The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

RBI vs government
The apex bank loses turf war

THE RBI has been deservedly acclaimed for insulating India from the global financial meltdown. Two years ago an excessive money flow into sectors like commercial real estate, stock market and consumer loans had led the RBI to tighten money supply, which ultimately prevented the buildup of a financial bubble. Unlike some Western central banks, the RBI was quite vigilant. Now Parliament has passed a Bill under which a council, headed by the Finance Minister, will take up the RBI’s job of ensuring financial stability in the country. In the last Budget Pranab Mukherjee had proposed the establishment of the “Financial Stability and Development Council”.

As expected, the dilution of the apex bank’s autonomy has not found favour with RBI Governor D.Subbarao, who spoke up on the issue last week in Hyderabad. When asked whether central banks should have an explicit mandate of maintaining financial stability, he said: “”Pre-crisis … there was no answer; post-crisis, the answer is mostly ‘yes’”. The Governor defended the historic role of the RBI as being a monetary authority, an inflation-buster, a supervisor of banks and financial firms and a regulator of the payment and settlement system. The central bank has acted as a caretaker of the country’s financial system fairly effectively.

Since some of the Western central banks were found lax in financial regulation and governments there are strengthening the supervision of their financial systems, the Indian Finance Ministry too wants overriding powers to prevent any such future crisis. In June the government issued a discussion paper justifying the stability council’s role as a guardian of the financial system as a whole. There is sometimes a conflict between the (RBI’s) monetary and (government’s) fiscal policies over inflation and growth. Though Mr C. Rangarajan, Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, has denied it, a “super regulator” is being created for macro financial management and avoiding conflicts. The RBI seems to have lost the first round of the regulatory turf war.

Sporting history
Women’s contribution is equally noteworthy

WOMEN are no less than men, now in sports too. If not too long ago, Abhinav Bindra became the first Indian to win an individual Olympic gold at Beijing, now Tejaswini Sawant has done the nation proud by winning a gold medal at the World Championships in the 50-meter Rifle Prone event in Munich. She has not only become the first Indian woman shooter to achieve the enviable feat, but has also equalled the world record. Her victory, an ode to an individual’s grit and determination, also once again underlines the arrival of Indian women in sports.

Indeed, women sportspersons have come a long way from times when only a handful of sports were open to them. Kanwaljit Sandhu paved the way by winning the first international gold medal for Indian women in 400 metres in the 1970 Asian Games. Thereafter, be it the torch-bearer of women athletics, P T Usha, world amateur boxing champion M C Mary Kom or many others, women have proved that they have come good. If there was a Leander Paes among men in tennis, there is a Sania Mirza for women. If Parkash Padukone and Pullela Gopichand achieved sporting milestones, the success story of Saina Nehwal who became the world’s second best badminton player is no less heartening. Examples like Karnam Malleswari and Kunjarani Devi who have won international medals in weightlifting exemplify that in sports too there are no exclusive male preserves. Indeed, the list of accomplished women sports persons is becoming long.

To ensure that women continue to make their mark, India must create the right opportunities to nurture their talent, especially in rural areas as is being done in Badal village in Punjab, which has produced shooters like Avneet Kaur Sidhu. Besides, India can ill-afford scandals like the one that hit the women’s hockey recently. Parents will send their daughters in sports only if they are assured that they will be given a fair chance and not exploited. While women sports persons are holding court with élan sporting associations must provide more room for them. Sponsors too must give sports women their due share, for they are bringing India more than a fair share of glory.

Thought for the Day

When we see a natural style, we are quite surprised and delighted, for we expected to see an author and we find a man. — Blaise Pascal

ARTICLE

Pak game plan in J&K
Need to formulate an effective strategy
by K. Subrahmanyam

FOR eight weeks the Kashmir valley has been rocked by civilian violence in spite of the clamping of curfew. Crowds collect and indulge in heavy stone-throwing or destruction of public property to provoke the police to open fire, resulting in many wounded and a few deaths. It is claimed that security personnel open fire on non-violent protesters resulting in the death of innocent bystanders.

