India Ink: Newswallah: Long Reads Edition

In Down to Earth, Alok Gupta analyzes the damaging effect violence has had on Bihar’s efforts to empower women and advance self-governance. The article argues that although the Bihar government announced a 50 percent quota for women in the panchayat (village council) in 2006, it has not helped in bringing about true empowerment for women. Instead, men force their homemaker wives to contest elections as the husbands continue to make all the decisions.

As sarpanchs (village council leaders) and mukhiyas (district leaders) have the power to approve development projects and administer social welfare programs, the posts are highly coveted. Often violence is used to discourage women from contesting elections. Mr. Gupta lists a number of incidents in which women standing for village council elections or their husbands were attacked, murdered and mutilated. In the three village council elections since 2006, 191 people were killed in Bihar before and during elections.

Rising violence along with continued gender discrimination have undermined the efficacy of the quota system for women in village council leadership. “In the past five years, the number of widowed mukhiyas and sarpanchs has spiraled, casting doubt if the Bihar government’s efforts to empower women were merely yet another political sop,” Mr. Gupta concludes.

In Tehelka, Kunal Majumder weighs in on last month’s events in Bangladesh, where young Muslim activists took to the streets of Dhaka protesting the Islamist political group Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh in an assertion of secularism and nationalism.

The protests were triggered on Feb. 5 when the War Crimes Tribunal, instituted by the government to try those accused of committing atrocities in Bangladesh’s liberation war in 1971, handed down a life sentence to Abdul Kader Mollah, who was convicted of rape and mass murder. Many Bangladeshis had expected a death sentence for Mr. Mollah, who is often called the “Butcher of Mirpur” for slaughtering 344 people.

In response to the sentence, four bloggers in their 20s — Imran H. Sarkar, Mahmadul Haq Munshi, Maruf Rosul and Amit Bikram Tripura — organized a protest near the National Museum adjacent to Shahbag Square. Within days, students from other universities joined the protest, which grew exponentially. The protesters demanded the death sentence for the perpetrators of war crimes, a ban on the Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing, which are associated with the war crimes committed during Bangladesh’s liberation struggle, and a ban on enterprises controlled by the Jamaat.

Mr. Majumder compares the youth protesting at Shahbag Square to the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria and Pakistan, where young Muslim populations massed on the streets. However, the critical difference in Bangladesh, Mr. Majumder writes, is that the young Muslims’ demands were extremely un-Islamic.

“A young generation of Bangladeshis set out to recapture the legacy of their country’s birth and reclaim the narrative of 1971, taking ownership of an event that occurred well before this generation was born,” Mr. Majumder writes. “Young Muslims came out on the streets, angry and impassioned. They were not advocating or emerging as the vanguard for Islamism; they were opposing it.”

In Open, Rahul Pandita critiques the draft Jammu and Kashmir Police Bill 2013, which empowers local police and reduces police accountability. He notes that while the Jammu and Kashmir chief minister, Omar Abdullah, has often publicly denounced the Armed Forces Special Powers Act that grants armed forces impunity, the draft Kashmir Police Bill gives similar powers to the state police. The bill, which has already stirred controversy in the Kashmir Valley, allows police personnel to bypass the district magistrate in law-and-order disputes.

Other controversial parts of the act include allowing a police officer “not authorized by rank or jurisdiction” to keep a person in custody for six hours before a competent officer takes over and the authorization to create “village defense committees” and appoint civilians as special police officers.

While the chief minister has said that the bill will only be passed after it goes through the state cabinet and both legislative houses, Mr. Pandita argues that Mr. Abdullah’s inaction with regards to the bill has hurt himself by giving his opponents plenty of ammunition in this debate.

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In Filing, Casino Operator Admits Likely Violation of an Antibribery Law

 In its annual regulatory report published by the commission on Friday, the Sands reported that its audit committee and independent accountants had determined that “there were likely violations of the books and records and internal controls provisions” of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

 The disclosure comes amid an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation into the company’s business activities in China.

 It is the company’s first public acknowledgment of possible wrongdoing. Ron Reese, a spokesman for the Sands, declined to comment further.

