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Missing in action
Face of hope |
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Defiant as ever Will Congress take action against Jagan? Kadapa MP Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy’s decision to go ahead with his odarpu (consolation in Telugu) yatra in Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh from September 3 despite the party high command’s warning of disciplinary action against him if he flouted its directive suggests that he is heading for a showdown with the party leadership.
Acts of God & man’s follies
The cheesy side of RTI
Problems of plenty
Climate change hits productivity
Corrections and clarifications
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Missing in action
President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan will have to blame himself more than anyone else if during the next elections his party suffers a crushing defeat. His popularity has gone down considerably and so has that of the ruling PPP. Why should people vote for a party when its top leader leaves the shores of the country not bothering about the fate of the millions of Pakistanis uprooted by unprecedented floods? People expressed their displeasure at the President of Pakistan being in London when more than 1000 men, women and children lost their lives due to flood fury. There were protests outside the venues wherever he addressed any meeting in the UK, but Mr Zardari remained unmoved. At one meeting he was even greeted with a shoe thrown at him. Only a thick-skinned politician can behave in the manner Pakistan’s head of state has done. While in London he must have persuaded world leaders to send enough aid for his country’s flood victims, but an ideal leader must be seen in the midst of his disaster-hit people. Mr Zardari is, however, not alone in showing the least concern for his country’s vast population in distress. The most unfortunate behaviour was that of Dr Farooq Abdullah when he was the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. He was often seen missing from Kashmir when the state was faced with crisis after crisis. In December 2001 Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was forced to send an SOS to Dr Abdullah holidaying in London when the valley was virtually burning. There was uncertainty and fear stalking Jammu and Kashmir and a large number of people had left their homes in the border areas. The Chief Minister, however, had no time to even express sympathy for them. People look for their leader to come to their rescue more than anyone else in times of crisis. The victims of flash floods in Leh must have felt reassured of all kinds of help coming to them when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh landed there to announce a relief package of Rs 125 crore. He could have done it sitting in his office in Delhi, too, but that would amount to setting a bad precedent. The reaction of the Ladakhis could have been entirely different.
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Face of hope
LIFE will never be the same again for 11-year-old Skalzang Angmo of Choglamsar village in Leh. Her sister, Denchen Paldon, a Class VIII topper at Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Chandigarh, had got washed away in the cloudburst, and their mother despaired about facing a bleak future alone, as reported in the columns of this paper. Now, Skalzang will be able to study in a Chandigarh school due to the initiative by the Central government and the Union Human Resource Development Minister, Mr Kapil Sibal. Hope for the future will slowly eclipse the darkness of the immediate tragedy that befell the family. The human face of any calamity brings it home to us. It also tells us that every individual can make a difference, like the hundreds who have contributed generously to The Tribune Ladakh Relief Fund. Similar measures by other organisations have also been taken to collected funds. When it comes to providing relief on the ground, unfortunately, there is often duplicity of efforts. There is an urgent need for focused, coordinated aid that will enable the victims to withstand the rigours of winter. The requirement is to provide proper and adequate housing along with food, and rebuild the infrastructure that has been damaged due to the cloudburst. In any case, life in Ladakh is tough in winter; for those who are not properly equipped, it will become more so. There are many young children in Leh who need help, and Mr Sibal’s gesture is an example which would be widely emulated, both by individuals and organisations. The flip side of any tragedy is the outpouring of love and generosity towards the victims that often follows it, and thus gives an opportunity to the fortunate human beings to provide assistance. There are many school children and schools in Leh that also need help. We must do our bit to provide them with the means so that their dreams are not buried in the mudslide that the Leh cloudburst caused.
