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Tribune Special India,
Australia poised for a new strategic tie-up |
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On Record Profile
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India, Australia poised for a new strategic tie-up
The
significance of Australia Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to India on November 11-12 was lost for the general public, as the media highlighted only on the racial attacks on Indian students in Australia. This issue has to be seen in the larger context of India-Australia relations. It is not only education alone, but a mix between education and migration as this dream continues to be sold to students. It has reportedly emerged as a two-billion dollar industry for Indian students alone with shady characters operating on both sides. It is, therefore, important that we do not stifle the channels for migration. We need to give time to Australia to resolve the issue. India-Australia relations, therefore, have to be allowed to run on two tracks simultaneously. Our efforts should be to build on bilateral relations while we continue finding a meaningful and acceptable resolution of the students’ issue. Prime Minister Rudd’s visit was undertaken, keeping in view these considerations. In his address at the Indian Council for World Affairs, Mr Rudd made a forceful and well argued presentation of an emerging strategic partnership between India and Australia which needed to go beyond the three ‘C’s — Commonwealth, Common Language and Cricket. He forgot that a fourth ‘C’ – ‘Curry Bashing’ — had been added, which had overtaken all the other three. To do so, he invoked the spirits of Nehru and Gandhi, who as visionary leaders, had seen the emergence of such a partnership, forgetting that these old icons were losing their sheen in India. Symbolism apart, there are solid grounds to build up a strategic partnership. A partnership where Indian Ocean is not seen as a divide between India and Australia, but an ocean that unites the two countries, whose future would be linked through this water body, as the world starts recognising the strategic role of the Indian Ocean. In this context, he also reaffirmed Australia’s “firm support for India’s membership of the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC) group”, when the moratorium on new membership ended in 2010. He also reiterated Australia’s support for a permanent seat for India in the United Nations Security Council
(UNSC). This was music for India’s ears as it feels that it rightfully deserves a place on this high table. The shape of India and Australia Strategic Partnership was given in the two documents issued on November 12, 2009 — The Joint Statement and the India-Australia Joint Security Declaration. The Joint Statement harped on “shared interests and shared values”, built on “pluralist democracies”, rapidly expanding economic relationship and “a shared desire to enhance and maintain peace stability and propriety in Asia”. A vigorous bilateral partnership would be built through expanding economic links, cooperation in energy, climate change and water. Australia committed to provide Aus $ 20 million over a five-year period for joint research in dryland agriculture in India under the Australian Centre for International Agriculture Research. Both the countries reaffirmed the need to build a Knowledge Partnership and Australia agreed to commit Aus $ 10 million per annum for five years, with a similar contribution from India under the Australia-India Strategic Research Fund. This would help in building on earlier successful cooperation. The areas of focus would be energy, food and water security, health and environment. The statement is silent on the sale of uranium. To provide greater content to the strategic partnership, Australia would have to make policy changes for the sale of uranium to India.
Mr Rudd has a job cut out for him as he needs only to convince his party diehards, as the Opposition Conservative Party is already on board. The second document, India-Australia Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation affirms the joint commitment and establishes a framework for such cooperation. The elements of cooperation would embrace areas, such as information exchanges and cooperation within multilateral frameworks in Asia. It aims taking the defence cooperation to a higher stage, under the earlier framework, as agreed to in MoU on Defence Conference signed in March 2006. This would also pave way for cooperation in combating terrorism and transnational organised crime, police and law enforcement, disaster management, maritime and aviation security. There is a greater need to bridge the information gap that exists. Promised steps to provide greater connectivity at the people-to-people through cultural exchanges, exchange of youth leadership and parliamentarians are the right steps in this direction. The media is the missing link as there is no resident presence either in India or Australia. Let the media also wake up to its social responsibility. While it discharges its responsibility, as an independent channel of news, it should also give a more balanced coverage on the other facets of bilateral relationship. India-Australia relations are poised for greater heights, beyond the single agenda on students. Students, as future migrants, should be seen as bridge-builders, as has happened in various other countries, where Indian Diaspora is located. Earlier, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had openly lauded the role of Indian Diaspora at the Pravasi Bharati Divas
(PBD) Celebrations in 2008 and 2009. Australia, therefore, needs to enthuse a new spirit into Indian Diaspora, including students, by turning them into a new channel and a force in the emerging India-Australia Strategic
Partnership. The writer is a former Indian Ambassador to Sweden and Malaysia
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On Record
Dominique Lapierre’s Five past Midnight in Bhopal, which so vividly describes the Bhopal gas tragedy, became a number one international best seller.
