Cleaning India, Digitalising the world: Modi's Act in the East

PARUL KAUSHIK

November 24, 2014

            There are issues, many coming into the limelight after decades of silence, bigger than they look, of solidarity with your people and how they can contribute towards the country. A spellbinding magic is cast on NRI and PIOs as the 10- day tour of the Prime Minister to Myanmar, Fiji and Australia reaches destination India.

            The East Asian Summit, ASEAN- India Summit and many bilateral talks which dotted Modi's itinerary re-announced 'Make in India' and 'Swaccha Bharat' to the world, also reaffirming the pride in the tech province as Digitalising Myanmar was a give-away. Our neighbour in the North-East is a strategic buffer between India and China-- the two major powers of the region. Infrastructural development internationally to connect India- Myanmar- Thailand via road is not just to boost tourism.

            The address to Australian Parliament, bilateral meet at Canberra, G-20 leaders' Summit in Brisbane and the Melbourne Cricet Ground and sydney speeches marked the Australian stay of 'Rockstar' Modi. His outreach to Indians living here was phenomenal. The maturity in Indo-Australian relations is welcome but we should not forget that the lifting of ban on Uranium in India faced mass protest in the country. Paying that cost for a country where a leading institute doesn't show Kashmir on the map, for a country where our fellow Indian faced racial attacks, are they forgotten?

            Economy and energy were at the core of the G-20 discussions. the leaders of 85 per cent of the world population came together and agreed on certain ripe issues like female labour force, increasing the GDP of the world, infrastructural growth. We have to wait for the IMF reports on the implementation of the same to see what course did this two-day brainstorming actually takes. Certain issues like climate change suffered as the host country opined differently and strongly though jointly India and Australia agreed on a landmark framework for security cooperation across the spectrum in defence, cyber and maritime security and combating terrorism, including the threats posed by foreign fighters joining extremists groups.

            The next destination was 37 per cent Indian-- Fiji, where the media calls India "the Asian superpower." Modi succeeded in wooing the Indian Diaspora by announcing the merger of OCI and PIO status, and asked support for the Clean India Campaign. Surely, it lies in the heart of our PM. The island in the pacific can be used extensively to serve our purposes in the area with the demography supporting Indian causes and providing strength and a counter to China's 'string of pearls.'

            When the pro-active PM had started for the series of summits and numerous bilateral meetings by their sidelines, black money was a key issue, but as he came back, he had strengthened Brand India with not much spoken on black money. Why do issues change? Why is the focus of Modiplomacy so staggered?

            The Executive have to find their way, as meandering between several issues will fail to bear fruits even if the intentions are noble. Rebuilding historic connections in Myanmar, wooing the 'pravasi bhartiya' in Australia or empowering the ties with the pacific islands, all showcase a strong and welcoming India. The story is still rolling, and certainly the 'Act East' will have to be maintained as the leaders meet in Nepal for the SAARC summit, as we stand in competition with China and camaraderie with the rest of the east.

(Submitted to K.G. Suresh Sir on 26/11 )

The endangered source of life: a view from the third pole

Tibet, the roof of the world is the highest and the largest plateau that has ever existed on Earth. It is the source of six most important Asian rivers that have been the cradles and guardians of the world's most populous civilisations catering to 1.3 billion people. The huge landmass is called the third pole as it has the highest amount of ice spread in the world after the Arctic and Antarctic pole. The house of 46,000 glaciers is approaching desertification. This island in the sky acts as a carbon sink and prevents global warming and melting of the permafrost.

The health of the rainmaker should be a concern as the effects are not restricted to the Tibetan population alone but it concerns, beyond the survival of the Tibetans, the survival of half the humanity.

Every area has its own natural preservation and conservation mechanisms. For the Tibetan plateau, the nomads and their traditions and culture were the safeguards. The advent of the Chinese in the Tibetan land in 1959, not only led to the exploitation of natural endowments but also removal of Tibetan nomads. The resettlement was not properly addressed and their populace was restricted to small areas, preventing them from maintaining their livestock which has been their source of livelihood for generations. One of the last remaining agro-pastoral regions in the world has thrived because of their deep understanding of the grassland dynamics and veterinary knowledge possessed by these nomads maintaining a unique pastoral culture for more than 8,000 years. The Chinese policy of settling all Tibetan nomads forcibly in permanent structures by 2015 as a solution to environmental degradation has actually led to increased poverty, further environmental degradations and social breakdowns. According to recent research, the true managers of alpine pastures can help restore the degraded grasslands and help maintain a wider biodiversity of indigenous grasses, herbs and medicinally useful plants. The exclusion of the true guardians of this fragile ecosystem will only lead to irreparable damages, which the world cannot afford at the given stage.

