The Hindu Business Line : Hopeful thinking can get you out of your fear zone

Hamlet speaks of `the burning zone' and of mountains throwing `millions of acres'. Zone is hot news, these days, in the context of Special Economic Zone (SEZ), involving thousands of acres.

For instance, the Maha Mumbai SEZ project proposed in Chirner is about a satellite city spread over 35,000 acres, with Reliance in the race. Another large SEZ, being planned in Haryana, is 25,000 acres in size, and Reliance is to pump in Rs 25,000 crore into the project. Not long ago, Indonesia's Salim Group was talking of 25,000 acre SEZ in West Bengal.

The Chirner zone is one-third the size of the metropolis, but Morgan Stanley economists are quick to point out that Indian SEZs are smaller than what China operates. There, the top three SEZs — Shenzhen, Xiamen and Zhuhai — cover 126, 51 and 47 square miles, respectively, "as against 46 square miles for RIL's project near Mumbai and 38 square miles for the Haryana SEZ." According to information on www.sezindia.nic.in, as at end-2005 fiscal, there were 811 units in operation in the eight functional SEZs, with an investment of Rs 1,831 crore, and employing about one lakh persons.

The operational ones add to 15 now, and the Government expects the number to grow ten-fold in the next couple of years. A gemstone zone is coming up in Hyderabad, with Gitanjali Gems as key, while ONGC's 460-acre SEC in Mangalore has the Prime Minister laying the foundation today.

Zone of sops

Let's come to terms with zone, therefore. The word appears after zombie, and means an area distinguished on the basis of a particular characteristic, use, restriction and so on, as Concise Oxford English Dictionary defines. With SEZs, though, there are `facilities and incentives', rather than restrictions. Sops include: Designated duty free enclave to be treated as foreign territory for trade operations and duties and tariffs, absence of licence for import, exemption from Customs and excise duty, reimbursement of Central Sales Tax paid on domestic purchases, and hefty exemption from income tax.

Zone is "one of the five horizontal belts across the Earth's surface, separated by the Arctic Circle, the Tropic of Cancer, the Tropic of Capricorn, and the Antarctic Circle, that marks out a climatic region," says Encarta.

"The zones are called the North Frigid Zone, the North Temperate Zone, the South Frigid Zone, the South Temperate Zone, and the Torrid Zone." Buffer zone is "a neutral area separating conflicting forces," as Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines; harried husbands caught between spouses and mothers may well be examples of such a zone.

Drop zone is "the area in which troops, supplies, or equipment are to be air-dropped," but fracture zone is not about the result of such drops, but "an area of suboceanic crust characterized by fractures." It is dangerous to be in `free-fire zone' because it is "a combat area in which any moving thing is a legitimate target." End the zone chatter, cry a few, opposing the launching of SEZ at the cost of local people. `End zone', however, is "the area at either end of a football field between the goal line and the end line," according to www.m-w.com.

A time zone is one of 24 parts into which the world is divided in order to express the hour of the day, educates Cambridge Dictionary of American English. Ours is IST or Indian Standard Time, calculated in the Allahabad observatory, at GMT (Greenwich Mean Time, now replaced by Coordinated Universal Time or UTC) plus 5 hours 30 minutes. "India's time zones were established in 1884, when there were two standard time zones, Bombay Time and Calcutta Time," informs www.answers.com. "The IST came into effect in 1905. However, Bombay still persisted with its own time zone, 39 minutes behind IST, until 1955."

Twilight zone is "the area where one thing ends and another begins, especially when it is not clear exactly where or when this happens," says http://dictionary.cambridge.org. Does that describe the state of politics closer home, where we often don't know clearly what happens and why?

Zone out, zone in

Phrasal verb `zone out' means "to lose concentration or become inattentive," informs www.bartleby.com. Zoned out means "the influence of marijuana, or some other similar acting drug," says www.macquariedictionary.com.au.

The opposite would be `in the zone,' meaning "a state of focused attention or energy," as in the example, "a goalie who was in the zone throughout the playoffs."

A contiguous set of keys on the keyboard is a zone, states Glossary of Electronic Music Terms on www.tagnet.org. Zone means "a euphoric state of mind experienced when riding a bike and everything is going right," according to Dictionary of Automotive Terms on http://100megsfree4.com. "See crumple zone, deformation zone, heat-affected zone, preheating zone, splash zone, squish zone, tire contact zone, tow away zone, and quench zones," it advises.

The zone is "a truly mystical experience that can't be fully explained, but when you get there you'll know it and strive to reach it again," notes The Dictionary of Mountain Bike Slang on www.frostbytes.com.

From belt or girdle

Zone is defined as a verb on MoneyGlossary.com as `Divide into areas'. The word also means "to surround or encircle with or as if with a belt or girdle," on http://dictionary.reference.com.

That, you can trace in the origin of the word: "1390, from Latin zona `geographical belt, celestial zone,' from Greek zone `a belt,' related to zonnynai `to gird,'" as Online Etymology Dictionary enlightens. "Meaning `any discrete region' is first recorded 1822. Zone defence in team sports is recorded from 1927. Zoning `land-use planning' is recorded from 1912... To zone is from 1980s."

A quote of Tom Felton reads, "I'm generally more and more in my comfort zone in the wild." Alas, such a zone is ephemeral. As in a recent headline on Chicago Tribune that alerts, "Fund managers bounced out of comfort zone." Hopeful thinking can get you out of your fear zone and into your appreciation zone, assures Martha Beck.

That may, perhaps, be the Government's counsel to those who are mortified by the flood of SEZs.

ComingToTerms@TheHindu.co.in

D. Murali

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