Harsh Desai caught up with him in New Delhi when he was on his way to Bhopal for the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal gas leak disaster. Excerpts: Harsh Desai: There seems to be a basic discrepancy between the figures given by you in your book and those taken into account by the Supreme Court in determining compensation. The Supreme Court says that there were 3,000 deaths whereas you say that there were between 16,000 and 30,000 deaths. The Supreme Court says that 50,000 were injured whereas you say that up to five lakh were injured. How do you explain this discrepancy? Dominique Lapierre:
The exact causalities of the Bhopal gas disaster have never really been known. People died on the first night. People died due to poisoning and other causes later. The calculations that we have come to are based on the surveys of research we did for three years with different hospitals with different agencies whose records we checked by calculating the amount of wood used in the days after the tragedy and the amount of white linen used we were able to come to a figure between 16,000 and 30,000. However, one thing is certain that the figure is way above the figure of 3,000 which is the basis of the compensation given by the Supreme Court. If in Bhopal you were to tell somebody that only 3,000 people died in the tragedy, they would laugh in your face. HD:
How did the Supreme Court get it so wrong considering that they based it on Government figures, Mr. Dominique Lapierre: They might have wanted to minimise the amplitude of the tragedy. I do not know, I do not know. If the figures of the number of dead is wrong, the compensation amount of $ 470 million calculated is also wrong. DL:
It would depend on how much you wanted to give each person. However, the compensation was well below than what should have been given. If you were to give someone whose health has been impaired by the gas compensation, it has to be above Rs 1,50,000 but these arguments can go on endlessly. How much compensation you will give somebody has lost an eye or somebody who cannot breathe. It is way beyond the amplitude and the terrified impact of the tragedy. HD:
Is Bhopal still scarred by the tragedy? DL: Oh absolutely. It is scarred first for two reasons: lot of victims who have not been compensated 25 years after the tragedy. Secondly, it continues to affect the victims even today; children born are malformed; women suffer from cancer including cervical cancers; there are people who cannot breathe; people go blind, the composition of mythyl isocyanate gas has never been revealed by the Carbide but it seems to have the impact akin to nuclear radiation; in that it enters the genes of its victims and we do not know for how long it will continue to affect its victims. Nobody knows how many generations transmission of the affected genes will continue. And thirdly, 100 tonnes of effluents have been left on the site and have never been cleaned. Which means that every monsoon the effluents are washed underground but they contain poisons such as mercury nickel and this goes into the ground water and it means under ground water which the water the people living around the factory have to drink. Half of the water supplied to the people living near the site is still of this sort. I and my wife drank a glass of this poisoned water as I wanted to see what effect it would have. In five minutes I got the skin rash. My throat was burning and I was vomiting. HD:
Why has this not been cleaned so far — after all it is 25 years? DL:
One of the reasons is that the Union Carbide has been bought by Dow Chemicals, who says that they were not at the site so they are not responsible. There is an action pending against Dow Chemicals in the High Court of Bombay filed by the victims but that has not been heard yet and the reason Dow Chemicals wont clean it because they are the same company who were responsible for agent orange which destroyed the forest of Vietnam and killed thousands of people. If Dow Chemicals were to clean the mess in Bhopal they would also have to take responsibility for the clean up in Vietnam, if they clean up this they would have to clean up that also. HD:
Has the government not stepped in and done it? DL: The Prime Minister met victims in 2008 and a commission was appointed but the fact remains that after 25 years nothing has been done Actually, Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh went to Bhopal and made a statement that he walked around the plant and its vicinity and that everything was normal. There was a hue and cry internationally and the Minister had to apologise. I too wrote a letter protesting. HD: Has the $470 million been distributed? DL:
A large portion of this amount has been distributed but not completely and that too in an uneven manner. I know people living in the hills above Bhopal who were not affected by the tragedy who were later compensated and I know people who live near the factory who have not been compensated. My book is the only real documentation of the tragedy and one fall out is that four Bhopals were not built because of this book, one in Argentina, one in Bombay, one in Greece and one in somewhere else; because the chemical industry was absolutely terrified by the story of Bhopal. When you go to Carbide factories in North Carolina, they will give you these lectures about safety and about precautions. The mistake was about the pesticide plant in the middle of a bustling city of 8,00,000 people. The pesticide sevin was made from the most poisonous gas invented by the mankind — the gas is called methyl isocyanate. In France, one