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Win-win verdict PM out, others in |
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Crime control Cops seek divine intervention IT is all very well to believe that more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of, but Alfred Tennyson never spelled out whether the dreams sought to be actualised should be good or bad, desirable or undesirable. What he left unsaid may be cited by the Puducherry police, who recently performed a yajna for checking crime and keeping policemen in good health.
Water conservation & climate
Cupid ne crazy kiya re
Uranium for energy A grandmaster moves against the Kremlin
The politics of climate change
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Win-win verdict Both India and Pakistan could not ask for more from Swiss professor Raymond Lafitte appointed by the World Bank as a neutral expert to give his verdict over the Baglihar hydropower project in Jammu and Kashmir’s Doda district. His report has proved as baseless the main allegation by Pakistan that the ambitious project over the Chenab, started by India in 1999, violated the 1960 Indus Water Treaty. India has been asked to reduce the 144.5-metre dam’s height by just 1.5 metres, which will not affect the targeted power generation. India had, in fact, indicated during the discussions between the two countries that it could make a slight change in the dam’s height. That is why India seems to have agreed to go by what Professor Lafitte has recommended. “The three elements of design which require marginal changes, ie reductions in freeboard and pondage, and increase in the height of the intakes all arise from calculations, and not from basic principles”, as India’s reaction said. But the interesting development is that both countries are claiming victory over the Baglihar project. The World Bank expert has crafted his report in a manner that no side can find fault with it. This win-win situation means that at least one dispute between India and Pakistan can now come to an end. The people of Jammu and Kashmir will also be happy as they can hope for the project’s benefits coming to them in about a year. The ruling is significant for India in another way. It is in a way free to go in for new power projects on its western rivers. It can use the dam-building technology perfected by Indian experts to tackle the problem of sedimentation in the Himalayan rivers. This is so because the Bank expert has found no fault with the technology being used in the construction of the Baglihar project. Specifically, there can now be no objection to India going ahead with its Kishenganga and Wullar barrage projects. |
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PM out, others
in THE Administrative Reforms Commission headed by Mr M. Veerappa Moily has rightly recommended that the Prime Minister should be kept out of the purview of the proposed national ombudsman. In its report, “Ethics in governance”, the commission said that if the Prime Minister’s conduct is open to formal scrutiny by extra-parliamentary agencies like the Rashtriya Lokayukta or the Lok Pal, the Prime Minister’s authority will be weakened, the government’s viability will get eroded and Parliament’s supremacy will also be in jeopardy. To be fair, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and some of his predecessors have been in favour of the Prime Minister’s inclusion in the Lok Pal Bill. However, experts and major political parties have opposed it on the ground that frivolous petitions would undermine the Prime Minister’s capacity to lead the government. Even otherwise, Mr Moily’s report says that if the Prime Minister is guilty of any indiscretion, Parliament can remove him from the office. Accountability to Parliament can be an effective check on a Prime Minister. While the Moily report’s recommendation on the Prime Minister’s exclusion needs to be accepted to protect the image and authority of the high office, Parliament should expeditiously introduce the Lok Pal to stem the rot in the executive and the legislature. The fact that this proposal has been hanging fire since 1966 speaks volumes for the lack of sincerity and commitment of successive governments at the Centre to check corruption at high levels of the government. Corruption has increased and the enactment of a law brooks no further delay. The Moily report’s suggestion to expand the Lok Pal’s scope to all Union Ministers and chief ministers also merits serious attention in the context of the involvement of some of them in acts of corruption and financial irregularities. Over the years, several joint select committees of Parliament have deliberated on the composition of the institution of ombudsman. The Moily report has now suggested that the Rashtriya Lokayukta, comprising an eminent jurist and the Central Vigilance Commissioner as its ex-officio member, should be headed by a Supreme Court Judge, sitting or retired. Considerable time has been wasted on this issue. Parliament should now demonstrate the requisite will and enact a law to make the ministers and bureaucrats accountable for their acts of omission and commission.