The company’s activities in mainland China, including an attempt to set up a trade center in Beijing and create a sponsored basketball team, as well as tens of millions of dollars in payments the Sands made through a Chinese intermediary, had become a focus of the federal investigation, according to reporting by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal in August.

 In its filing, the Sands said that it did not believe the findings would have material impact on its financial statements, or that they warranted revisions in its past statements. The company said that it was too early to determine whether the investigation would result in any losses. “The company is cooperating with all investigations,” the statement said.

 The Sands’ activities in China came under the scrutiny of federal investigators after 2010, when Steven C. Jacobs, the former president of the company’s operations in Macau, filed a wrongful-termination lawsuit in which he charged that he had been pressured to exercise improper leverage against government officials. He also accused the company of turning a blind eye toward Chinese organized crime figures operating in its casinos.

 Mr. Adelson began his push into China over a decade ago, after the authorities began offering a limited number of gambling licenses in Macau, a semiautonomous archipelago in the Pearl River Delta that is the only place in the country where casino gambling is legal.

 But as with many lucrative business spheres in China, the gambling industry on Macau is laced with corruption. Companies must rely on the good will of Chinese officials to secure licenses and contracts. Officials control even the flow of visitors, many of whom come on government-run junkets from the mainland.

 As he maneuvered to enter Macau’s gambling market, Mr. Adelson, who is well known in the United States for his financial and political clout, became enmeshed in often intertwining political and business dealings. At one point he reportedly intervened on behalf of the Chinese government to help stall a House resolution condemning the country’s bid for the 2008 Summer Olympics on the basis of its human rights record.

 In 2004, he opened his first casino there, the Sands Macau, the enclave’s first foreign owned gambling establishment. This was followed by his $2.4 billion Venetian in 2007.

 Some Sands subsidiaries have also come under investigation by Chinese authorities for violations that included using money for business purposes not reported to the authorities, resulting in fines of over a million dollars.

 Success in Macau has made Mr. Adelson, 78, one of the richest people in the world. He and his wife, Miriam, own 53.2 percent of Las Vegas Sands, the world’s biggest casino company by market value. Last year, Forbes estimated his fortune at $24.9 billion.

 Mr. Adelson became the biggest single donor in political history during the 2012 presidential election, giving more than $60 million to eight Republican candidates, including Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, through “super PACs.” He presides over a global empire of casinos, hotels and convention centers.

Michael Luo and Thomas Gaffney contributed reporting.

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IHT Rendezvous: Muslims Seek Dialogue With Next Pope

LONDON — As the Catholic Church’s cardinal electors gather at the Vatican to choose a new pope, Muslim leaders are urging a revival of the often troubled dialogue between the two faiths.

During the papacy of Benedict XVI, relations between the world’s two largest religions were overshadowed by remarks he made in 2006 that were widely condemned as an attack on Islam.

In a speech at Regensburg University in his native Germany, Benedict quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor as saying, “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

In the face of protests from the Muslim world, the Vatican said the pope’s remarks had been misinterpreted and that he “deeply regretted” that the speech “sounded offensive to the sensibility of Muslim believers.”

For many in the Muslim world, however, the damage was done and the perception persisted that Benedict was hostile to Islam.

Juan Cole, a U.S. commentator on the Middle East, has suggested that although the pope backed down on some of his positions, “Pope Benedict roiled those relationships with needlessly provocative and sometimes offensive statements about Islam and Muslims.”

Despite the Vatican’s efforts to renew the interfaith dialogue by hosting a meeting with Muslim scholars, hostilities resumed in 2011 when the pope condemned alleged discrimination against Egypt’s Coptic Christians in the wake of a church bombing in Alexandria.

Al Azhar University in Cairo, the center of Islamic learning, froze relations with the Vatican in protest.

Following the pope’s decision to step down, Mahmud Azab, an adviser on interfaith dialogue to the head of Al Azhar, said, “The resumption of ties with the Vatican hinges on the new atmosphere created by the new pope. The initiative is now in the Vatican’s hands.”