barrel of gas had to be imported. It came in barrel by barrel. It was so dangerous. And in Bhopal thus gas was stored in thousands of litres and the other mistake was to build a factory of extravagant dimension without taking into account what the needs were or what demand was going to be and the problem is that when you were functioning with a logic of capitalism and your plant loses money, what you do is cut costs and what cost you cut first is you cut security. In the easiest way to cut costs, you have an expatriate American engineer working and you fire him and you replace him with an Indian engineer who is much cheaper, by the end of it to save even $100 a day. You cut the electricity which stops the refrigeration though the methyl isocyanate gas has to be kept at a 0 degree. I have picked up during my research a small piece of plastic which had to be inserted in the pipe during cleaning to ensure that water and the gas do not mix. This was not done on the day of the tragedy because the worker at the site forgot and there was an isothermic explosion which led to this disaster. If this two or three rupee plastic barrier had been put in place there would have been no disaster. HD:
What happened about Warren Anderson? He was arrested and released on the condition that he would come back when required. Why was he let go? DL:
Extraordinary pressure from the American government on the Indian government. There is an Interpol warrant against Warren Anderson and it is known where Mr Anderson is. However, the government does not want him to be produced. They would not know what to do with him. Anderson is not hiding any more. They are going to burn the effigy in Bhopal and short of having him in person. I suppose that is the best thing to do. HD:
What is your take on Bhopal today? DL: The tragedy which happened in Bhopal on December 3, 1984 continues with a different face with children still are born malformed, women are still struck with fatal diseases such as cancer of the cervix, men are still going blind and people losing their respiratory capacity. The gas methyl isocyanate continued to strike in the genes of the poor affected people like atomic
radiation.
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Profile AT 76, it is said, one puts his one foot in grave and moves deep in the evening of life. But here is a Nepalese climber, Min Bahadur Sherchan, who put his feet on Mount Everest at 76, establishing a new world record. The Guinness Book of World Records has officially recognised him as the oldest man who climbed the Everest. The record was earlier held by Japanese climber, Katsusuke Yanagisawa, who scaled the world’s highest peak at 71. Min Bahadur is in no mood of hanging his boots. “I am not satisfied with the success. I want to climb the summit top once again before I turn 84”, he says. A former soldier, Min Bahadur says: “Not just for the sake of my nation and myself, but for the sake of whole world with the slogan ‘World Peace for Humanity”, I began this expedition and finally succeeded”. Surprisingly, he did not undergo formal training in mountaineering. Nor is he known in the climbing community. Bold and daring, Min Bahadur hails from Western Nepal and has made a series of adventurous journeys. Encouraged by Min Bahadur’s example, the Senior Citizens’ Mt. Everest Expedition has named Shailendra Kumar Upadhyaya, 80, to break the record set by old people. The mission will be carried out through Asian Trekking Pvt Ltd in the spring of 2010. Sherchan now wants to devote his entire life in social welfare service. He intends to set up two separate shelters for old-age people and for orphans and street children. He also plans to launch a campaign to protect Mother Earth both from nuclear arms race and global warming. Mountaineering experts say climbing Everest is becoming more difficult and dangerous every year because of melting ice. The rocks that used to be covered with snow are getting exposed. Concerned at global warming, the Nepal Government proposes to hold before the Copenhagen climate conference a cabinet meeting atop Mt. Everest. Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal and those politicians who are physically fit will ascend 17,192 ft to the base camp. The Copenhagen meet aims to highlight the Himalayan glacier meltdown. With the ice melting at a rapid pace, lakes have been formed which could flood nearby villages. In October, the Maldives Government held a cabinet meeting underwater to warn of the effect of the rising sea level. Appa Sherpa, 49, who first made it to the summit 19 years ago, has come to be known as the fastest climber of Everest. He has been quoted as saying that his latest climb was to raise awareness of the impact of global warming in he Himalayas. Appa Sherpa’s expedition team has been collecting rubbish from the mountains as part of a campaign to restore its pristine condition. He spent about 30 minutes at the top of Everest, unfurling a banner, saying ‘Stop Climate Change’. The members of Appa’s expedition bought over five tonnes of mountain trash including parts of a crashed helicopter, old ropes and tents, ladders, metal cans and climbing gear. Mount Everest, the pride of Nepal and the world, has been a challenging feat for mountaineering adventurers. Every year, expeditions from different countries across the globe make debut in mountaineering, making it a matter of national pride. The history was stepped out in 1953 by Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary and till now 2325 people have scaled the
summit.
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