The Kashmir police do not appear to be adequately trained in effective crowd control. They do not use the more effective crowd-dispersal instrument, the CS gas, in addition to tear gas. There are stun-grenades and other agents which they have not used. Consequently, the avoidable firing has led to the death of some innocent bystanders. Our sympathies must go to the bereaved families and the wounded, and they should be adequately compensated.

Reports say that there is anger among the people of Kashmir and they all chant “azadi”.

There is no doubt that the state and Central governments should do everything possible to assuage the anger of the people and restore normalcy. An all-party delegation of state legislators is to meet the Prime Minister on Tuesday, August 10, in Delhi. An impression was sought to be given earlier that these disturbances were all spontaneous and they were leaderless. On Friday, Home Minister Chidambaram came out with his assessment that the disturbances were the result of a new Pakistani strategy to use civil unrest instead of terrorism as its preferred strategy.

Meanwhile, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, the most hardline separatist leader, has called for peaceful protest and avoidance of destruction of public property and has emphasised that there would be no peace in Kashmir unless India agrees to the plebiscite as per the UN resolution concerned.

The fact that this is a carefully orchestrated operation has been evident from the first day itself. It is obvious that there was a pattern of crowds collecting and provoking the Kashmir police to open fire. Earlier, the media carried a briefing from official sources of conversation intercepts between the Pakistani handlers and their agents in the valley that there should be more martyrs. In the age of the Internet, the mobile telephone and Facebook, it is not necessary for a crowd to be led visibly by a leader. What seems to have happened is that the ISI has activated all its sleeper agents introduced over the years in the valley and they seem to be in charge of crowd assembly, its provocation of the police by heavy stone-throwing, arson and public property destruction. There seems to be a well-organised underground terror campaign to intimidate political leaders and policemen by holding out threats to their families. That in turn seems to have paralysed the police from taking effective action, using CS gas, stun-grenades, laser beams and other non-lethal crowd-control devices. The J&K police invariably ask the available Central Reserve Police Force jawans to open fire.The casualty in the firing and the funeral procession become the justification for the next day’s violence.

Pakistan Army Chief Gen Ashfaque Kayani has repudiated General Pervez Musharraf’s back-channel negotiations on Kashmir. General Kayani was in charge of the ISI for three years when he had infiltrated hundreds of sleeper jehadis into the valley. When faced with the Indian and US pressure on terrorism, he appears to have decided to fall back upon his secret weapon of unleashing the civil unrest in the Kashmir valley. He is under great compulsion since the US is pressing him to take action against the jehadis in North Waziristan whom he considers his “strategic assets”. The US wants this to happen before September so that the US public anger on Pakistani game of deception disclosed by WikiLeaks will not have a negative impact on the forthcoming elections in the US.

Kayani would like to create problems for India in Kashmir before US President Obama’s visit to Delhi in November and as the UN General Assembly is in session in New York. Foreign Minister S.M. Qureshi’s rude behaviour during the Foreign Ministers’ talks was the second scene in Act one of the play. The play began with the initiation of the civil disturbance in Kashmir before the Islamabad meeting.

It is a pity that our young media people who interviewed Hurriyat leader Geelani had not adequately studied the UN plebiscite resolution and why Musharraf had agreed to lay it aside and consider the solution to make the Line of Control irrelevant. The UN resolution called for all people who entered the territory of Jammu and Kashmir, including Gilgit, Baltistan, and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, to leave the area before a plebiscite can be held. In the last 63 years literally millions of Pakistanis have settled in these areas and generations of children and grandchildren have been born to them.

In Jammu and Kasmir in India, non-J&K people are not allowed to take permanent residence, own property or be included in the electoral rolls. If the plebiscite is to be held Geelani should get an assurance from the Pakistani authorities that they will vacate millions of people disqualified under the plebiscite provision from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Does he have such an assurance? It is because of this action of Pakistan of Pakistanising the portion of Kashmir under its control that UN mediator Gunnar Jarring came to the conclusion in 1957 that plebiscite was no longer feasible.