Mahmoud Ashour, a senior Al Azhar cleric, insisted that “the new pope must not attack Islam,” according to remarks quoted by Agence France-Presse, the French news agency, and said the two religions should “complete one another, rather than compete.”

A French Muslim leader, meanwhile, has called for a fresh start in the dialogue with a new pope.

In an interview with Der Spiegel of Germany this week, Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Grand Mosque in Paris, said of Benedict, “He was not able to understand Muslims. He had no direct experience with Islam, and he found nothing positive to say about our beliefs.”

Reem Nasr, writing at the policy debate Web site, Policymic, this week offered Benedict’s successor a five-point program to bridge the Catholic and Muslim worlds.

These included mutual respect, more papal contacts with Muslim leaders and a greater focus on what the religions had in common.

“There has been a long history of mistrust that can be overcome,” she wrote. “No one should give up just yet.”

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Heat win 13th straight, top Grizzlies 98-91

MIAMI (AP) — For a while, it looked as though a pair of long streaks were in jeopardy.

That is, until LeBron James finally got going — at the perfect time.

Dwyane Wade scored 22 points and set up James for a critical 3-pointer in the final half-minute, and the Heat extended their winning streak to 13 games by beating the Memphis Grizzlies 98-91 on Friday night.

"I thought this was one of our better wins of the season," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. "It was tough. We had to work for everything. We had to find a different way to win, deal with frustration ... and then make some plays down the stretch."

On a night when he shot just 4 for 14, James finished two rebounds shy of a triple-double, with 18 points and 10 assists. Shane Battier scored 14, Chris Bosh added 13 and Ray Allen had 10 for Miami, which snapped Memphis' eight-game winning streak.

"He's the best player in the world," Bosh said. "But we have the best supporting cast."

Down the stretch, James — who had 14 points, four rebounds and four assists in the fourth quarter alone — was simply too much. After managing only four points in the first three quarters, James still wound up reaching double digits for the 475th straight regular-season game.

"He made the big shot and that's all that matters," said Memphis' Marc Gasol, who led all scorers with 24.

Gasol tied the game with a pair of free throws with 2:44 left, before the Heat scored the next five. Bosh had a three-point play, and Wade took off in transition for a slam that put Miami up 90-85.

Gasol scored the next four, but Memphis got no closer. James calmly hit a 3-pointer with 24 seconds remaining to seal the win.

"I'm always confident in my next shot," James said. "D-Wade gave me a great pass and I was able to knock it down."

The Grizzlies got 14 points from Zach Randolph, who said he was bothered throughout after turning his left ankle on the game's first possession. Mike Conley added 14 for Memphis, which got 10 from Quincy Pondexter.

"I have no problem with the game," Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins said. "We were right there. They just made a few more plays than we did down the stretch."

For the Heat, this week was filled with attention for things like pregame dunking exhibitions and their version of a "Harlem Shake" video — which generated more than 5 million views on YouTube in about 24 hours of being posted.

Then came a basketball game, the likes of which had not been seen in the NBA for almost 20 years.

According to STATS LLC, the most recent time before Friday that there was a game between two teams that were carrying at least 12- and eight-game winning streaks was Dec. 3, 1993, when Atlanta (which had won nine straight) beat Houston (which had won 15 straight).

In fact, the Heat-Grizzlies game was just the eighth in NBA history pitting two teams with active winning streaks of at least eight in a row.

Want more significance? Spoelstra and Hollins were announced earlier in the day as the Eastern and Western Conference coaches of the month, respectively. And news came just before tipoff that James was picked yet again as the East's player of the month, making him 4 for 4 in that department this season.

"Just a residual of team success," Spoelstra said.

Added Hollins: "I'm the head coach and I get the credit and I get the blame, but those guys have been playing extremely well ... coming together with all the turmoil and all the chaos that we've had."

So of course, in a game between the NBA's two hottest teams, the start was ice cold. The teams combined to miss 23 of their first 32 shots.

And for James, things were downright frigid.

After the best shooting month of his career — the three-time MVP made 64 percent of his shots in February, the best month of any NBA player with 200 attempts since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar shot 65 percent in March 1983 — James' run in March started in a decidedly different manner.

