 |
|
Good riddance Moscow is willing |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Fusion partner Take advantage of ITER membership India has joined the worldwide effort to harness thermonuclear fusion and create a potentially endless, and environment-friendly, source of energy. The consortium building the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) has admitted India as a full partner.
Nonalignment today
The Queen’s
English
Rejuvenating
agriculture Wind can fight
global warming Eton: school that
connects rulers
|
|
Moscow is willing Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh’s talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday have brought to light Moscow’s eagerness to help India in acquiring the latest nuclear energy generation technology to meet the country’s growing power requirements, which may increase considerably in the near future. Russia is already involved in helping India in setting up two nuclear reactors at Koodankulam in Tamil Nadu. But India needs more reactors, and Russia seems to be willing to oblige it now that there will be no US objection after the July nuclear deal, signed in Washington during Dr Manmohan Singh’s US visit. Russia, besides France, is ready to supply the latest nuclear reactors for civilian purposes. Those who opposed the understanding reached between India and the US in the nuclear energy area should realise how the attitude of the world changes once you are on the right side of the fence. Russia will not do anything that goes against the wishes of not only the US but also the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), as it has indicated. But it knows that the NSG may ease the curbs imposed on India in view of the prevailing realities. After all, the US has promised to help India in getting removed all the impediments in the way of the transfer of advanced nuclear energy technology to India. Russia has given enough hints that it too will join the US in prevailing upon the NSG to ease the restrictions against India. The commitment coming from Moscow should be seen in the light of the fact that Russia is going to take over as the next chairman of the nuclear suppliers’ forum. India and Russia have identified three key areas — nuclear energy, defence and trade and industry — to give special attention to while transforming their buyer-seller relationship into one that aims at joint planning and manufacture of high-technology arms and armaments. The agreements Dr Manmohan Singh and Mr Putin signed on Tuesday have opened the doors for the production of the multi-role transport aircraft and the fifth generation fighter planes which India needed urgently. This is not a small gain as Russia earlier had reservations to making the latest fighter aircraft in accordance with the requirements of the Indian Air Force. The new thrust on joint production has its own significance. |
|
Fusion partner India
has joined the worldwide effort to harness thermonuclear fusion and create a potentially endless, and environment-friendly, source of energy. The consortium building the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) has admitted India as a full partner. The other members include the US, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea and many countries of the European Union. Cadarache, in France, was chosen as the site for the 500 MW reactor in June this year, and India had expressed its interest to join the effort. The bid received a boost when the July 18 Indo-US agreement specifically mentioned ITER, and promised consultations aimed at admitting India. The membership is also politically significant — the consortium is a who’s who of the international system’s power elite. The existing atomic reactors are powered by fission reaction, where the nuclei split and the chain reaction is controlled to release energy. Much more energy is released when atomic particles are made to fuse together instead of splitting, but mankind is yet to figure out a way to control and sustain the reaction in the safety of a reactor. The source of the sun’s energy is thermonuclear fusion — the reaction takes place under extreme heat — as is the source of the enormous destructive power of the hydrogen bomb. ITER has its sceptics, as many scientists wonder whether there is a match between the chances of success and the projected final cost of $ 12 billion (Rs 45,000 crore), including a phase one (capital and R&D) bill of $ 5 billion. India is not without experience in plasma physics. The Institute for Plasma Research in Ahmedabad has about 250 scientists who have been working in this area for over two decades. It is the enormous cost of the research that has brought even the rich countries together, and India itself is expected to contribute around 10 per cent of the cost. Bids for constructing the ITER Tokamak reactor, which will operate at 100 million degrees centigrade, will open next year. Our atomic scientists should gear up to not only take full advantage of a cutting-edge environment, but also show the world what they are capable of. |
|
What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.
