America's General
Pakistan takes its most crucial decision since the 1971 war — to side with the US against the Taliban. The clerics may protest, but Musharraf has few options.

ECONOMIC IMPACT
Where Are We Going?
Fear and uncertainty stalk the Indian economy as early damages begin to show.

Ready For Battle
Where will the US strike, with what and how? A report on the military options before the global coalition that the Americans are building against terrorism.

Shifting Stance
Indian foreign policy is in a flux following the terrorist strikes in the US, metamorphosing in tandem with the tectonic shift in the geopolitical landscape of the world.

Menace In The Mind
People like bin Laden are not so much politicising religion as religionising politics.

NEWSNOTES

Squint. Behavioural problems. Diseases of the middle ear. Disabilities in a child. All of these have been linked to childhood meningitis, according to a study in British Medical Journal. Children who get meningitis in their first year of life have a ten fold greater risk of disability by the age of five, concluded the study, based on cases of over 1,700 children. A thorough vision and hearing check on the child after an attack of bacterial meningitis is one way of detecting problems early. Simple educational interventions and compassionate treatment can go a long way in helping those children for whom it is already too late.

HEALTH
RECURRENT STROKE

Twice As Deadly

Recurrent stroke is made doubly deadly. Recent studies show that a quarter of all who survive the first attack have another within five years; 3 per cent have the second attack within 30 days.

That's the bad news. The good news is that doctors now have weapons for a counter-attack. An extensive study backed by three organisations, including the who, and spanning 10 countries and more than 6,000 patients reveals that merely taking drugs to control hypertension can reduce the chances of a recurrent stroke by half. New techniques to detect the probability of stroke also help.

A stroke recurs because more than one clot is likely to be formed. Clots originate from "plaques", masses of substances that cling to and thicken the walls of blood vessels. High blood pressure is a cause of thickened arteries. That is why drugs that control hypertension help.

There may be some warning signs-sudden numbness of face, arm or leg, difficulty speaking, blurred vision, dizziness or severe headache without reason. The only way to detect a possible clot so far has been by a technique called Carotid Doppler, which studies vessels in the neck. But now there's a new technique to scan for clots in vessels of the brain itself called Transcranial Doppler. Effective and relatively cheap at Rs 1,800, it could potentially save lives by detecting the clot before it can cause much damage.

Who's most at risk? Those with a family history of stroke. Those who smoke, drink too much alcohol or abuse drugs. Hypertensives, diabetics and heart patients. But now there's hope for them too.

--Supriya Bezbaruah

Little Big Thing: And now, radio. A new software called Replay Radio makes MP3 files of Internet radio programmes for playback on pocket PCs. Like all things Microsoft, a new version is on the way for this too: the Pocket PC 2002. The hardware will remain largely unchanged; it's a software upgrade. The device already supports wireless Internet, e-mail, MS Word and Excel, and is getting smarter at recognising handwriting. It is handier than the usual mobile phone. Typical dimensions: 5.11 inches high, 3.28 wide and 0.62 inches deep for Compaq's iPAQ. Price: Rs 35,000.

Teething Troubles: In the first project of its kind in the country, the Agra branch of the Indian Dental Association examined the teeth of over 1.3 lakh children aged 5-12 in rural Uttar Pradesh as part of the Rural Oral Health Awareness Programme. Their shocking preliminary finding: 80 per cent suffer dental caries (rotting teeth). The reason, says Agra IDA Secretary Hariom Sharma, is ignorance-they use coal, ash and mud to "clean" their teeth. Using toothpaste, or failing that, neem or bamun (acacia) is the preferred solution.

COMPUTERS

I Spy

Someone might be reading your mail. Carnivore, recently renamed DCS1000, was developed by the FBI in the US two years ago to wiretap communications that go through Internet service providers. Information is sent over the Internet in "packets". The system, installed at ISPs, captures packets of Internet traffic as they travel through networks. It can monitor millions of e-mail messages each day.

Worm Attack: If you get a mail with an attachment saying readme.exe, don't-it's a worm. Dubbed Nimda, this very malicious worm attacks Microsoft Web Server.

Safe Mail: There are resources available that make hunting difficult even for the Carnivore. MagnusNet is a system that lets users route their requests through a series of web servers. So a user can visit Hotmail, for example, and send messages that cannot be traced back to him. Then there's steganography, the art of hiding information in innocuous-looking images. Not to forget plain encryption. Hushmail, a free web-based email service, might beat the FBI.

Constant suspicion, poverty, ill-health and lack of work dog Afghan asylum seekers in India. INDIA TODAY's Principal Correspondent Anna M.M. Vetticad meets some of them.
Living On The Edge