed and arecomfortable with it. Nobody other than you can know how much andagainst what odds you have succeeded in changing yourself.The other miracles are not far away. That is your first and greatestreward. The power of the knowledge that you have changed. Enjoy yourtriumph.
Change may be the only permanent thing in life, though there aremany who can't look change in the eye. But it is not difficult, ifyou follow the points mentioned here.Change is something that most of us shy away from. The reason couldbe that the changes are, very often, forced on us. What if wechanged ourselves by choice, rather than compulsion?Well, before that, you might want to know why we should changeourselves. Change is basically a change in our perception of lifechanges. Once our perception changes, our attitudes and beliefsystems change. Vedanta scholars say that once one's attitudechanges for the better he has located the first step towards self-realisation, the ultimate goal of man.There is only one master key to the door called 'changing oneself'and it lies with the individual. Nobody else can do it for him. Atbest, outside factors can influence a person, but change has to bewrought by the individual.Any change is possible when one is aware, when one knows where andwhen to apply the knowledge that one has gleaned. Knowledge comeswhen a person has sifted and sieved information that he hasgathered. For this too, one needs to be aware of what's important,relevant and so on.In other words, awareness is not something that springs to a personat a particular age or stage. It is something to which one remainssensitised and which increases as one's knowledge increases.There are five stages a human being generally goes through beforechange happens in him. The first step is crisis. A diabetic has tochange his diet and his style of living when the diagnosis has beenmade. The moment he accepts the necessity to change and decides torespond to the call, he has crossed the first step.The second stage is hard work. This calls for a lot of mentalexercise. For the diabetic, he has to first get his goals in view.What are his immediate goals? Live, and comfortably too, enjoyinglife as best as he can. His homework begins here. He has to becomeaware of the necessity of change, the consequences that he may haveto face in the event of not changing and the changes that he willhave to implement. He has to change his diet, take his food,medicines and injections (if advised) on time. His activities shouldallow him time for these necessities. If he does not change his lifestyle, he could land up with other debilitating or life threateningdiseases that could cramp his living. He has to make his choice. Itis a mental decision at this stage. While it is possible that onemay feel overwhelmed at the very thought of changing, there is noescape from the fact that he has to do it.Making a commitment to yourself about going ahead and implementingthe changes is the third and most important step in the process ofchange. The relief that comes with making the decision defiesdescription -- it has to be experienced.Consider this -- you have not actually implemented the change youdesire. But if you are able to take a concrete decision it willenhance your self-worth.The fourth stage is the temptation to backtrack, because of the painthat you did not bargain for. There may be moments of frustrationwhen you will be tempted to give up and go back. 'Let the kidneyfail, I'll face it then. I can't take this regimen now', is afrequent cry that diabetics give vent to. Push yourself. Ask akidney patient or a relative about kidney failure. The diabetic willsoon realise that saying a firm 'no' to temptation is worth it. Themiracle will happen.A diabetic patient cannot be cured, but he can control the diseaseby diet control, exercise and medication. With such a lifestyle youwon't need insulin injection.The last factor is the realisation that you have changed and arecomfortable with it. Nobody other than you can know how much andagainst what odds you have succeeded in changing yourself.The other miracles are not far away. That is your first and greatestreward. The power of the knowledge that you have changed. Enjoy yourtriumph.
:: Spicmcay...
I am going to develop a programme to promote peace of mind and progress all over the world, because now a days as u know every one in Tention some has relationship The programme is called An art 4 Peace.It is known as Spicmcay....a Deep vision of Life.A people 2people programme.The programme is more relevent to the present world which is strugling with war, terrorism, violence, crimes and many more ills. I would like to invite Like minded people all over the world to join this programme.I am very much interested to spread this good will programme and make it a people's movement.I intend to put forward the core contents of this programme one by one in the course of time. Meanwhile i would like to have comments, suggestions,guidence,help and co-operation of friends, interested in this good will venture.come on let's make a new world order of peace and prosperity.
So, post ur views on http://spicmcay.webs.com in blog section.
I am inviting you in this programme.
I just firstly wants from you the feedback regarding this programme.
Because it only for you thats why I want more support frm You.
mail on spicmcay@gmail.com
I am going to develop a programme to promote peace of mind and progress all over the world, because now a days as u know every one in Tention some has relationship The programme is called An art 4 Peace.It is known as Spicmcay....a Deep vision of Life.A people 2people programme.The programme is more relevent to the present world which is strugling with war, terrorism, violence, crimes and many more ills. I would like to invite Like minded people all over the world to join this programme.I am very much interested to spread this good will programme and make it a people's movement.I intend to put forward the core contents of this programme one by one in the course of time. Meanwhile i would like to have comments, suggestions,guidence,help and co-operation of friends, interested in this good will venture.come on let's make a new world order of peace and prosperity.
So, post ur views on http://spicmcay.webs.com in blog section.
I am inviting you in this programme.
I just firstly wants from you the feedback regarding this programme.
Because it only for you thats why I want more support frm You.
mail on spicmcay@gmail.com
Monday, January 28, 2008
LOVE/ME -ME/LOVE ONCE AGAIN....
A mixed bag of emotions that I am.
Want to give in to love
unscrupulously
Yet want to be scrupulous.
But who decides the thin line.
Still debating
Trust is at stake
At stake of love
Will it fail me
Will it befriend me
Have come far enough
Playing hide and seek
With I me myself
self taught
by experiences
Now I know me
Inside out
An open book that I am
So easy to read
Everything shows
Neither do I make an effort to
Conceal
From whom
Have done that more
Than I should have
The fear has gone
Nothing left to prove
To anyone
Once again for love
The wait
Seem to have ended
If you go
Will I feel all the pain again
Will I bear the turmoil
May be yes may be no
Despite the pain
The scars
I still somewhere
Believe in love
Stopped contemplating
The definitions
For me it has become
Indefinable, unfathomable
Indescribable, uncontainable
Incomparable….
Can just be felt deep within…
A mixed bag of emotions that I am.
Want to give in to love
unscrupulously
Yet want to be scrupulous.
But who decides the thin line.
Still debating
Trust is at stake
At stake of love
Will it fail me
Will it befriend me
Have come far enough
Playing hide and seek
With I me myself
self taught
by experiences
Now I know me
Inside out
An open book that I am
So easy to read
Everything shows
Neither do I make an effort to
Conceal
From whom
Have done that more
Than I should have
The fear has gone
Nothing left to prove
To anyone
Once again for love
The wait
Seem to have ended
If you go
Will I feel all the pain again
Will I bear the turmoil
May be yes may be no
Despite the pain
The scars
I still somewhere
Believe in love
Stopped contemplating
The definitions
For me it has become
Indefinable, unfathomable
Indescribable, uncontainable
Incomparable….
Can just be felt deep within…