James made a 3-pointer on his first attempt of the night, then missed his next eight tries.

"You won't see that happening too many times," Wade said. "It was great that on a night where he didn't have it going offensively, he had trust in his guys and didn't force up 20-odd shots. He played to pass and he still was aggressive. We'll take it. We'll take it, him getting those numbers and us getting the win."

NOTES: Battier has at least one 3-pointer in 14 straight games, the fourth-best such streak of his career. ... Miami is at New York on Sunday, facing a Knicks team that has already beaten the Heat twice — by 20 points each time. "Our guys will look forward to playing this game," Spoelstra said.

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U.S. Judges Offer Addicts a Way to Avoid Prison

Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Emily Leitch of Brooklyn, with her son, Nazir, 4, was arrested for importing cocaine but went to “drug court” to avoid prison.

Federal judges around the country are teaming up with prosecutors to create special treatment programs for drug-addicted defendants who would otherwise face significant prison time, an effort intended to sidestep drug laws widely seen as inflexible and overly punitive.

The Justice Department has tentatively embraced the new approach, allowing United States attorneys to reduce or even dismiss charges in some drug cases.

The effort follows decades of success for “drug courts” at the state level, which legal experts have long cited as a less expensive and more effective alternative to prison for dealing with many low-level repeat offenders.

But it is striking that the model is spreading at the federal level, where judges have increasingly pushed back against rules that restrict their ability to make their own determination of appropriate sentences.

So far, federal judges have instituted programs in California, Connecticut, Illinois, New Hampshire, New York, South Carolina, Virginia and Washington. About 400 defendants have been involved nationwide.

In Federal District Court in Brooklyn on Thursday, Judge John Gleeson issued an opinion praising the new approach as a way to address swelling prison costs and disproportionate sentences for drug trafficking.

“Presentence programs like ours and those in other districts mean that a growing number of courts are no longer reflexively sentencing federal defendants who do not belong in prison to the costly prison terms recommended by the sentencing guidelines,” Judge Gleeson wrote.

The opinion came a year after Judge Gleeson, with the federal agency known as Pretrial Services, started a program that made achieving sobriety an incentive for drug-addicted defendants to avoid prison. The program had its first graduate this year: Emily Leitch, a Brooklyn woman with a long history of substance abuse who was arrested entering the country at Kennedy International Airport with over 13 kilograms of cocaine, about 30 pounds, in her luggage.

“I want to thank the federal government for giving me a chance,” Ms. Leitch said. “I always wanted to stand up as a sober person.”

The new approach is being prompted in part by the Obama administration, which previously supported legislation that scaled back sentences for crimes involving crack cocaine. The Justice Department has supported additional changes to the federal sentencing guidelines to permit the use of drug or mental health treatment as an alternative to incarceration for certain low-level offenders and changed its own policies to make those options more available.

“We recognize that imprisonment alone is not a complete strategy for reducing crime,” James M. Cole, the deputy attorney general, said in a statement. “Drug courts, re-entry courts and other related programs along with enforcement are all part of the solution.”

For nearly 30 years, the United States Sentencing Commission has established guidelines for sentencing, a role it was given in 1984 after studies found that federal judges were giving defendants widely varying sentences for similar crimes. The commission’s recommendations are approved by Congress, causing judges to bristle at what they consider interference with their judicial independence.

“When you impose a sentence that you believe is unjust, it is a very difficult thing to do,” Stefan R. Underhill, a federal judge in Connecticut, said in an interview. “It feels wrong.”

The development of drug courts may meet resistance from some Republicans in Congress.

“It is important that courts give deference to Congressional authority over sentencing,” Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Republican of Wisconsin, a member and former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement. He said sentencing should not depend “on what judge happens to decide the case or what judicial circuit the defendant happens to be in.”

At the state level, pretrial drug courts have benefited from bipartisan support, with liberals supporting the programs as more focused on rehabilitation, and conservatives supporting them as a way to cut spending.