— Salman Rushdie |
Nonalignment today One
unintended outcome of the Volcker report is the debate it has sparked off on whether, in the 21st century, India should continue to define its foreign policy as a nonalignment country. Nonalignment implied the maximisation of India’s diplomatic options in a world dominated by two super powers at the time of India’s independence in 1947. Nonalignment was conceived by Nehru as an assertion of India’s sovereignty — “sovereignty is above all sovereignty in foreign policy”. These are the axioms of any country’s foreign policy. Nonalignment was, in the first instance, a move away from Britain - not the super powers - which had used the Indian Army, with the Indian taxpayer paying the bills for the military adventures of the British government in London, which appointed the Viceroy of India, who was accountable to London and not to the people of India. This was the historical background of India’s rejection of the Bush administration’s request in July 2003 to provide 17,000 troops to fight under the US command in Iraq. At first, nonalignment annoyed both super powers because they wanted camp followers. Indo-US friction existed even while the Soviet Union criticised India. Early in 1948 economic problems culminated in a surge of labour unrest. Nehru was persuaded of Soviet connivance in the disaffection; this suspicion deepened with Soviet abuse of Indian neutralism and charges that India was Britain’s lackey. “That, of course, is complete nonsense”, retorted an indignant Nehru, “and if a policy is based on nonsensical premises it is apt to go wrong”. It was not until the mid-fifties that the Soviets started seeing nonalignment as a glass half full since India was not a Western ally. The US and the UK were India’s main aid donors, trading partners and arms suppliers until the early sixties. In 1955 India rejected a Soviet arms offer, but in 1962 India bought MIG-21s. During the 1970s the USSR became India’s largest arms supplier, but the US remained India’s largest aid giver. In the wake of the Indo-Soviet Treaty of 1971 the US saw a pro-Soviet tilt in Indian nonalignment. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in 1991, the context in which the term nonalignment had emerged ceased to exist. Communism could no longer claim to be democracy’s ideological competitor in the international arena. Post-Soviet Russia took economic and democracy assistance from the West and discarded communism as the official ideology. All 15 post-Soviet states joined the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe in 1991-2. Russia became NATO’s partner for peace in 1994 and it joined the Council of Europe in 1996. And the US was left as the only super power. Nonalignment, therefore, lost the connotations it had, as a force between, or as an alternative to, the Western and communist blocs, during the Cold War. Is nonalignment an old label stuck on new bottles containing new wine? With the disintegration of the USSR, India lost its main arms supplier and a major trading partner, and, like all countries, had to redefine its international relationships. India had to search for a new role in a world dominated by the lone super power, and in which the economic strength of a country counted. In the 1950s, India and many East Asian countries were economically on a par with one another. India was then perceived by the West as the only political and economic counterpoise to Communist China and as a potentially great Asian power. At the beginning of the 21st century, that potential has yet to be realised. Many East Asian countries have surpassed India economically, and Japan is a member of the G-8. India’s economic weaknesses have restricted its role on the world stage. But especially after 9/11, India’s economic promise and the resilience of its democracy are recognised by the US as significant contributors to Asian security in the new millennium. In 1949, Nehru was certain that in the event of a world war India would line up with the West. He even wondered “why not align with the United States somewhat and build up our economic and military strength?” This did not imply that India would don a mental straitjacket identical to that of the US. Indeed, New Delhi and Washington disagreed on several issues, including the recognition of communist China and European empires in Asia and Africa. Since 9/11 the Indo-US relationship has strengthened in spirit and in substance. India was the first country to offer the US military bases to strike against the Taliban regime in a campaign which was legitimised by the UN. India and the US agree that the eradication of terrorism is essential for international stability. Washington recognises that India has confronted domestic terrorism for more than a decade, and that the international terrorist nexus makes it impossible for a terrorist attack on one country to be isolated from a terrorist attack on another. The likelihood of a long drawn out American engagement in Afghanistan has made India and the US strategic neighbours. Afghanistan has made the US the dominant South Asian power. However, New Delhi is irritated at the US refusal to label Pakistan as a terrorist state, despite evidence of Pakistan’s complicity in recent extremist attacks in Afghanistan, London and Delhi. Also, India and the US cannot quite be on the same side in the war against terrorism as long as the US gives weapons to Pakistan, despite its awareness that Islamabad gives sanctuary and training to terrorists who infiltrate into Jammu and Kashmir with the intent of destabilising India. Meanwhile, the US professes that it is trying to build up India - probably as a counterpoise to authoritarian China. Whatever their differences, the US is more at ease with democratic India. But New Delhi’s condemnation of the illegal US invasion of Iraq showed that India is not America’s poodle. Why should India’s favouring a reference of Iran’s nuclear programme to the UN Security Council be considered pro-West? Does sovereignty imply that India always has to be anti-America or anti-West? Can’t there be a many-sided “national interest”? Should India stop presenting its foreign policy in terms of the term “nonalignment”, which creates confusion in a world very different from the one in which it was conceived in the late 1940s? Should India simply refer to the ‘national interest’? An ever-changing world may prompt changes in any aspect of domestic or foreign policy. Taking inspiration from the pragmatism of nonalignment, shouldn’t the national interest mean that each issue will be judged on its
merits?