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Crime control IT is all very well to believe that more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of, but Alfred Tennyson never spelled out whether the dreams sought to be actualised should be good or bad, desirable or undesirable. What he left unsaid may be cited by the Puducherry police, who recently performed a yajna for checking crime and keeping policemen in good health. It is truly a case of the sublime becoming ridiculous. If to perform a puja was adequate to keep society free of crime, there would be no need for a police department; the government would need to raise a corp of pujaris and priests to ward of not just crime but all the ills that afflict society. In such an eventuality, Puducherry’s policemen could shed their uniforms. In the privacy of their homes they are free to submit to their beliefs, resort to superstitious observances and perform whatever rituals and yajnas they wish. But as Superintendent of Police, Mr B. Ramashkadan had no business to have a special yajna performed in his office — for and on behalf of the police department — by a sort of hermit or magician. In a country where quite a few “godmen”, and “godwomen” or their chosen representatives are accused of various offences from duping innocents to even murder and sexual crimes, policemen ought to keep a distance from the practitioners of mysterious rituals and cults. Even if the men of God called in to perform these rituals are not dubious, they have no role in public administration. The authorities should end all such practices before it assumes epidemic proportions especially among people who are more superstitious than spiritual. If any Puducherry’s police official knew that a yajna organised under his auspices doesn’t speak highly of his force’s efficiency. |
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If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. — John F. Kennedy
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Water conservation & climate
THE anxiously awaited final order of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal is on the whole a good settlement that should lay to rest this long-standing controversy. Karnataka has expressed dissatisfaction and
Tamil Nadu has expectedly followed suit. Both sides will possibly seek clarifications within the 90-day period after which the Union Government is mandated to notify the Order from which there is no appeal to the Supreme Court. The protests and possible “appeals” are essentially a part of the political gamesmanship that regrettably attends the serious business of governance as all parties are prone to play to the gallery and tend to compete with their rivals to claim the affections of “the poor”, the patriotic, or whosoever can be conveniently or plausibly invoked. The Tribunal has laid down a sharing formula for allocation between the four riparian states of Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry of an estimated 740 tmcft (thousand million cubic feet) of water in the Cauvery basin on the basis of 50 per cent dependability (which means a quantum of water that is assured in at least 50 out of a hundred years, or once every other year). If the annual discharge falls below this level in any year, the shortage or distress must be shared in the same given proportion. However, all carry-over storage from other than minor dams, as assessed on June 1, will be taken as part of the allocable total for the ensuing water year. So far so good. If all the parties work this agreement on the basis of mutual trust and cooperation, they should find it possible and live within the means provided, sharing the distress in lean years. However, Indian water tribunals have unfortunately not looked at water in a holistic manner. Groundwater has been consistently ignored in the calculus though it does not constitute a separate water regime but forms part of a common and interactive hydrological system. When rivers are full they recharge aquifers and when depleted draw from the latter. Equally, excessive ground water pumping can lower aquifers and induce replenishment from adjacent stream flows. Similarly, canals and irrigation can recharge the water table. Hence the need for conjunctive use. In the circumstances, it is inexplicable why groundwater has been excluded in any consideration of water allocations despite difficulties in making measurements with the same facility as in the case of surface flows. Waters diverted and utilised at any point also seep into the ground and may be regenerated lower down, depending on the soil strata and other relevant factors. But such natural replenishment has not been factored into the estimation of allocable water resources. In other words, we are left with a less refined accounting of available water resources than might be possible, especially given technological advances. Another deficiency has been inattention to conservation, management and water use efficiency. The growing importance of other sectoral demands such as municipal and domestic water supply and sanitation, industrial use and even recreation and leisure, cannot be disregarded. But these are not directly addressed. However, ecological uses have been taken into account and the Cauvery Tribunal has allocated 10 tmcf for this purpose. Nor again has there been any review of cropping patterns - paddy, paddy, paddy in the Cauvery delta and paddy-cane in Mandya, both water-guzzling combinations, though possibly more profitable than any other on account of skewed price support policies. The maintenance of irrigation systems leaves much to be desired and antiquated practices and poor water regulation and the absence of gated structures results in wastage. Subsidised water and power in many areas is also responsible for excessive water use and over- pumping. Much of this is justified in the name of the “poor farmer”, though ultimately, he is the prime victim of these deleterious practices. Technological innovations like drip and sprinkler irrigation, mulching and improved tillage practices like the system of rice intensification (SRI) have also been left out of the reckoning. Tribunals, in short, have limited themselves to a narrow allocative function and have not leveraged their prestige and clout to point the way to systemic improvement, conservation and policy reform. The water bureaucracy, agronomists, politicians and planners are all way behind the times and seem singularly unable and even unwilling to anticipate the future. There is increasing evidence that climate change is upon us. The consequences of aberrant weather have been widely discussed and it is no longer possible to coast along with business as usual and old-fashioned demagogy. Water markets are frowned upon as being capitalist and exploitative. On the other hand, if an economic price was put on water, the “poor farmer” as much as politicians might soon discover all manner of worthwhile trade-offs and available water would not merely stretch further but yield more social value per unit used. Water is much more than an agricultural issue. But to the extent that it plays a critical role in agriculture, our inability to institute overdue water reform, as in every other sector, has contributed to the current agrarian crisis. To that extent, the Cauvery Water Tribunal deserves only two cheers at
best.