Under the model being used in state and federal courts, defendants must accept responsibility for their crimes and agree to receive drug treatment and other social services and attend regular meetings with judges who monitor their progress. In return for successful participation, they receive a reduced sentence or no jail time at all. If they fail, they are sent to prison.

The drug court option is not available to those facing more serious charges, like people accused of being high-level dealers or traffickers, or accused of a violent crime. (These programs differ from re-entry drug courts, which federal judges have long used to help offenders integrate into society after prison.)

In interviews, the federal judges who run the other programs pointed to a mix of reasons for their involvement.

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Economix Blog: Bernanke Defends Stimulus as Necessary and Effective

The Federal Reserve’s chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, picked an unusual time to offer his most recent defense of the Fed’s campaign to stimulate the economy: 7 p.m. on a Friday night in San Francisco, 10 p.m. back home on the East Coast.

The basic message was the same as Mr. Bernanke delivered to Congress earlier this week: The Fed regards its current efforts as necessary and effective, and the risks, while real, are under control.

“Commentators have raised two broad concerns surrounding the outlook for long-term rates,” Mr. Bernanke told a conference at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. “To oversimplify, the first risk is that rates will remain low, and the second is that they will not.”

If rates remain low, it may drive investors to take excessive risks. If rates jump, investors could lose money – not least the Fed.

Regarding the first possibility, Mr. Bernanke said that the Fed was keeping a careful eye on financial markets. But he noted that rates were low in large part because the economy was weak, and that keeping rates low was the best way to encourage stronger growth. “Premature rate increases would carry a high risk of short-circuiting the recovery, possibly leading — ironically enough — to an even longer period of low long- term rates,” he said.

At the other extreme, Mr. Bernanke said the Fed could “mitigate” any jump in rates by prolonging its efforts to hold rates down, for example by keeping some of its investments in Treasury and mortgage-backed securities.

Three more highlights from the question-and-answer session after the speech.

1. Mr. Bernanke, asked about the outlook for the Washington Nationals, responded by accurately quoting the “Las Vegas odds” of a World Series appearance: 8/1.

2. Although the decision may be made under a future chairman, Mr. Bernanke said the Fed should continue to offer “forward guidance” — predicting its policies — even after it concludes its long effort to revive the economy.

“Providing information about the future path of policy could be useful, probably would be useful, under even normal circumstances,” he said in response to a question. “I think we need to keep providing information.”

3. Not surprisingly, Mr. Bernanke often is asked to reflect on the financial crisis. He offered something a little different than his normal response on Friday night.

“In many ways, in retrospect, the crisis was a normal crisis,” he said. “It’s just that the intuitional framework in which it occurred was much more complex.”

In other words, there was a panic, and a run, and a collapse – but rather than a run on bank deposits, the run was in the money markets. Improving the stability of those markets is something regulators have yet to accomplish.

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Death Toll From Bangladesh Unrest Hits 42

DHAKA, Bangladesh — Violent clashes between protesters and security forces erupted across Bangladesh on Thursday, leaving at least 44 people dead, after a special war crimes tribunal handed down a death sentence to an Islamic leader for crimes against humanity committed 42 years ago, during the country’s 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.

The verdict against Delawar Hossain Sayedee, a leader of Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamist party, resonated across the country. It was celebrated by the hundreds of thousands of young protesters who have taken to the streets in recent weeks to condemn Jamaat and demand justice in the war crimes cases against other party leaders, insisting that those who were convicted be hanged.

“This verdict is a victory for the people,” declared Imran H. Sarkar, a blogger and an organizer of the protests, during a rally on Thursday afternoon.

But followers of Jamaat reacted with fury, saying the case brought against Mr. Sayedee and others was politically motivated and tainted by judicial irregularities. The police and witnesses said that of the 42 people killed in the unrest, six of them were policemen.

Jamaat leaders had called a nationwide strike on Thursday to protest the verdict, and by afternoon bloodshed had erupted across the country, as party workers fought with the police in the streets.

The protests for and against Jamaat have convulsed Bangladeshi politics, demonstrating that the country has still not healed from the bloody 1971 conflict, in which an estimated three million people were killed and thousands of women were raped. Before the war, Bangladesh was East Pakistan, separated from the rest of that country by a wide expanse of India. The war pitted Bangladeshi separatists against Pakistani soldiers and local collaborators, who were known then as the Razakar Bahini.