|
The Queen’s English BBC News online has a story about an author Adam Jacot de Boinod who after pouring over 280 dictionaries and 140 websites has prepared an impressive collection of words and phrases from around the world. He has captured those sights and situations that we all experience but which can be best described only through the local idiom. Boinod says: “What I’m really trying to do is celebrate the joy of foreign words (in a totally unjudgemental way) and say that while English is a great language, one shouldn’t be surprised there are many others having, as they do, words with no English equivalent”. Here is a small selection from Boinod’s compilation: Bakku-shan - a girl who appears pretty from behind but not from the front (Japanese). Kummerspeck - the excess weight gained from emotion related overeating (Germany). Drachenfutter - literally translated it means Dragon fodder - a peace offering made by guilty husbands to their wives. (Germany) Uitwaaien - walking in windy weather for fun (Dutch). Aviador - a government employee who only shows up on pay day (Spanish speaking people in Central America. English often fails to capture what the vernacular can do exceedingly well, like adding a squeeze of lemon or tasting the special tang of chutney in sandwiches. William Safire from the New York Times has separately referred to several Yiddishisms (words of Hebrew origin) which are now part of the English dictionary e.g. schmooze (manipulate people by talking), mensch (a person of integrity), schlock (trash) and, of course, chutzpah (audacity). May be one day our “thummak thummak”, “chammak challo”, “gol matol”, “dadagiri”, “bindaas” and “tadi maro” will find a place there too. English is spoken as a first language by more than 300 million people throughout the world and used as a second language by millions more. One in five persons in the world speaks English, with what the Oxford Dictionary (OD) stiffly calls “a good level of competence”. As millions more learn English it is forecast that it could lead to a dramatic effect on the English language, changing it for all times. English will perforce have to accommodate local language usage, new words, grammar and pronunciation and the strict adherence to the Queen’s English will perforce have to “Sarak” (Marathi for move over). Already, the OD describes India as a “complex multilingual society” where Indian English grammar has “many distinguishing features”. The concise OD cites the following as typical examples of Indian English: “He is having very much of property.” Similarly the COD refers to the Indian use of “isn’t it” which is tagged on after sentence like: “We are meeting tomorrow, isn’t it?” Apparently this is a typically Indian thing to do. COD also reports that Indians tend to drop verbs as in “I insisted immediate payment.” Now that our special style of speaking has been noted, it is time our special “Hatta-Katta” English gets more place in the dictionary. As I see it it’s all “Theek Thak” - as long as it expresses what one wants to say more
expressively. |
Rejuvenating agriculture Agriculture
continues to be the dominant sector of the economy. The population pressure on agriculture continues to remain almost the same. More than two-third of the population still depends on agriculture and about 60 per cent get direct employment in this sector. The contribution of this sector to GDP at the all-India level has declined from above 50 per cent in 1950 to less than 25 per cent now. In case of Punjab the contribution of agriculture to GDP has also declined but still it is about 38 per cent. This has widened the disparity in per capita income between the urban and rural population. The monoculture of rice during kharif and wheat during the rabi season has caused serious problems like the depletion of groundwater resources and bio-diversity, multi-nutrient deficiencies in soils, appearance of new pests and diseases and environmental pollution. The increased use of inputs i.e. fertiliser, machinery, insecticides, pesticides, energy and over-capitalisation of agriculture coupled with the subdivision of land holdings have resulted in escalation in cost of production and reduction in net income of farmers from the rice-wheat system. To sustain the long-term growth rate in the agriculture sector and to contribute to the national food security as before, improving the eco-environment and exploiting the export potential, Punjab agriculture needs a big boost. The following policy measures in this direction are suggested. The farm size is declining continuously and the number of small and marginal farmers is increasing in the state under the present system. They cannot be made economically viable nor they are secure in leasing out their land. The ceiling on land holdings should be relaxed so that the operational farm size becomes more economical. The Land Tenancy Act needs to be amended so that small and marginal farmers can lease out their land, seek off-farm employment, and if need be, can get their land back without going to courts. The area under rice has to be contained at about 1.6 million hectares shifting as much as one million hectares to fruits and vegetables, fodder and forestry, maize, soyabean and groundnut. This demands heavy public and private investment in marketing infrastructure and institutional support, besides strengthening the research system to improve genetic potentials of crops and animals. In the context of the WTO, Punjab needs expedited completion of the international airport along with modern infrastructure of cool rooms and cold stores. Markfed should play as a strong nodal agency for exports. Special programmes should be launched to impart requisite skills and knowledge, providing information supported by research, extension, credit and market, friendly institutions to small farmers to take up