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Cupid ne crazy kiya re
Her lips were parted in the naughtiest of pouts. The hips were encased in the slinkiest of skirts. And the slight frame was at its swinging best, with jhatkas ‘n’ matkas that would’ve been any choreographer’s delight. The Crazy Kiya Re girl was casting her spell as this score from Dhoom 2 showed on the screen. No, it isn’t Aishwarya’s onscreen oomph that I’m talking of. The dhoom in question was being created on the marbled floor in front of the small screen at my sister’s house. The hips that were rocking to crazy… were barely out of their diapers. The mini skirt that spelt this off-screen dance diva’s style was straight out of Benetton’s kid couture. And the impish pout belonged to a girl just turned two. It was my little niece rendering her improvised version of Ash’s sizzling score at a family gathering recently. That her unabashed and unchoreographed foot tapping had all the males present, from suited-booted uncles to “babas” in galluses, totally smitten was no new achievement. Toddlers in our family have a tradition of casting their first, as well as lasting, impression on members of the opposite sex not as much from the crib as from the dance floor. And the male of the species has truly been the forerunner when it comes to putting the best foot forward. At a family wedding some years ago, one of my nephews, fresh out of his prams and pinafores, had taken to the dance floor with such aplomb that he had all aunts and grand-aunts erupting into a chorus of giggles and all girls gushing and blushing a deep scarlet. For, the lyrics he’d decided to lend his budding dancing talent to were none other than Choli Ke Peechhe Kya Hai, then a chartbuster. Thus, in pouting and pirouetting to Crazy Kiya, my niece was merely taking the family legacy a step forward. But what was happening on the sidelines of the main show was perhaps marking a leap in the generational evolution of the fledglings of our flock. For, there was my son, all of five, leaping and jiving in a parallel performance of sorts. His exaggerated swagger and vocal exuberance had everything to do with the fact that he was replicating Hrithik’s act from this same number: Sexy lady on the floor, he’ll be coming back for more. Then all of a sudden, my boy froze mid-track, left the floor and leaped into my lap instead. He wanted immediate enlightenment on a matter that had seemingly arisen from the music: “Who’s a sexy lady, mom?” Now, for a mother who’s otherwise given to delivering detailed discourses to her ward on the why and what of words, I surprisingly found myself linguistically challenged. I chose instead to stare at a wall, whose only claim to sexiness was its bare-all quality. But that did not deter my son from seeking an enhancement in his lexicon relating to the fair sex. Considering the fact that he immediately proceeded to pester his aunt for an answer, his Valentine’s Day and lady loves shouldn’t be long in arriving. These are Crazy times, after
all.
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Uranium for energy IN nuclear jargon, the phrase uranium enrichment sets off sparks. Uranium enrichment means separation of the minuscule fissile isotope U235 , a process, if taken to 90 per cent, gives the explosive core for atomic bombs. “Uranium enrichment” of a lower order is no less valuable. Uranium enriched even to five or six per cent provides the fuel for advanced light water reactors for nuclear power generation. Uranium enrichment technology has therefore been a closely guarded secret. Secondly, nuclear heavy weights have been engaged in an intense race for the most advanced – technologically and cost-wise – enrichment process. On both counts, uranium enrichment has been out of the reach of most nations, being a top-end technology as well as prohibitive in terms of cost. But nuclear technology heavy weights have been engaged in an intense innovative effort to find cheaper and technologically better processes since the fifties of the last century. The first enrichment process deployed by the big powers was the diffusion method - so enormously costly that Dr Homi Bhabha ruled it out for India. But the weapon powers, including China, a late entrant, threw all their resources and money power to build atomic bombs at any cost, using the diffusion method. In the sixties and seventies, a break-through came by developing the gas centrifuge process. Although cheaper and more advanced than the diffusion process, it was still very costly, and equipment and materials used for centrifugal enrichment were tough to obtain. Thousands of centrifuges and ultra-pure stainless steel – marraging steel – for the equipment put the process out of the reach of most nations. The big three – USA, Russia, and France – alone built centrifuge plants on their own, while Britain, Germany and Holland pooled their resources to jointly build the Almelo centrifuge plant in Holland. It is from this centrifuge plant that Dr Qadir Khan – a nuclear metallurgist who worked at the Almelo centrifuge plant – stole the blue prints of the centrifuge plant and was able to obtain, through clandestine means, centrifuge equipment and special steel for Kahuta in Pakistan. For more than two decades, advanced nuclear technology has been in the race for better and cheaper enrichment technology. This process is the laser technology for uranium enrichment, theoretically far more advanced in terms of recurring costs and as a front-end technology, than the