“As judges of this tribunal, we firmly hold and believe in the doctrine that ‘justice in the future cannot be achieved unless injustice of the past is addressed,’ ” Justice A. T. M. Fazle Kabir commented in a written summary of the judgment.

The war crimes tribunal has convicted three Jamaat leaders in connection with the war, and other cases are under way, including some against defendants not affiliated with the party.

Mr. Sayedee, 73, is a well-known religious speaker with a bright red beard who became a member of the Bangladeshi Parliament after the war. Prosecutors accused him of involvement in looting and burning villages, raping women and forcing members of religious minorities to convert to Islam during the war.

His defense lawyer, Abdur Razzaq, scoffed at the court’s verdict and accused the authorities of deliberately prejudicing the trial and preventing an important witness from testifying.

“This is unfortunate, and this is unexpected,” Mr. Razzaq said of the verdict and sentence in a telephone interview. “This is a perverse judgment. It is inconceivable that a court of law awarded him a conviction. This prosecution was for a political purpose.”

Jamaat leaders and other opposition politicians have said for months that the government was manipulating the war crimes process to go after political rivals, accusations that the authorities deny. The proceedings have already created dissent and some international criticism. The chief presiding judge resigned after reports, based on hacked Skype conversations, that the judge had improper contacts with a legal expert linked to prosecutors and the government.

But to many Bangladeshis, the real injustice has been that war criminals have remained free for decades. On Feb. 5, the tribunal convicted another Jamaat leader, Abdul Quader Mollah, and sentenced him to life in prison. Furious that the tribunal had not sentenced Mr. Mollah to death, protesters gathered in growing numbers, surpassing 200,000 on some days.

The protests have become known as the Shahbagh movement, named for a large intersection in central Dhaka where the main demonstrations have taken place. Many political analysts say the Shahbagh protests are the most significant spontaneous political movement in Bangladesh in decades. Though the movement may be suffused with idealism and proud nationalism, it also bears a hard edge, with demands for the execution of convicted war criminals.

Sultana Kamal, a prominent human rights leader in Dhaka, said that she disagreed with the calls for the death penalty, but that they reflected the cynicism of Bangladeshis who have seen war criminals evade punishment for decades. Many people were infuriated when Mr. Mollah flashed a victory sign after receiving his life sentence.

“We have a problem in accepting that they are demanding the death penalty,” Ms. Kamal said in a telephone interview. “But we understand that it was from a nervousness among the people here that unless they are given the highest penalty in the land, these people will come back out.”

Julfikar Ali Manik reported from Dhaka, and Jim Yardley from New Delhi.

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Jane C. Wright, Pioneering Oncologist, Dies at 93

Dr. Jane C. Wright, a pioneering oncologist who helped elevate chemotherapy from a last resort for cancer patients to an often viable treatment option, died on Feb. 19 at her home in Guttenberg, N.J. She was 93.

Her death was confirmed by her daughter Jane Jones, who said her mother had dementia.

Dr. Wright descended from a distinguished medical family that defied racial barriers in a profession long dominated by white men. Her father, Dr. Louis T. Wright, was among the first blacks to graduate from Harvard Medical School and was reported to be the first black doctor appointed to the staff of a New York City hospital. His father was an early graduate of what became the Meharry Medical College, the first medical school in the South for African-Americans, founded in Nashville in 1876.

Dr. Jane Wright began her career as a researcher working alongside her father at a cancer center he established at Harlem Hospital in New York.

Together, they and others studied the effects of a variety of drugs on tumors, experimented with chemotherapeutic agents on leukemia in mice and eventually treated patients, with some success, with new anticancer drugs, including triethylene melamine.

After her father died in 1952, Dr. Wright took over as director of the center, which was known as the Harlem Hospital Cancer Research Foundation. In 1955, she joined the faculty of the New York University Medical Center as director of cancer research, where her work focused on correlating the responses of tissue cultures to anticancer drugs with the responses of patients.