The ever-growing Chinese dam-building ambitions have reduced the quantity and quality of water flowing to downstream countries and will continue to get worse if left unchecked, leading to disappearance of glaciers and also, desertification of the watertop of the world.

The unmonitored mining operations in the unique, resourceful and rich geology has been another cause for degrading environment. The opening up of his inaccessible area to foreign companies to mine and extract mineral resources has led to the violation of Tibetan people's fundamental right to determine how their economic resources are to be utilised. Fuelling of the Chinese economy with extraction of chromium, copper, salt, silver, gold, lithium, lead, zinc, asbestos, gas, magnesium, potash and uranium, at the enhanced risk of severe landslides, massive soil erosion and loss of wildlife habitat has led to protests by local residents.

Tibet is today paying for the development posed for its autocratic rulers. The railways, the roadways, the infrastructure, series of dams, mining, in the fraile, seismically active area will one day crumble and succumb to desert and that will have all the downstream population wailing. If the mouth of the river dries up, can the course be fertile, flowing and perennial, will the delta be a factory of biodiversity? The world has to realise the impact that the Tibetan climate change will have over the entire continent, and hold the capitalistic ambitions of the rulers for a greener, better and healthier tomorrow and work sensibly towards longer life of the plateau. :)

Should India pursue Nuclear Power?

Kudankulam, supposedly one of India's most successful nuclear power plants, faced a huge uproar by the civil society post the 2011 Fukushima disaster. Kudankulam repeated in almost all sites of the nuclear power plants. India has faced one of the World's worst industrial disasters in the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, where till now, neither the compensations have reached the grieved people nor the losses have been recovered. S. P. Udayakumar, an activist, at a conference said that the government ignores, insults and intimidates the people who are raising their voices against the menace of nuclear power. If the state is willing to pursue it in the plan documents, why does it suppress these voices. Don't they have answers to such upheavals?

It is a popular belief that the nuclear energy is a clean energy, but apparently a lot of mildly radioactive hot coolant water from these nuclear power plants is discharged into the seas. The flora and fauna of the coastal regions suffer unbelievably and the government is still not sensitive to the negative impact this energy has on Life. With the fiscal and current account deficits being a grave concern for our emerging economy, the imports of nuclear fuel like Uranium from countries like Australia, is heavy on our exchequer. The mining of Uranium is also not a safe practice, so does it not account for a reason good enough to discontinue our nuclear energy programs and instead look for cleaner and harmless sources of energy which sure are available in plenty, yet unexploited.

The liability of the investors in nuclear power is unreasonably low, yet God forbid, in situation of a disaster, the results are unacceptable and unimaginable. Nuclear energy constituted 18 per cent of the global electricity generation in 1996, but now 10.8 per cent electricity is obtained from nuclear sources. This shift is because of the awareness that the ill effects are far more than the amount of relief this energy provides in the form of electricity. Nuclear energy is creating waste that cannot be disposed and its poisoned arm is Nuclear electricity by which the government is trying to camouflage the damages. Is the real picture clear to us? Despite inflation of knowledge, ignorance about this issue is one realm that needs to be explored, a matter that must be examined because the consequences will be irremediable.

The smiles of future

Kids, aren’t they the same everywhere? Aren’t the challenges for the guardians the same and aren’t the solutions just skilful tender care so that the wet cement is cast in a way that beautifies the society at large? Kids are the future of this world, and it is no different for a ‘nation’ that is living in exile.

Every child has a different story, of how they had to separate from their parents, most of the times, forever. There is a place that realises the agony and the responsibility of such nascent beings and it is called Tibetan Children’s village. A place where deprived of the basic rights to life young steps enter hoping for a life tomorrow. Education, career, future prospects are not up for the fight but a tomorrow where they have a safe shelter and a little food is the ambition. This dream is nurtured and this safety is provided here  to these young minds which go abroad for further studies, work for the government n exile, carry forward the art and traditions, and many of them come back to give services to the TCV.

As you enter a home, others may understand it to be a hostel, you would be greeted by a happy bunch of kids and when you greet them the Tibetan way saying Tashi Delek, they beam with happiness. They invite you into their life and make you a part of their team, may they be playing golf with marbles or table-tennis on a stone slab with a football, and teach you the game with the rules. Ironically, how many of us do the same with them when they come into our life, our country, do we care enough to share with them our happiness and our realities  and do we mentor them on survival skills? do we share with them our art of living? Mostly, the answer to this question is negative as we treat them as aliens. They have been living in our country, many of them born in India, their generations have lived here in the highlands of Dharamshala. It has, indeed, become a home away from home for them.