centrifuge process. Besides the nuclear big powers, several other nations have been in this race - among them Australia, South Africa and China. Indian scientists have also been experimenting with the laser enrichment technology. But laser technology for uranium enrichment has remained at the laboratory stage. Its commercial development has not materialised. Now, however, a break-through appears to be at hand as a result of collaboration of two nuclear heavy-weights, the American nuclear giant, General Electric Energy, and Silex Systems of Australia, a laser technology developer. After sustained research and development by Silex systems, with GE support, the two have joined hands to build a commercially viable laser enrichment plant. On May 4, 2006, GE and Silex Systems signed an agreement to develop uranium enrichment process by deploying laser technology subject to clearance of this project by the American government. The American government’s approval has now been received for development, in the USA, of the SILEX uranium enrichment process using laser technology. This approval clears the way for construction of a test loop - technology demonstrator on an experimental level. This is to be followed by the lead cascade - a prototype of a commercial scale plant - to operate for two to three years, with eventual commercial production within the framework of the agreement signed in May last year. GE will fund the project. GE has already paid US $ 20 million as the first of a series of agreed payments. GE will also pay a royalty to Silex on revenues from commercial production. GE stated in a communique that “commercialization of the SILEX enrichment technology is a crucial part of GE’s long-term growth strategy for the nuclear business”. The SILEX laser guided uranium enrichment system is a leap-forward over the centrifuge process in terms of costs as well as technology and could well be a milestone in nuclear technology, making fuel for nuclear power plants over fifty per cent cheaper. Experts however noted that a sizeable area of technology development has still to be completed by Silex Systems and GE, before a full-scale facility for commercial scale enrichment can be built. Eventually, enrichment by laser technology appears to be at hand. When realized, the new technology will put the GE well ahead in building nuclear power reactors that give a push to a world wide new phase of cheap nuclear electricity generation. This will be a momentous event in an energy starved world, making the centrifuge method a back number, just as the centrifuge method overtook the now out-dated diffusion enrichment process that prevailed till the sixties and seventies of the last century. |
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A grandmaster moves against the Kremlin IF any ordinary person predicted trouble ahead for the seemingly untouchable regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin, you might say he ought to have his head examined. But if the head happened to contain one of the most formidable brains of our era, you might at least listen to the argument. Garry Kasparov, legendary world chess champion and now a leader of Russia’s political dissidents, possesses such a brain. And having peered two or three or 10 moves into the future, Kasparov says that Putin’s petro-Kremlin autocracy may be more brittle than it seems as it approaches a promised presidential succession next year. Putin, who traveled to Munich this weekend to alternately bash and condescend to the West, certainly doesn’t seem to worry, and why should he? German prime ministers jump onto his payroll as they leave office. Foreign oil executives thank him obsequiously as he pockets their fields. Political opponents abroad turn up poisoned, neighboring countries are bullied, and Putin pays no price. He sells weapons to Iran, and U.S. officials are grateful that he’s not doing worse. At home, meanwhile, he has systematically neutered anyone and anything that might challenge him: the press, big business, parliament, political parties, governors, mayors, civic organizations. Kasparov, who has helped gather the remnants of opposition from across the ideological spectrum into an umbrella group called Other Russia, admits it’s an uneven match. The regime raided Other Russia’s office in December and confiscated all the books and documents it could find. When the group tried to stage a rally, 600 people were detained on their way to Moscow, and the few thousand demonstrators who made it were surrounded by police in far greater numbers. Noting how stolen elections became the focus for popular uprisings in Ukraine and elsewhere, Putin changed election law to make it almost impossible for an opposition candidate to qualify for a spot on the ballot. “If we have to evaluate our chances today--slim to none,” Kasparov says, noting how the absence of political space constricts any strategizing. “If you’re at risk of being mated in one or two, you can’t think about pawn structure for the long term.” And yet Kasparov--fast-talking, exuberant, indignant one moment and laughing sardonically the next--clearly relishes the fight. He was, after all, the youngest world champion ever, who famously took on the darling of the Soviet chess establishment and prevailed, and then took on the world chess establishment, and then IBM’s Deep Blue--and remained, through ups and downs, the world’s No. 1-ranked player for longer than anyone else in history. “He may not be a politician,” says a senior U.S. official