dairy, poultry, vegetables, fishery for improving their incomes with limited resources. In order to make a rational use of valuable water resources and power, a proper pricing policy may be evolved. “Competitive populism” needs to be avoided by all political parties of the state. For value addition, increase in agro-processing — especially fruits and vegetables, milk and milk products — requires increased cold storage facilities. Both public and private investment needs to be encouraged. The public investment policy for agro-processing should be to invest-operate-demonstrate profits-disinvest while still in profits — reinvest elsewhere. Various/multiple market regulations need to be amended suitably. The Essential Commodities Act and other outdated Acts/laws need to be repealed immediately. Restrictions on the movement of foodgrains and cotton should be removed. The trade restrictions on stock limits of private traders should be abolished. The levy system on sugar and rice should be done away with and the government should purchase these commodities from the open market for the PDS. Direct marketing should be encouraged as for as possible. Agro-processing units, silos/stores/godowns of public agencies could be declared as purchase centres for the procurement of wheat and rice. To economise post-harvest handling of foodgrains, bulkhandling and silo storage facilities should be created. Dehusking of paddy should be encouraged at the farm level and brown rice should be procured by public agencies and further processed at modern rice mills to improve the quality of rice. Private participation in food trade needs to be encouraged and the role of middlemen in public procurement be reduced gradually. The tax structure regarding foodgrains need to be rationalised so that these items become competitive in the export market and the national market. The establishment of private markets cooperative markets and farmers’ markets be encouraged to break the government monopoly (through the Punjab Mandi Board). This will enhance, competition and provide choice/alternative channels to farmers. Contract farming should be covered under some Act and a speedy dispute settlement mechanism developed. A long-term strategy must emphasise a progressive diversification of the occupational pattern, leading to a reduced pressure of the population on land. In a state like Punjab, where 84 per cent of the geographical area is under cultivation, broad-based industrialisation is essential. The rural population must move to the industry/service sector which should be developed in the rural areas as far as possible. |
|
Wind can fight global warming Wind
power has far greater potential than previously thought for providing countries in the developing world with access to cheap and clean energy, new data suggests. Already China, environmentally, probably the most important country in the developing world, has enlarged its target for wind energy as a result of the findings. The information is based on satellite measurements and computer models that provide a more detailed assessment of a country’s potential for harnessing wind power. This assessment found that 40 per cent of the land in countries such as Nicaragua and Vietnam was sufficiently windy to generate electricity. “The new information suggests that wind power is much more viable,” Tom Hamlin of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said. Speaking from Paris, he added: “This gives us a much broader picture of the wind resources in the areas. “The modelling is able to identify where the wind will speed up going through valleys, for example.” Campaigners believe such studies should be required reading for delegates to the UN climate change conference in Montreal this week, when representatives from 189 countries will meet to discuss future commitments to dealing with climate change. One of the key issues for delegates is how to persuade developing countries such as China to try to ensure their burgeoning economic growth does not follow the example of industrialised nations in terms of their emission of greenhouse gases. China accounts for 16 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions but this is expected to grow as the country’s economy expands. This year alone, its economy is expected to increase by more than 8 per cent. It was previously thought that only 1 per cent of the land area in developing countries was suitable for harnessing wind power and providing an alternative to burning oil, gas, and in the case of China, coal. Experts believe this estimate was based on information from meteorological stations sometimes built too close to trees or buildings that blocked winds. In Nicaragua, it was estimated during the 1980s that the nation’s wind power potential stood at just 200 megawatts. The new wind map estimates its potential may be as high as 40,000 megawatts — the equivalent of 40 nuclear power plants. Indeed, the new data suggests that about 13 per cent of the land in the developing world could have potential. The study defines suitable areas as those that could generate 300 watts per square metre, needing winds of at least 6.4 to 7 metres per second at 50 metres above the ground. The UNEP’s $9.3m (£5.3m) Solar and Wind Energy Resource Assessment focused on 14 developing countries - Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Bangladesh, China, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Brazil, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Not all were found to be suitable. In Bangladesh, for instance, the study identified that just 0.2 per cent of the land would be suitable for windmills. But in Nicaragua, Mongolia and Vietnam, the figure was as high as 40 per cent. Mr Hamlin said China had used the data to increase its target for wind-generated power. China now aims to produce 20 gigawatts of power from wind energy by