In 1964, working as part of a team at the N.Y.U. School of Medicine, Dr. Wright developed a nonsurgical method, using a catheter system, to deliver heavy doses of anticancer drugs to previously hard-to-reach tumor areas in the kidneys, spleen and elsewhere.

That same year, Dr. Wright was the only woman among seven physicians who, recognizing the unique needs of doctors caring for cancer patients, founded the American Society of Clinical Oncologists, known as ASCO. She was also appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to the President’s Commission on Heart Disease, Cancer and Stroke, led by the heart surgeon Dr. Michael E. DeBakey. Its recommendations emphasized better communication among doctors, hospitals and research institutions and resulted in a national network of treatment centers.

In 1967, Dr. Wright became head of the chemotherapy department and associate dean at New York Medical College. News reports at the time said it was the first time a black woman had held so high a post at an American medical school.

“Not only was her work scientific, but it was visionary for the whole science of oncology,” Dr. Sandra Swain, the current president of ASCO, said in a telephone interview. “She was part of the group that first realized we needed a separate organization to deal with the providers who care for cancer patients. But beyond that it’s amazing to me that a black woman, in her day and age, was able to do what she did.”

Jane Cooke Wright was born in Manhattan on Nov. 30, 1919. Her mother, the former Corinne Cooke, was a substitute teacher in the New York City schools.

Ms. Wright attended the Ethical Culture school in Manhattan and the Fieldston School in the Bronx (now collectively known Ethical Culture Fieldston School) and graduated from Smith College, where she studied art before turning to medicine. She received a full scholarship to New York Medical College, earning her medical degree in 1945. Before beginning research with her father, she worked as a doctor in the city schools.

Dr. Wright’s marriage, in 1947, to David D. Jones, a lawyer, ended with his death in 1976. She is survived by their two daughters, Jane and Alison Jones, and a sister, Barbara Wright Pierce, who is also a doctor.

As both a student and a doctor, Dr. Wright said in interviews, she was always aware that as a black woman she was an unusual presence in medical institutions. But she never felt she was a victim of racial prejudice, she said.

“I know I’m a member of two minority groups,” she said in an interview with The New York Post in 1967, “but I don’t think of myself that way. Sure, a woman has to try twice as hard. But — racial prejudice? I’ve met very little of it.”

She added, “It could be I met it — and wasn’t intelligent enough to recognize it.”

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F-35 Jets Returned to Service by Pentagon

The Pentagon lifted its grounding of the new F-35 jet fighter on Thursday after concluding that a turbine blade had cracked on a single plane after it was overused in test operations.

The office that runs the program said no other cracks were found in inspections of the other engines made so far, and no engine redesign was needed.

It said the engine in which the blade cracked was in a plane that “had been operated at extreme parameters in its mission to expand the F-35 flight envelope.”

The program office added that “prolonged exposure to high levels of heat and other operational stressors on this specific engine were determined to be the cause of the crack.”

All flights were suspended last week for the 64 planes built so far once the crack, which stretched for six-tenths of an inch, was found during a routine inspection.

Pratt & Whitney, which makes the engines, investigated the problem with military experts. The company, a unit of United Technologies, said on Wednesday that the crack occurred after that engine was operated more than four times longer in a high-temperature flight environment than the engines would in normal use.

The F-35, a supersonic jet meant to evade enemy radar, is the Pentagon’s most expensive program and has been delayed by various technical problems. The program could cost $396 billion if the Pentagon builds 2,456 jets by the late 2030s.

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India Ink: Big Hikes in Rural, Social Spending in India’s New Budget

Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram presented the Union budget in Parliament on Thursday morning. When Mr. Chidambaram walked into the Lok Sabha, or lower house of Parliament, carrying the ceremonial budget briefcase, it was eighth time he had presented the country’s annual budget, and the 82^nd national budget presented in India.

As the last Union Budget to be presented before the national elections in 2014, the finance minister faced a difficult task of balancing good politics with good economics, particularly in trying to rein in a record-high national deficit.