With a few hundred paid people commanded by scores of awakened “sleeper” jehadis, manipulating them and collecting a crowd of thousands is standard practice. Even our political parties know how to rent a crowd. Initiating violence by such jehadis is not a difficult problem. Irrespective of whether Geelani’s call for peaceful protest is genuine or it includes “nonviolent stone throwing” and “peaceful arson”, the country should be prepared for a Pakistani strategic offensive which is likely to reach its peak during the UN General Assembly session and just before the Obama visit. Just recall the massacre of Sikhs to coincide with former US President Bill Clinton’s visit to India.

There is no doubt that in this case there appears to be an intelligence collection and reporting and assessment failure. Otherwise it is difficult to explain the statements of this upsurge being a spontaneous and leaderless one. What else can explain traders foregoing their business for weeks on end because of the curfew, or women and children being exposed to police response?

The government has to formulate an effective strategy to forestall the Pakistani game plan.There has also been an enormous failure in perception projection on the part of the government that calls for immediate remedying. The political process in Kashmir can be revived only when the Kashmiri politicians can have a sense of security free of the threat of sleeper jehadis in their midst.That is going to take some time. The silence and the inaction of the Kashmir valley politicians say it all.

MIDDLE

Lamas and landslides
by P.C. Sharma

The Mangol war-lord Godan, grandson of Genghis Khan, was the first to acknowledge the spiritual prowess of the lamas. He invaded Tibet in 1240, burnt down monasteries, killed priests-chieftain Soton and slaughtered 500 monks and civilians. After his victory he wrote a letter to the Sakya Pandita and expressed his wish that he needed a lama to “advise my ignorant people how to conduct themselves morally and spiritually”.

Known for his vast learning, Sakya Pandita instructed Godan in the teachings of the Buddha. Also, he persuaded him to refrain from throwing large number of Chinese into river to reduce population that was a threat to his rule.

Sakya Pandita accepted Godan’s request and the grateful Mongol invested him with temporal authority over monasteries of central Tibet – an institution that has survived till the present times.

Next to come under the sway of lamas was Kublai Khan, son of Godan. He made Phagpa, a young lama, his imperial preceptor and agreed to prostrate himself before him. Kublai Khan also invited Phagpa to consecrate 25 of his ministers.

I witnessed the influence of the lamas in Sikkim where I served as DGP. This beautiful mountainous state of ancient monasteries and its Bhutia population are steeped in Buddhism and the lore of the lamas. Nothing auspicious is commenced without invoking their blessings.

In Gangtok, I heard about the deep impact of Buddhism and the lamas on the Chogyal, former king of Sikkim. He always requested the lamas to pray for good weather whenever he planned to host feasts and festivities in his palace.

One night in the monsoon of 1997 Gangtok was devastated by a cloudburst, followed by unprecedented rains and landslides. Some multi-storeyed buildings collapsed with their occupants. Some others were completely wiped out leaving a vast scale of loss of life and property. Breaches and ‘cave-ins’ in the roads made relief work a hazardous task.

A huge landslide that crashed down behind my bungalow blocked the ingress and the exit. It was with supreme effort that I reached the police station from where I could mobilise resources for relief and evacuation.

Incessant rains scared people of more landslides. Working overtime, the government turned to the lamas to pray for good weather. Generally not inclined to interfere with the nature, they agreed to chant mantras for the well-being of the people of Sikkim.

Much to the joy of everyone, nature smiled. Rains stopped. The clouds floated away. Sun beams showered hope and happiness. The change in weather gave fillip to the efforts for relief. With the restoration of life, people of Sikkim were happy.

It occurred to me how shrewd warlords Godan and Kublai Khan were in inviting Sakya Pandita and Phagpa Lama to consecrate them and ‘advise’ how ‘to conduct themselves morally and spiritually’. Power of the spirit tempered the power of their sword to rule for the welfare of the living and peace of the dead souls.

OPED-WATER MANAGEMENT

The scourge of Ghaggar
For checking the fury of the Ghaggar and providing water for irrigation and forests a large number of dams are required. Besides, a few bigger dams are needed over the four major rivers – the Kaushalya, Sirsa, Tangri and Markanda
B R Lall

FLOODA caused by the Ghaggar river are a permanent scourge as it has been washing away the houses, crops etc. year after year in Patiala and the surrounding districts in Punjab and Haryana. The devastating Ghaggar floods have their origin in the Shivalik hills of Haryana, which is the basic catchment area for the river.

