Inside Qatar Fall-out and beyond

One phone call of Emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani to Iranian President to congratulate him for his re-election as president of Iran and subsequent official publication  of Qatar  stating "Iran is a regional and Islamic Power that cannot be ignored",  which later Qatar disowned and claimed to be the handiwork of hackers, was enough for Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Nations, Egypt and Libya to sever ties with Qatar which was followed by land, sea and air blockade. It was on June 5 that the embargo started and is still going on with both the parties holding on to their stand. Showing support to Iran was only a last straw to break the camel's back . Tensions have been building for years.

Qatar is a small country with a population of less than 3 million people.  But her abundant wealth prompted Doha to pursue some misadventures in Syria to become relevant in the regional politics and expected her Imaginary "Qatar- Turkey-Europe" gas pipeline project to turn into reality through regime change in Syria. It is also the big reason for Turkey to side with Qatar in this crisis. Denouncing  Saudi Arabia 's move towards Qatar, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week termed the blockade as unislamic and equated it with the "Death penalty" for the people of Qatar. Like that of other anti Assad players, Qatar's objectives in Syria were severely undermined. What Qatar rightly deserved and earned from her role is Syria is the blame and shame of funding extremist forces. Ironically, blame comes from the nations and regimes who themselves are the biggest supporters and promoters of extremism. Qatar's support to Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas is being exploited by media and offered as a proof of Qatar's support to terrorism.  World seems to have forgotten that  Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas are both democratically elected entities, the idea (Democracy)  about which US is bragging all around all the time. In recent past when all of them were backing what they called rebels in Syria then there seemed to be no problem  with Qatar but when it came to Muslim Brotherhood which Egypt and even Saudi Arabia recognizes as a potential threat to their setup, suddenly Qatar becomes a bad guy. Fact of the matter is that the decision of  Gulf states to isolate Qatar  has not to do much with terrorism as it does with Qatar's relationship with Iran.

Iran and Qatar have little in common in terms of geography,  politics, and ideology. During Iran-Iraq war, Saddam Hussain enjoyed full support of Qatar, In Syria and Iraq, Qatar is part of US led coalition forces fighting Asad and even in Yemen Qatar till recently was part of Saudi-led Arab coalition fighting Houthi rebels- dubbed as Iranian allies.

It is only by the force of circumstances on one hand and the strategic and policy preferences of their leaders on the other hand that Iran and Qatar have been drawn together. Tehran and Doha share the world’s largest natural gas structure (called North Field in Qatar and South Pars in Iran) which serves as a major area of mutual interest between the two Persian Gulf states. The full utilization of hydrocarbon resources requires a high level of cooperation between Tehran and Doha for which Qatar needs to maintain cordial relations with Iran which is not acceptable to US and Saudi Arabia.

Another reason for Qatar not to fall inline with GCC in confronting Iran is the strait of Hormuz in Persian gulf which is largely controlled by Iran and in case of any eventuality, its closure  by Iran cannot be overruled. As Qatar is fully dependent on strait of Hormuz for her oil and gas exports, Doha cannot afford its closure.

Qatar being the member Nation of GCC, Saudi Arabia expects Qatar to place her individual and national interests after the bigger cause of GCC which is to counter ever increasing influence of Iran in the region, thereby safeguarding the interests of Zionist regime of Israel so that they continue to remain in good books of US . The crisis came to surface after US President Donald Trump’s visit to the region last month that was marked by signing of a record $110-billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was quoted as saying "The visit was aimed at getting Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations in the region to stand in unity with Israel and confront Iran".  Incidentally, United States after putting all the blame of  funding the extremists in Syria on Qatar, has at the same time signed with her a deal for the purchase of F-15 fighter jets with an initial cost of $12bn.

For Saudi Arabia, Qatar's crime is that she is not sufficiently opposed to  Iran and because of this Qatar does not qualify to be the part of any  of the alliance and even may be punished further. With Turkey  performing joint military drills with Qatar and  with the presence of US Airbase in Qatar, it remains to be seen whether the diplomacy prevails or God forbid world may have to witness another blood bath like the one in Yemen

Of Specially-Abled Persons and National Science Day

Every year since 1987, National Science Day is celebrated on February 28. On this day in 1928, C.V. Raman discovered the famous ‘Raman Effect’, about the scattering of light. He was awarded Nobel Prize in physics for this discovery in 1930. The day is commemorated to uphold the significance of scientific applications in our daily lives, to display all the activities, efforts and achievements in the field of science for human welfare and to inculcate scientific temper. Schools, colleges and universities throughout the country organise events and exhibitions that showcase their respective researches and discoveries in the field. National Science day was observed across Kashmir also with the Central University of Kashmir, University of Kashmir and Islamic University of Science and Technology holding functions and competitions.

Every year the day is assigned a theme. For 2017 the theme was "Science and Technology for Specially-abled Persons". A person is said to be specially-abled if he or she has a physical or mental impairment that has a significant impact on his or her daily life. This encompasses a wide range of impairments: from physical impairments like partial or total loss of sight, difficulty in hearing, inability to speak, various forms of immobility involving arms, legs or spine, to mental impairments like autism and dyslexia.

For the country where 2.21 % population is estimated to be specially-abled, the theme "Science & Technology for Specially-abled" for celebrating National Science Day is completely justified. Talking of J&K state, as per census 2011 our state has around 3.61 lakh, specially-abled persons. Another study places the number of disabled persons as high as 6 lakh out of which 1.2 lakh have some sort of orthopaedic disability and around 0.9 lakh suffer from mild to severe type of mental illness.
In today's world when science and technology have penetrated into every sphere of life, how can lives of specially-abled persons remain untouched? The severity of many of the impairments mentioned above can be reduced by technology. Innovations in technology can help the specially-abled person to lead an independent and near normal life.

In the area of prosthetics, for example, advances in material science, electronics and neuroscience have resulted in creation of prosthetic limbs that are controlled directly by the brain. From self-balancing and stair climbing wheelchairs to cars which replace driver seat with wheel chair, technology has promised it all. For visually impaired refreshable Braille displays, wearable finger reader for reading books, position sensing wrist bands with the capability of speech providing assistance in navigation, electric lollipop providing optical sensation enabling the user to taste the light and thousands of other products have come to the rescue of those who suffer visual impairment. A large number of assistive technologies including hearing aids, Cochlear implants are available for persons with hearing impairments.

Science may have done wonders and tonnes of gadgets and applications may be available for specially-abled people but we are still lacking and there is still a lot of scope in this area. If science and technology cannot provide relief to the specially-abled people then it is of little use. The fact is that it is not enough to innovate, design, produce and market the products for specially-abled, the products should be affordable to them as well, especially in Kashmir where the population of specially-abled particularly those with visual impairments has increased over the last year or so. It should be a matter of concern that research and innovation in this direction in our otherwise efficient educational and research institutes is negligible. The only possible reason for this neglect is a lack of sensitization towards the issues related to specially-abled people.

The roadmap to address the issues of specially-abled people starts with sensitising academia and industry by highlighting the never-ending scope in this area. Adequate funding needs to be made available for R&D. Making the latest gadgets and applications accessible and affordable is the step which is followed by providing education and training for specially-abled persons for which necessary infrastructure needs to be developed. Assistance in the placement and any entrepreneurial endeavour needs to be facilitated. Last but not the least, specially-abled friendly public amenities need to be created.