He was, nonetheless, upbeat. “I acknowledge that the Indian economy is challenged, but I am absolutely confident that, with your cooperation, we will get out of the trough and get on to the high growth path,” he said, before presenting the budget in a speech that lasted nearly two hours. “There is no reason for gloom or pessimism,” he said. “Even now, of the large countries of the world, only China and Indonesia are growing faster than India in 2012-13.”

Here is a brief overview of the Union Budget for the fiscal year that begins April 1, 2013:

Total Expenditure:

Planned expenditure in 2013-2014 is 5.55 trillion rupees, or $103 billion, up 29.4 percent from revised estimates for the year before. Total expenditure for 2013-2014 will be 16.7 trillion rupees, up 16 percent from the total expenditure in the fiscal year 2012-2013 of 14.3 trillion rupees.

Full year economic growth projections for the year beginning April 1, 2013:

Gross domestic product growth for 2013-2014 will be 6.1 to 6.7 percent, up from 5 percent the year before. In a budget that emphasized growth, Mr. Chidambaram said that his aim was to get back to an 8 percent growth rate. “Our mantra is, higher growth leading to inclusive and sustainable development,” he said.

Fiscal Deficit:

The fiscal deficit for the current year was contained at 5.2 percent, Mr. Chidambaram said. For the fiscal year 2013-2014, which begins April 1, the estimated fiscal deficit is 4.8 percent and the revenue deficit is 3.3 percent. By 2016-2017, the finance minister said, he aimed to bring down fiscal deficit to 3 percent and revenue deficit to 1.5 percent

Trade:

Exports fell 5.5 percent in the 2012-2013 fiscal year to $ 214.1 billion, compared to their 21.3 percent growth in fiscal 2011-12, when they reached $226.5 billion.

Imports fell 0.7 percent percent in the 2012-2013 fiscal year to $361.3 billion, down from $ 363.9 billion in the corresponding period of 2011-12.

Current Account Deficit

The current account deficit, a measure of the difference between the value of exports and imports, is caused by high oil, coal and gold imports and a slowdown in exports, the finance minister said. This figure is a “bigger worry” than the fiscal deficit, he said. In the first half of the fiscal year 2012-2013, the latest figures available, the current account deficit worsened to $39 billion, or 4.6 percent of G.D.P, versus $36.4 billion, or 4 percent, in the corresponding period of 2011-12.

In order to finance the current account deficit, foreign investment must be increased. Over the next two years, $75 billion is needed to finance the current account deficit, Mr. Chidambaram said.

Rural Spending

The budget for the Ministry of Rural Development will rise by a staggering 46 percent, to 802 billion rupees, or $14.9 billion.

Agriculture Spending:

The Union budget 2013-2014 allocated 270 billion rupees, or $5.02 billion to the Agriculture Ministry, an increase of 22 percent from the previous budget.

Food Security:

The National Food Security Bill, which will provide subsidized food to poor people, is a “promise” of the United Progressive Alliance government, the finance minister said, and he hopes that the Parliament will pass the bill soon. The budget has set aside 100 billion rupees ($1.86 billion) for costs likely under the food security bill, he said.

Health and Education

“Health for all and education for all remain our priorities,” Mr. Chidambaram said. In 2013-2014 he allocated 373 billion rupees, or $6.93 billion to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. This includes 212 million rupees for the National Health Mission, a program to improve healthcare in rural India, an increase of 24.3 percent from the year before.

He also proposed to provide rupees 47 billion rupees, or $878 million for medical education, training and research.

Defense Spending:

Allocations for defense in the upcoming year rose by 4.5 percent from the year before, to 2 lakh crore, or 2 trillion rupees. In 2012-2013 fiscal year, defense spending allocation was 1.94 trillion rupees ($38.7 billion), up 17.6 percent over the year before.

Taxes: Tax rates will remain the same, the finance minister said, but there will be a one-time surcharge imposed on the 42,800 Indians who report income of more than 10 million rupees ($186,000) to the tax department. This will be imposed for one year only, he said, adding that he hoped these rich Indians would feel a little of the spirit of Azim Premji, the Wipro founder and philanthropist.

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