People from Mcloedganj have been an acceptor, in the way they co-exist with the Tibetan community and they have got a home away from home. Except for a few untoward instances, the peace is profound in the region. We all have to learn from these people to accept people and share resources with them for the betterment of humankind, for us to grow not just as a nation, but as one big global family. These children at TCV don't have aspirations very different from what we have or our children are having. Let them blossom and spread the fragrance of goodness in the world. Can we be acceptor enough for their next generation to think of us in the same way as their previous generations have thought, as a friend, who stood by them in their difficult times. Let us not forget our roots and our emotions. Visit them, become a volunteer, help them in their chores and see for yourself, the difference just lies in the minds of people, but in reality we are all the same. ­­­­­­­Don't let the entropy become so high that the relationship that we have nurtured for years go waste.

Campus Report

On the 29th of August, the Students of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication were made aware of the Sexual Harassment at workplace legislation that has come up "Deconstructing the laws on Sexual Harassment" by Ms Giti Chandra at 3 p.m. at the institute's auditorium Manch. The speaker who is a  professor at St. Stephen's College and also a member of the Committee of this institute formed for sexual harassment at workplace at IIMC. The speaker started off with explaining what all sexual harassment encompass as harassment manifests itself in not just the extreme forms of rape, but in any forms which we might just ignore as a petty exception. A series of arguments and counter arguments ruled the discussion. Students shared their experiences and consulted the chair for their doubts. The divide between the males and females did come up a number of times but it was heartening to see that most people have already grown over their biases and were speaking for the betterment of the society and not for their own superiority.  With mass participation from the students' side, the meeting can be called a success. It is enriching to witness such enthusiasm in the students' about an unpopular topic, which is so because people are not comfortable talking about it. It can be seen as a positive beginning for a safe and secure campus. The students were encouraged to come to the committee if there is any problem, but more than that to showcase a sense of responsibility and to co-exist in harmony making the campus vibrant, yet safe. With valid concerns from both sides, the discussion ended at 5 p.m.

"Authorities are working hard to make it a success" - ARE THEY?

New Delhi, November 3: On a Monday afternoon, the empty stalls of Mahila Haat situated on the Asaf Ali Road, an ambitious project of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) to empower women providing them with cheap and centrally located retail spaces, raise several questions.

The project conceived by the erstwhile MCD in 2009, became fully functional in 2012 with an inflated budget of Rs. 5 crore, with a dual objective of empowering women while providing a unique shopping experience in Old Delhi.

"It has not been much of a success as a project itself, but it is a success in the sense that women get an opportunity to come out of their homes and experience a business environment. They not only create the products but also get the courage to make links with other markets and businesses for a better living. It brings the women to the fore, outside the boundaries of their homes," said Basanti, a helper serving here since a year and a half.

The campus looked attractive and the gardens were well retained. "Mira Agrawal, NDMC Mayor inspected the haat last Friday but gave no further instructions," informed Rajkumari, the committee worker who is the in charge of the Mahila Haat.

The doors of Mahila Haat remained closed on Saturday, despite a vivid banner hung at the gates claiming, "Open all seven days, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m." Ajay, of the Delhi Civil Defence, talking behind the closed doors on Saturday said -- "the scene was very different in winters last year. This has not been faring well since the past summer." The receding number of allotted stalls on a chart in the office of the complex echoed the same story. The in charge told that 'the allotments were pending with the higher officials' -- the mahila haat suffering from red-tapism, still awaits the red carpet.

A series of closed storerooms, stalls in the scorching sun and huge boxes to keep the sellable products (due to faulty stall basements which give way to water, damaging the products) presented a pitiable picture of a pretty place.)

The empowerment fizzled as Basanti remarked that 'the sellers who currently have stalls are forced to get a permanent stall as it provides a cheap place for business in the heart of Delhi. This has hampered the seriousness which is expected out of the sellers in this market, to bring their hand-made products and make profit with them while providing unique women- friendly environment to sell as well as shop. The men are still in-control of the situation, not from the front but surely as the facade of women empowerment is still engaging the general public. On the visitors' end, the rule of a male entering only if accompanied by family, has already been relaxed.

The workers have an easy life here, as there is no work at all for them, but they wish for the place to become more vibrant in the coming days as the MCD cultural fair will commence here from seventh november and invite both sellers and visitors. In a situation where the rents have been doubled from rupees 600 per day to 1200 per day for the smallest stall and respectively for the bigger stalls along with the lack of publicity, if this remains a wishful thinking or as they say 'the authorities are working hard to make it a success' doctrine will come true, is a different story that shall unfold in the coming week.