2020. —The Independent |
|
Eton: school that connects rulers The
19 former prime ministers produced by Eton include Robert Walpole, William Pitt the Elder, Gladstone, Sir Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan and Sir Alex Douglas-Home, not to mention countless ministers, top civil servants and diplomats. The apotheosis appears to have come during the Macmillan/Home years when, according to Nick Fraser, author of The Importance of Being Eton (published by Short Books next year), the joke was that a sign could be hung on the gates saying “Cabinet Makers to Her Majesty the Queen”. Although Mrs Thatcher apparently disliked many members of the Old Etonian club —sacking several from her cabinet in 1983 — others found favour, including Douglas Hurd, the former home and foreign secretary, Douglas Hogg, who served in a number of ministerial posts and Alan Clark, the roué and diarist, who served time as a defence minister and described Eton as “an early introduction to human cruelty, treachery and extreme physical hardship.” But perhaps the key Old Etonian of the post-war years was Hogg’s late father, Lord Hailsham, formerly Quintin Hogg, who served in the Macmillan and Heath governments and was lord chancellor under Thatcher. Then there is Jonathan Aitken also liked by Thatcher, but never one of her ministers. It has more obscure rituals and traditions than Harry Potter’s Hogwarts or Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast, while its internal rules can be as baffling as those for Mornington Crescent. To many, Eton is a throwback to an earlier age, an outdated anachronism in the modern world, rather like the Royal Family and members of the upper classes, many of whom were educated there themselves and like their offspring to follow in their footsteps. But it is also the place where countless politicians, legislators, writers, musicians, warriors, sportsmen — there are, still, only men — and more than a few scoundrels, received their education. The name threads its way through the CVs and Who’s Who listings of the great and the good. No other school has a greater sense of its own history. This is where Percy Bysshe Shelley carved his initials on a desk. This is the place that also counts the Duke of Wellington, George Orwell and Sir Matthew Pinsent as former pupils (although they never call them pupils — they are Scholars or Oppidans and they wear a version of morning dress, described by one former pupil as “quasi-Hassidic” at all times). This is also a world where lessons are called schools, a term is a half and a sixth-former is a Specialist. Paradoxically, despite its reputation as an establishment breeding ground, Eton has produced its share of free thinkers — it educated the rebel Labour MP Tam Dalyell, visionary writer Aldous Huxley, and left-wing playwright Jeremy Sandford — although none of the 19 prime ministers were Labour ones. The school was founded by Henry VI in 1440 as a place to educate students for King’s College, Cambridge, and endowed with a substantial income from the surrounding lands. The original core of 70 King’s Scholars, selected by competitive examination, still exists, but this has almost doubled in recent years with the addition of music, junior and sixth-form Scholarships. The remaining 1,200 or so Oppidans in theory simply have to have their name put down at birth, pass aptitude tests at 11 and then the common entrance examination for admission at 13. Oh yes, and have parents prepared to fork out around £23,000 a year for their
education. — The Independent |
|
From the pages of The rishi of new India
Mother India is to-day truly bereft of her greatest and noblest son, a prince among men, a king among patriots, a giant among workers, a saint among the statesmen. Such was the immortal departed, the unfaltering leader, the unwavering patriot, the untiring worker, the beloved saint Dadabhai Naoroji, whom a united nation mourns to-day as nations have never mourned before, whom not only the present generation but the coming generations of India will rise to call blessed. A pall hangs over the great and ancient land known to history, the land of noblest deeds of self-denial and self-immolation at the altar of country and humanity. The country’s millions have lost the greatest exemplar of modern India, who in these degenerate and fallen times, revived the highest traditions of the race, and made the name of his beloved motherland honoured among the nations of the earth. |
The destruction of life is punishable by law both of God and man. So worship life and do not curse it. Use it as a vehicle to take you to eternal happiness. —
Sanatana Dharma Life and death are but phases of the same thing, the reverse and obverse of the same coin. —
Mahatma Gandhi Our good and evil are scrutinised and judged. In the presence of God, the Supreme Judge. — Guru Nanak A dying man is like the crop. Like the crop he is born again. —
The Upanishadas God has not called me to be successful. He called me to be faithful. —
Mother Teresa Slowly, slowly O mind, everything happens at its own pace. The gardener may water a hundred buckets, but the fruit will arrive only when it’s due. —
Kabir The mind and intellect become pure the moment they are free from
attachment. —
Ramakrishna Worship the Sun, its warmth allows life to flourish. Its rays destroy the germs of illness. Even a leper can recover in the warmth of the sun. —
Sanatana Dharma It is much more difficult to live for non-violence than to die for it. —
Mahatma Gandhi The support of mother and father, the cherishing of spouse and children and peaceful occupations. This is the Supreme Blessing. —
The Buddha God’s presence is everywhere. Just as air permeates all spots, so does God exist everywhere, high or low, open or closed. —
Sanatana Dharma |
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