who knows him, “but he’s proved to be a masterful dissident opposition organizer, and unfortunately that’s what Russia needs right now.” Kasparov, 43, has “passion, toughness, fearlessness and a good organizational head, both operational and conceptual.” And Kasparov believes that not all the challenges are on the opposition’s side. As Putin contemplates retirement, he needs a successor strong enough to preserve the regime but not so strong as to challenge whatever wealth or power Putin intends to take with him, Kasparov says. Beneath Putin a half-dozen would-be heirs battle each other in a “lawless jungle,” and “they know that the winner in the battle will eat the others alive.” Many Russians feel left out of the oil boom that has brought skyscrapers and Ferraris to Moscow. And the regime’s repression of Other Russia reflects an anxiety unsurprising in rulers who have stifled most channels of free expression and complaint. “If we succeed in uniting behind a candidate and that candidate is not registered, it could lead people to rally,” Kasparov says. “And 50,000 might be enough for the regime to collapse because of its paranoia.” Ultimately the regime’s vulnerability lies in its basic nature, Kasparov suggests. In the system Putin has created, Kasparov sees elements of feudalism (“local bosses loyal to the top man in exchange for rights to loot the region”), Mussolini-style corporate fascism and old-style KGB brutality. But in the end, “this is not the geopolitical monster of Soviet times. This is all about money. The government is business. It’s about Gazprom, it’s about Rosneft.” Coincidentally, when I asked Turkey’s visiting foreign minister last week about energy politics and relations with Russia, he said, “Putin himself is an expert in this. He studied very well. He is like the CEO of an energy company.” “Putin leads a ruling elite that has very different dreams than in Soviet times,” Kasparov says.
By arrangement with
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The politics of climate change Vancouver
– Gradually the issue of environment degradation is taking a center stage in Canadian politics. Prime Minister Stephan Harper can no longer ridicule the Kyoto treaty as a “money-sucking socialist scheme.” Pushed to the wall by a strong opposition, this leader of a minority government is discovering much to his chagrin that the letter he wrote five years ago ridiculing the issue of climate change would be very embarrassing to him as prime minister. There is no one around to appreciate his scorn even among his Conservative Party members. But the Liberal Party leaders who are baying for the Harper’s blood did very little when they were in power to cut down gas emissions. Only the New Democratic Party has been consistent and tabled an important resolution to stop climate getting worsened in the House of Commons. The Liberals only signed the Kyoto Treaty and forgot all else. The two major parties now cornered by the public and the media are indulging in subterfuge and accusing each other for doing nothing. The first volume of the fourth assessment report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change took three years to write and has brought together the work of 600 writers from 40 countries. Some 620 experts have reviewed the findings, and representatives of 113 governments have debated and revised the key points. According to the report there is evidence that the higher temperatures of the last half century are unusual compared with the at least the previous 1,300 years. As greenhouse gas levels rose so did temperatures. Global average air and ocean temperatures are on the rise and there has been widespread melting of snow and ice. Unusual weather conditions currently witnessed across the globe are linked to this. We can observe this all around and feel it in India as in Canada, Indonesia or America. But since the use of fossil fuels is linked to the industrial development where big multinational corporations operate for huge profits, it invariably gets linked to politics. The fact that environment degradation is bad economics is yet to dawn on the business corporations and political leaders. Eleven of the last 12 years have ranked among the 12 warmest years since records began in 1850, and as a result, the 100-year trend in temperatures has been adjusted upwards since the 2001 report, from an increase of 0.6C to 0.74C by the end of 2005. Much of the increase was recorded over the last 50 years, when the temperature increased by an average of 0.13C a decade - almost twice as fast as over the previous 100 years. Oceans have been absorbing more than 80 per cent of the extra heat, causing water to expand and sea levels to rise. It is important that industrialized countries in North America, Europe and the emerging industrial giants like China and India take care of environment first and allow the mother earth remain an environment friendly planet. Politics of over exploitations must take a backseat.
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We have to pour our love on someone. And people are the means of expressing our love for God. Brahmins are born, not so Brahminism. It is a quality open to be cultivated by the lowliest or the lowest among us. Reading the Vedas, making offerings to priests or sacrifices to Ishwara, selfmortification by heart or cold and may such penances performed for the sake of immortality, do not cleanse the man who is not free from delusions.
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