30 years later, Bhopal today

New Delhi, November 10: "kal ka bharosa nahi, hum to 30 saal intezaar kar chuke; bahut hote hai 30 saal," mourned Zarina Bi with teary eyes as she reached Delhi this morning with her husband, protesting against Dow Chemicals and heedless government, 30 years after the tragedy at Bhopal.

Even before she started talking, her eyes were watery, a consequence of the gas leak and the contaminated environment, toxic land, water and air, she has been living in, for past 35 years in Shahjahanabad in old Bhopal. She suffers serious health problems today-- diabetes, blood pressure, kidney problems, but is that it? She lost her father-in-law, two months after the deadly night of 2-3 December and her son ten years ago. After the heinous corporate crime in 1984, she gave birth to a daughter, who suffers similar health issues.

The survivors were given health cards for treatment in the Bhopal Memorial Hospital, where the treatment provided had been satisfactory. The progeny of these surviving mothers are not entitled to any such medical aid. The private doctors charge much, the government hospitals are in a deplorable state and the financial conditions of these poor people doesn't allow them to reach proper medical support.

 The only ray of hope was the compensation promised by the company responsible for the disaster-- Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant in Bhopal, but to the utter dismay of the victims, they only got 25,000 rupees as compensation, not all of them were fortunate enough though.

" '84 seems just like yesterday, 30 years later, the coming generations were ruined, the situation went from worse to worst, not one day but annihilation of generations," remarked Rasheeda Bi, the leader of Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationary Karmchari Sangh, a trade union of those illiterate women who stood against the atrocities they were facing, when they had no other way out.

Naazma, another survivor narrated a similar story and belonged to a family which was a victim of this inter-generational disaster. "Our whole family has come under the grips of the toxicity of the effluents from carbide plant. The air we breathe, the water we drink and the land we live on is still poisoned." It has already reached the third generation where her nephew was born with damaged kidneys, just like his father.

Every person present there was a story that was made invisible-- are they or are they not?, today they are raging a war of identity as the victims of this catastrophe struggle to prove they are victims, they had a colony to their names for such a long time but to avail compensations and the like of it, the widows undergo a grueling process.

25,000 dead and counting...

half a million poisoned

150,000 battling chronic illness

10s of 1000s of second generation children

marked by carbide's poisons

30 years later, Bhopal today.

Nomad forever?

New Delhi, September 17

The nomadic Gujjars and Bakerwals of Jammu are one of the few nomadic tribes that still exist in India. They are high altitude shepherds and goatherds who migrate to hilly areas during summers and come down to the plains in winter. The devastating Jammu and Kashmir floods spared no one as the patron of the Gujjar Bakerwal Student Welfare Committee, Talib, lost his family in the landslide following the flood. He was not at his home when the calamity struck, but he came back to see that his house had come under the mountain as if nothing had ever existed there. There was no sign of life. His home had been washed off, his parents were not found, his neighbourhood appeared alien to him. According to his friend, Arif Hussain Choudhary, a resident of Janipura, Jammu, Talib lived in Anantnag district which is one of the worst hit areas.

Arif informed, "Volunteers are doing well, Government is doing its best but army is quite selective as it tries to rescue the tourist first and then the locals. Many people lost their lives and now dead bodies are emerging out of water. With such grave magnitude of the loss of life and property, normalcy is a distant dream though the water is now receding."

He observed that everyone was playing their political card when they should come together to save lives. Kashmiri pandits are saying that the Kashmiri Muslims are facing the brunt of God because they forced pandits to leave Kashmir. He expressed his agony as he said, "Everything is being related to Islam and Muslims in incredible India. Some Muslims may be bad but not Islam." 

JNU- A CULURE OF DEBATE AND DISCUSSION

New Delhi, September 21       

In the aftermath of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Student Union elections, the heated discussions in the JNU campus have simmered.  Is it so, because the season of politics is a thing of the past or were the students bogged down by their upcoming examinations and presentations. Is it so, because the expectations from the victors leave no space for any further questions or because the others are busy in formulating strategies for the road ahead?

JNU students have moved out of the election phase and the campus has now settled into its academic province. Amidst these rushes to the library, was also the Presidential candidate of SFI, Pingali Ambedkar, who said that there is hardly any activity visible on the campus as the winning party was never going to do anything. This lull was  a result of depoliticizing the students, degrading the debate and discussion culture.

Quality of discussion has gone down because of the cynicism ideology taking its rounds in the campus. A style of politics that is different from all other institutes has sustained here because of the 'debate and discussion culture'.  The General Body Meeting, which is supposed to happen twice every semester and keep everyone aware  has still not taken place, so the fodder for discussion is diluted.