Facing the river’s wrath: The flood-hit in Patiala district. Tribune photo: Rajesh Sachar

The Shivalik hills of Haryana have a rainfall of almost 1 500mm, resulting in a total precipitation of 3.3 million acres feet (MAF). Besides, a huge quantum of water flows down from Himachal Pradesh that raises the total flow to 6.6 MAF.

If fire and water are tamed they are our best friends, but if not controlled, they are the biggest enemies as well. Some efforts have been made in the plains to tame the fury of the fast-flowing Ghaggar on its descent from the barren Shivalik hills, but no protective works in the plains can stand before it. On the other hand, the more denuded the hills, the faster would be the velocity imparted to the ravaging torrents and these gushing waters are sure to pick up frightening momentum and cause havoc in the plains.

These waters can only be contained in the Shivalik hills and foothills of the three districts, namely, Ambala, Panchkula and Yamunanagar of Haryana by creating storage dams to trap the water and prevent it from reaching the plains in bulk. This water can be utilised locally or even diverted to other parts of Haryana.

Basically, no serious or worthwhile efforts have ever been made from the angle of flood protection though some small works as part of the programme to check soil erosion have been undertaken by constructing check dams or gully plugging .

Though some storage dams also have been put up by the Forest Department, these are very few and small, varying in height between 10 metres and 15 metres and cannot store water enough to make any impact on the flood situation or to be available for economic use beyond December.

For checking the fury of floods and for providing water for irrigating crops and the forests require a large number of dams of 20- 25 metres height and a few bigger dams over the four major rivers, namely, the Kaushalya, Sirsa, Tangri and Markanda.

It is no secret that be it Haryana, Punjab or Himachal Pradesh, all the hilltops by and large lie barren. Even if all other possible human efforts are made, the unavailability of water in the summer months of March to June will ensure that no plantation succeeds. The soil at those hilltops, bereft of tree cover, is eroding continuously and if this is allowed to go on unchecked, in another century or even earlier, these areas may turn like Cherapunji, littered with rocks and stones, getting 13000 mm of rainfall, but looking more like a desert.

Apart from averting the floods and the resultant enormous loss of resources and property in Punjab, it will prevent soil erosion, provide water harvesting by continuous seepage, promote tourism, ensure water for irrigation and make possible allied activities like fisheries and cattle rearing and lead to afforestation in Haryana, which will improve the vegetation cover and restore the degraded ecosystem. That will in turn create conditions suitable for wildlife to flourish. The jungles that could come up at the hilltops, would serve as the natural habitat for wildlife and the reservoirs could provide water, essential for their very survival, throughout the year.

The few measures listed in this narrative will go a long way in preventing devastation on the one hand and generating employment, alleviating poverty thereby adding to the growth of national wealth and also preventing its decay on the other. This area has great potential, which has not been recognized and exploited because of shortage of water. All this bcan be achieved in the amount of loss in floods in just one to two years. However a note of caution has to be added that the execution should be honest so that the projects remain viable.

What should be done

l Build four big dams on the four major rivers at the foothills. These should be specially designed, cost effective and of proper size, each able to store 1 maf of water.

l Construct small earthen dams of 15-20 metres height in the upper regions of the Shivaliks. Their water can be used locally and the surplus, if any, can be transferred to the bigger dam.

l On longer rivers and their tributaries, multi purpose dams can be constructed. These may be ordinary storage dams, constructed in series and serving the same purpose as other dams, but with the only difference that instead of putting one huge big dam, water is stored in a series of dams. The excess water from the topmost dam spills over to the next down stream and so on.

l Since most of the silt is retained by the dams upstream, those downstream will be free of the problem. The last dam will always be at the full-water level throughout the year due to continuous replenishment from the upper dams, making it possible to develop fisheries, water sports and tourism, besides drawing water for irrigation or any other uses.

l The possibility of installing a micro hydel plant can be explored. There is scope for such dams in this area over quite a few rivers. One such site is near Gobindpur on the Thattar Wali Nadi.

l These smaller dams will provide a combined storage capacity of 1 MAF.