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Defiant as ever
Kadapa
MP Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy’s decision to go ahead with his
odarpu (consolation in Telugu) yatra in Prakasam district of Andhra
Pradesh from September 3 despite the party high command’s warning of
disciplinary action against him if he flouted its directive suggests
that he is heading for a showdown with the party leadership. The fact
that he has announced his tour programme a day after Union Finance
Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s warning proves that he has dared the
party leadership to take action against him. The high command sees
Jagan’s yatra as an attempt by him to mobilise support from both the
party and the public to destabilise the K. Rosaiah government. It is
worried that a couple of legislators in Kadapa district, buckling
under pressure from the party cadres, have also decided to accompany
Jagan in his ensuing tour. The Congress party’s troubles have
increased after its rout in the recent byelections in the Telangana
region. Jagan’s antics have exacerbated its problems. If he walks
out of the party with about 25 legislators, it could even lead to the
fall of the Rosaiah government, notwithstanding Praja Rajyam Party
leader Chiranjeevi’s support. The party doesn’t seem to believe
that Jagan’s tour has nothing to do with politics. For, during his
earlier tours, he not only spoke against Chief Minister K. Rosaiah but
also held parleys with legislators close to him in an attempt to
destabilise the government. The Jagan camp feels that it is now or
never for their leader. Jagan is himself aware that the Telangana
issue will be a crucial factor after December 31, 2010, when the
Justice B.N. Srikrishna Committee submits its report to the Centre
recommending either the state’s bifurcation or an alternative plan.
The report could push the state into political turmoil again, thereby
putting his fight for the Chief Minister’s post on the backburner.
But the party high command is in no mood to hand over the mantle of
state leadership to Jagan, who is not only a green horn in politics
but also embroiled in several controversial real estate, cement,
construction industry and other business deals. On top of all this is
his questionable links with Karnataka’s Bellary brothers and their
mining interests. Jagan is a big headache for the Congress and how the
party will wriggle itself out of the current situation remains to be
seen. |
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Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.
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Acts of God & man’s follies
I
had read about Mayawati’s monumental extravaganzas in sandstone and marble, but it took a recent visit to Lucknow to realise the enormity of her folly, affecting the aesthetics of the city and the state’s exchequer: statues, elephants, colonnades and fountains galore, enclosed within endless walls. Some works have been executed and demolished twice or even thrice to satisfy the caprice of the now self-anointed Iron Lady. There is bitter laughter in the streets. Uttar Pradesh’s impoverished millions ask for bread. They have been given stone. Eastern UP and Bundelkhand face drought. Funds that could have gone towards the resuscitation of their blighted farm economy have been wasted in self-glorification. Of course, Dalits are still oppressed and Ambedkar and Kanshi Ram merit befitting memorials, especially the former, that others have begrudged building. But education and economic uplift of the downtrodden would be for them and the nation a far greater blessing. What a perversion of priorities! All of Bihar and Jharkhand and parts of West Bengal have been declared drought affected. Emergency relief and cropping-cum-livelihood strategies must be put in place to avert distress. Yet, why should Bihar or Eastern UP suffer drought? They are not short of groundwater and irrigation systems though shortage of power could be a handicap. Both regions suffer from long-standing agricultural depressors and structural deficiencies related to inequitable land relations, availability of extension services and credit. Nitesh Kumar set up an agrarian reform commission in Bihar under D.R. Bandopadhyay and an education commission under Muchkund Dubey, which recommended common schools. Both reports have been tragically shelved in response to feudal and caste pressures. A huge freshwater aquifer in seven layers from 1000 to 3000 metres deep, underlying the north Ganga plains between Faizabad and Purnea, was hypothesised as far back as 1967, lent confirmation by the ONGC’s petro-geological deep-drilling core samples, but has been left unexplored despite World Bank offers of assistance through the 1980s. This layered deep aquifer was said to have been formed by Himalayan snow-melt and overlain by debris over successive glacial ages. It is believed to be even now replenished by Himalayan recharge and under artesian pressure, which would obviate any energy to lift the water to the surface. Rather than undertake trial drilling to confirm the hypothesis and establish its parameters — whether recharged, fresh and not mineralised water, under artesian pressure and without the risk of causing land subsidence if extracted - the Union Government and the Planning Commission have been supine. Earlier, it was feared that if such a rich deep aquifer was established, India would have to make concessions to Bangladesh on sharing Ganga waters below Farakka! Leading Indian groundwater experts have privately admitted that the evidence of the deep aquifer is sufficiently strong to merit testing. Years have been lost dithering. Meanwhile, the Centre has scrapped a third hydro-project on the Bhagirathi in Uttarakhand, above Tehri, in deference to “religious and cultural sentiment”. Environmental concerns relate to high seismicity and the danger of rivers running dry between