The political culture, post the Lyngdoh Committee recommendations, has undergone a shift as the elections are now conducted in the early part of the academic year. By numbers, the maximum voters are first year students, who are mostly seeing such politics for the first time and are blinded by the perks they receive during the campaign. Parties catch them young and the persistent issue of hostel crisis takes its roots. The student develops a feudal relationship with the person who gets them the hostel. So, the progressive politics of JNU is seeing a shift to PR politics, which definitely is not a healthy trend.

A democratic campus, where students really have a say in everything that is going on, has made it possible for the left to sustain itself in the campus. The student faculty committees(SFC), GSCASH, equal opportunity office, and with this the research oriented students which form a majority are watchful of the actions and inactions of the union. They have time to analyse things.

The absence of elections from 2008-2012 have degraded the quality of both elections and discussions. According to one student, this resulted in a generation of students completely unaware of active student politics which has had its negative repercussions. The onus is on everyone to revive the fighting and questioning culture of JNU. Another student agreed that bringing the active politics back into the campus requires conscious efforts.

While the campus was still covered with the election posters, Kabeer, a student from Bangladesh said he voted for Ashutosh as he was impressed  by his arguments in the presidential debate. He voiced a serious concern over the disturbance created during elections, which makes studying impossible. When people come to interact, they would ask for two minutes but go on and on and on. The noise is sometimes unbearable.

Neeraj, a student of information technology said, "The strongholds have remained so for a long time now and there seems to be no change in it because the organisation that a centre supports becomes a part of the culture."

Sudhir Verma, a research scholar in the School of International Studies said, "JNU is the little democracy of India. Modi in the center has reflected in the ascent of ABVP in the union elections as well. Eliteness of politics is excluded in JNU."

JNU is like a sandalwood forest, where not only the sandalwood trees but also the other trees in the vicinity start smelling like sandalwood. JNU politics is one such example where every organisation is with a softer, yet rational and logical tinge. A place where there is a strong counter for every ideology, even the left organisations have differing degrees of leftism,  A place where elections are fought not on the basis of money and muscle power, but on the basis of ideology and intellect, a place where man-to-man campaigning is still stronger than the intrusion of social media, a place where the elections are a celebration of Democracy, JNU continues to give us optimism that the future of our democracy as a nation is both informed and secure, provided the culture of debate and discussion is preserved and popularised throughout the country.

Let there be PEACE

For what is sometimes just an event in history, reduced to a paragraph in history pages, how much it changes life is unimaginable for the one who hasn't been through it. Heard a family's story from the partition times and it killed me, it was monstrous, horrendous, but for me it just had been about the two nation theory and the Mountbatten plan. The value of anything in life is the amount of life you exchange for it; and how much have people lost in the partition has still not been recovered. Why? Because this old man who was a teen when the partition happened still wants to go home, is reading about it, talking about it, trying to rediscover his identity. His hometown is Lahore, but his home, his palace, he doesn't know what happened of it. For the history was dead when 1947 happened, and for memories were lost, but people usually have their last wish to die at home in peace, he has no hope of going home. Such an identity crisis not for just one person but for the whole family, the whole clan. Their grandchildren have heard their hometown is Lahore, Pakistan, but they say they are settled in Delhi. A one page event in a history book, took away lives and lives, and the life people had made for themselves; to never be found again, memories that are deeply etched in the hearts of people and the pain that transcends through generations of the grieved.

But did we take any learning from the past? Did 1947 not happen again? It certainly did, and it kept happening. Muzaffarnagar would have never happened if we were sensitive to the pain that people went through in such riots. Are we not human enough to understand that these acts of violence just topple peoples' life. Life is a misery for them and for all of us who don't approve of violence, who have a heart to understand that the gains are not as big but the losses can't even be evaluated. Imagine suddenly being thrown out of your home at once, and never come back again; I can't even imagine what it would be like, but people have been through it and are still going through it, may it be muzaffarnagar or be it Gaza.

Let there be peace. The price we are paying for violence and that we have already paid can never be recovered. Nobody gains from loss of lives. Ashoka understood this when he was a victor of Kalinga war, but could he sleep in peace, could he celebrate his victory; No, because he bloodshed, the massacre, the wailing children, the crying widows, the limping men, the disappearing humanity was not equivalent to the state he just won. He could never undo what happened at Kalinga but he understood this truth of life to never go back to a battlefield ever again spreading the message of peace and love. Today, we call him Ashoka - the great, but even he faultered but he is great because he could change. Let us all change for the better, better of oneself and better of humankind.