The writer is a retired DGP of Haryana and former head of the Haryana Shivalik Development Agency

Still not ready for floods
Haryana is the second most flood-prone state in the country after Punjab. The state’s 53.17 per cent land is liable to floods
Mahabir Jaglan

THE geographical personality of Haryana, largely a semi-arid plain devoid of perennial rivers, generally makes people believe it is not flood-prone. But the recent floods have exploded this myth. Doubts, if any, on this count will certainly be decimated by the estimates of Rashtriya Barh Aayog (1980) – 53.17 per cent of Haryana’s land is liable to floods. The state is the second most flood-prone in the country after Punjab (73.41 per cent area), which is drained by three capacious perennial rivers – the Sutlej, Ravi and Beas.

The seasonal streams — the Ghaggar, Markanda, Tangri, Som etc.-- originating in the Shiwalik hills and traversing through the north-eastern region spelled doom recently. In the Ghaggar basin floods have propagated like a wave from Ambala to Sirsa over a period of 10 days with its amplitude becoming more pronounced and menacing as it travelled through the narrow, braided and obstructed channels in Fatehabad and Sirsa districts.

South Haryana faces the threat of floods from the seasonal streams originating in the Aravalli hills of Rajasthan. The Sahibi river after crossing over from Rajasthan flows into the Yamuna through the Najafgarh drain. While in spate, it causes floods up to the Delhi boarder. The Krishnavati and the Dohan are other channels that cause occasional floods in the Narnaul- Mahendergarh tract. Yamuna floods are mostly confined to the narrow khaddar belt along the Uttar Pradesh border.

The eastern-central Haryana does not have seasonal streams. But the experience of floods in 1978 and1995 reveals that this region is susceptible to devastating floods in the eventuality of occasional incessant and intensive rain. The region has a poor horizontal drainage due to a very gentle slope, which is further worsened by a dense network of roads, railways and canals constructed neglectful of natural slope contours. Consequently, floodwater remains trapped in low-lying areas for a long time.

Given the nature and magnitude of flood vulnerability in the state, there are two questions that become pertinent. How to prevent floods and how to cope with the situation in the eventuality of floods in the state?

One option that has been thrown up through a rare consensus on water-related issues between the Punjab and Haryana governments is taming the Ghaggar and its tributaries by constructing reservoirs and bundhs in upper catchments. This measure, however, will be applied vigilantly with the indemnity that the normal flow in the seasonal channels is maintained which is so crucial for groundwater recharge and the livelihood of people in the semi-arid areas of the two states.

It can be easily understood by the recent experience of south Haryana. The threats of floods in the region have receded substantially owing to the construction of bundhs across the seasonal channels for rainwater harvesting in Alwar district but at the cost of depleting groundwater recharge. The infrequent rain floods in central Haryana can be prevented to a large extent through the adequate provisions of siphons, under passages and drains. But we cannot visualise a situation where floods can be wholly prevented in the state. Nevertheless, floods can be effectively mitigated.

The lackluster approach of the local administration with respect to disaster mitigation does not augur well in the face of widespread and destructive floods. The challenge posed by disasters of this magnitude requires actions on a war-footing as devastating floods threaten the very survival and livelihood of people.

The disaster management policy in the country has undergone a sea change. We have the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in place and the Disaster Management Act, 2005, envisages the constitution of a State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA) and a District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) along with the formulation of a disaster management plan at the state level after a vulnerability assessment analysis.

The Haryana government constituted the SDMA and DDMAs in 2007. But there is no comprehensive state disaster management plan yet. There is an urgent need for adopting an institutionalised and professional approach and development of functional and operational infrastructure under the SDMA to face floods and other disasters. Preparedness for flood hazards needs to be done adopting structural as well as non-structural measures, including flood plain zoning to regulate indiscriminate and unplanned land use in the flood-prone plains. Remote sensing and GIS can be instantly used to model the spatial dimension of ensuing floods in river basins. The experience of recent floods, though painful, can be utilised for preparing an effective flood preparedness and mitigation plan at the state and district levels.

The writer is an Associate Professor of Geography,Kurukshetra University. Email: mahabirsj@rediffmail.com