project sites along run-of-river cascades. The first can and has been taken care of by additional defensive measures incorporated in dam designs while the latter can be made good by stipulating a given ecological release of water below each RoR dam. The scrapping of the 600 MW Loharinag Pala project, on which Rs 650 crore has already been invested, in the wake of cancellation of the Pala Maneri and Bhairon Ghati projects, has been coupled with a decision to declare the 135-km stretch from Goumukh to Uttarkashi an eco-sensitive, no-dam zone. This seems a populist decision at a time when aberrant weather and cloudbursts, aggravated by climate change coupled with potential discharge depletion on account of glacial melt, call for both greater water conservation and flood and erosive silt detention traps as a means of disaster management. The clean energy generated would be a low-carbon bonus. Similar backsliding on water conservation and hydro-power is evident in Sikkim on grounds of religious and cultural sentiment. But which river or mountain in India is not sacred? Maintain the site but why sacrifice the human benefit? Assam, in turn, fears dam-breaks in Arunachal and consequential disabilities in the plains, but is singularly without any defence against annual floods that have kept its people and economy in thrall for generations. Lamenting the disease and fighting the cure is folly. The cloudburst in Leh has taken a grievous toll as have the unprecedented rain storms that have devastated Khyber-Pakhtunwa, Balochistan and Sind in Pakistan. Both Pakistan and Northwestern India are joined at the hip by their common lifeline, the Indus, which is already feeling the effects of climate change. This calls for cooperation, not futile stand-offs. Pakistan’s civil government fiddled while furious floods took their toll. As at the time of the Muzaffarbad earthquake some years ago, the jihadis were first off the mark, gaining kudos by organising rescue and relief, followed by the Army — which, as a Dawn columnist writes, has labelled its relief packages as “From the Pakistan Army” or “From the Corps Commander” as though the Army represents another country! This, while Mr Zardari was busily jaunting abroad and his government hesitated to accept a first $ 5 million installment of Indian aid in a repeat exhibition of a self-defeating hate-India policy. Yet, the latest ISI threat assessment, that appears to have leaked, puts the jihadis, not India, as “Pakistan’s main worry”. Meanwhile, in J&K, new generation youth “leaders” such as Musarrat Alam and Asiya Andrabi draw up week-to-month-long calendars for mindless stone-pelting protests while in Delhi, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav and Gopinath Munde think nothing of clowning in a “mock parliament”. They only mock
themselves.
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The cheesy side of RTI
The Right to Information Act (2001) has opened up for public scrutiny the dark alleys of the procedural wrangling by the public authorities that confuse a common man. Even our Supreme Court has come out strongly in favour of the “whistleblowers”. I have taken up writing this piece not because I witnessed any great scandal of suppressed information, unfolding. I saw the shabby side of the RTI coin. I saw a university professor being threatened, by a parent, to make an admission failing which the teacher would have to face the RTI, as if it would have meant some punishment. It happened, recently, when I thought about meeting a favourite teacher in the English department of Panjab University. As I entered his room, my teacher was engaged in an animate discussion with an elderly gentleman. I thought I was intruding in the middle of a serious deliberation. So, I excused myself. My teacher asked me to sit down. The gentleman was gesticulating wildly with his hands: “I know you are loved by all your students. In fact, my daughter worships you. You know, she has been college as well as the university topper. She is under a shock these days because she has not been given admission in PhD. I am sure you will work out a way to admit her”. My teacher began politely: “I have explained earlier that being a topper does not show a candidate’s flair for research. The department’s committee, including experts, did not find her fit to begin her specialised study.” The tone of the father changed slightly: “I have seen all the students you have selected for the research. All of them are below average. I used my connections in right places to know the politics of admission”. He paused and his tone changed, again: “Sir, my daughter got married, recently. Her husband is a top IT professional and expects his wife to be at least a PhD”. My teacher replied: “I have told you she can always try again. She is not yet prepared.” The nostrils of the father flared, a little. He said: “I am left with no choice but to resort to the RTI. I will now come with her admission slip”. After he had delivered his last blow, my teacher said: “you have been trying to cajole me for the past more than six months. You also attempted to arm-twist me with names of high-ups and now you are threatening me with the RTI. Let me tell you, the RTI is a process of seeking information and not a trial. The information about reasons for not selecting her might be more shocking.” The gentleman got up and walked out of the door. He returned, in a flash and this time he caught the palm of my teacher. “Sir, you should not get angry. RTI was a slip of my tongue. We cannot challenge your judgement. Sir, please don’t refuse to meet me when I come the next
time.
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Problems of plenty Himachal Pradesh’s apple growers have learnt a lesson the hard way: a bumper crop does not always mean bumper returns. Apart from an unpredictable weather, the growers are faced with a volatile market and lack post-harvest handling capacity.
The Rs 2,200-crore apple industry, which is the mainstay of the hill state, has grown despite hurdles. The failure to regulate apple arrivals in the market makes consumers pay more while growers get lower returns. Inadequate processing and storage facilities increase the growers’ dependence on traders. The situation worsens during a glut when prices crash. The growers are vulnerable to exploitation by commission agents and wholesalers in Delhi’s Azadpur, Asia’s biggest fruit market, where almost 70 per cent of the state’s total apple produce is disposed of. The apple production in Himachal fluctuates between one crore standard boxes in 2002 and three crore boxes this year. However, returns to growers are uneven. The crop in the lower hill ranges, which reaches the market early, fetches higher returns than that from the middle and upper hills. This is a regular feature during bumper crops when a shortage of trucks and packaging material adds to the woes of growers. During the peak-harvest season from August 15 to September 15 around 900 to 1,000 trucks of apple are sent out to various markets. This year the figure has crossed 1,200 trucks due to a record production of over 3 crore standard boxes. It is not easy to arrange so many vehicles. Moreso because truck operators hesitate to ply vehicles on narrow hill roads, which are frequently blocked due to landslips triggered by heavy rain. The conditions of roads in the apple belt is always a matter of concern for both the administration and the growers as prolonged blockage delays the transportation of fruit to the market, which affects quality and, in turn, returns to the growers. This season the problem has been compounded by the ongoing work of widening the Theog-Hatkoti state highway passing through the apple belt. Almost 50 per cent of the total produce is transported thorough the road which is in bad shape. A Chinese company assigned the widening work has not been able to execute the project as per schedule due to visa problems and lack of funds. The entire stretch has become prone to landslips due to excavation work being carried out on the hillside. The work is not likely to be completed before 2013. Apple is grown mainly in the three hill states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The country contributes just 15 lakh tonnes of apples to the global production of about 58 million tonnes, which is negligible compared to 21 million tonnes produced by China. Globally, 71 per cent of the produce is consumed fresh and 20 per cent is processed to make apple butter, baking mixes, syrups and granolas. Nine per cent of the produce goes into making other products like packed natural juice, cider and jams. However, in India apple processing is only 0.64 per cent. Lack of controlled-atmosphere storage along with poor distribution infrastructure reduces farmers’ returns. The Chairman of the Himalayan Apple Growers' Society, Rajeev Chauhan, points out that cartels of middlemen hammer down prices for growers and escalate them for consumers. Apple is sold largely through commission agents in the country. The average returns to the growers range between Rs 20 and Rs 30 per kg for the good quality fruit which is retailed at Rs 80-120 per kg. The huge differential is pocketed by middlemen. Since the grower cannot hold back the produce, he has no option but to send the fruit to the market where a strong nexus of commission agents and wholesalers hammers down the price. To add to the problem the market is flooded by low-grade fruit procured under the market intervention scheme, severely affecting the price of the high quality produce. This season the government agencies will procure 65,000 tonnes of apple, an all-time high, of which 80 per cent will be sold in the market. The failure of the government to create the requisite post-harvest infrastructure and under-utilisation of the available facilities for processing apples has also complicated the situation. The state-owned Horticulture Produce Marketing and Processing Corporation (HPMC) has a capacity to process 20,500 tonnes apple annually but the average capacity utilisation is low. It has been as low as 27.84 per cent for the past six years in case of its biggest processing plant at Parwanoo, having a capacity of 19,400 tonnes. In a good year the state produces around five lakh tonnes of apple of which only 5,000 to 6,000 tonnes are processed. The main reason for the low capacity utilisation is that almost 95 per cent of the apple produced is the table fruit (sweetened varieties) and the processing grade fruit, which requires a higher acid content, accounts for only 5 per cent. In fact, the high-acid varieties like Golden, Kali Devi and Tideman are only those which are planted to serve as pollinators. The corporation faces problems in selling the apple juice concentrate (AJC) with a low-acid content as the bulk users require a high-acid content. The apple varieties being grown in the state have only 2.5 to 3 per cent acid whereas the processing grade fruit must have at least 3.5 per cent acid content. The country’s requirement for the AJC is over 7,000 tonnes but the production is only 2,500 tonnes. The rest of the demand is met through imports, mainly from China. The corporation at times procures the high-acid fruit from Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir. In 2008 almost one lakh bags of apple procured under the MIS rotted by the roadside as these could not be transported to the processing plant. The government now proposes to set up a new 20,000-tonne capacity plant at Pragatinagar in Kotkhai which will double the state’s processing capacity. As the new plant will be located in the heart of the apple belt, it will not only reduce the transportation cost but also save time and help maintain the quality of the fruit. It will also bring down the cost of production of the juice concentrate from Rs 70 to Rs 45 per kg making it competitive with the Chinese product. The government must encourage the production of the high-acid content fruit required for processing. It must be selective in providing the imported rootstock of the high-yielding varieties to the growers to ensure a proper mix of high acid and pollinating varieties. This could be achieved by making an approval of the orchard plans, particularly under the proposed Rs 85-crore rejuvenation project, from the Horticulture Department mandatory. Of late big companies like the Adani group, Reliance, ITC and Fresh and Healthy have entered the apple marketing business. Some of these companies have also set up controlled-atmosphere stores in the state where the high quality fruit procured from growers is kept and sold round the year. These companies together procure about 25 lakh boxes in a good year. A permanent solution to the marketing problem can be found if the government procurement agencies also set up cold stores and market the fresh high quality fruit like the private companies in a big way. The best thing about apple is that it can be kept in stores for as long as six months without any deterioration in quality. The stored apple can be marketed towards the end of December after apples from Kashmir are sold out. There is need to organise growers through cooperative societies for setting up more processing plants, cold stores and cold chain facilities to effectively regulate arrivals in the market. At present 14 per cent of the apple produce is lost because of inadequate post-harvest handling facilities.
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Climate change hits productivity THE apple revolution started after Independence but gained momentum only in the seventies. The area under the fruit shot up from 26,000 hectares in 1970 to 92,820 hectares in 2001. The increase in the area under apple continues as the fruit is now grown in non-traditional areas like the cold desert of Spiti, thanks to climate change.
However, productivity, which ranged between 9 and 10 tonnes per hectare three decades ago, has declined to 6 tonnes per hectare. In fact, the average yield for the past five years of the current decade has been even lower at around 5 tonnes per hectare. An indiscriminate use of fertilisers, pesticides and fungicides, inadequate pollination, failure to contain diseases and lack of irrigation facilities are responsible for the decline in productivity. Small growers neglect the orchards as returns have dwindled. ] Another reason for low productivity is that the ageing plantations are not being replaced. The productive life of an apple plant is 45 years and, as such, the plantations that came up in the 1950s should have been replaced a decade ago as new plants take seven years to come to fruit. At present more than 30 per cent of the plantations have completed their productive life. The rejuvenation project being launched is likely to improve the situation but the real impact will be seen only after a decade when new plantations start bearing fruit. The changing weather pattern is also affecting production. The average temperature has increased over the years. The monsoon has become erratic. Snow, considered ‘white manure’ for orchards, is becoming scarce, denying the plants the "chilling hours" necessary for maintaining dormancy. An average 1,200 to 1,800 chilling hours are required during which the average temperature should not exceed 7`degree Celsius which is not happening in the low and middle hills due to the receding snowline. Dry spells have become a regular feature during winter. — RL |
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Corrections and clarifications
l The word ‘assassination’ has been misspelt as ‘assasination’ in the blurb of the article “The Longowal Assassination: Did he die in vain?” on the edit page (August 20, The Tribune). l
The box subhead “Must needed” with the article “Relief glut in Leh” (Page 15, August 20, The Tribune) should have been “most needed”. l
The headline of the lead story on page one “MPs get 300 % hike, still unhappy” (August 21, The Tribune) has the percentage wrong. A raise in the salary from Rs 16,000 to Rs 50,000 makes the hike 200% or three-fold. l
The lead article’s headline “Your’s gratefully” (Lifestyle, August 23) should have been without the apostrophe. Despite our earnest endeavour to keep The Tribune error-free, some errors do creep in at times. We are always eager to correct them. This column appears twice a week — every Tuesday and Friday. We request our readers to write or e-mail to us whenever they find any error. Readers in such cases can write to Mr Kamlendra Kanwar, Senior Associate Editor, The Tribune, Chandigarh, with the word “Corrections” on the envelope. His e-mail ID is kanwar@tribunemail.com. Raj Chengappa
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