Round The States

New Delhi, 30 April 2008

Foodgrains For BPL Families

NDA STATES RUBBISH SONIA SERMON

By Insaf

UPA Chairperson, Sonia Gandhi’s latest homily to the States has been rubbished by most NDA and non-Congress Chief Ministers. Addressing a rally near Malda, West Bengal on Monday last, Sonia sought to absolve the Centre for the blame of price rise saying: “It is easy to criticize the Centre, but it is imperative that the State Governments fulfil their responsibilities. They should come down on black marketers and hoarders and ensure availability of foodgrains through the PDS.” What is more, she added: “If the funds are utilized without discrimination the life of the people would improve”. But, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan, for one couldn’t disagree more reflecting the general mood. He even went on a 24-hour fast with his people on Wednesday to protest against the Centre’s discrimination against the State and “continued indifference” towards Bhopal’s pending demand for drought relief and allocation of foodgrains.

In a recent letter to the Prime Minister, the BJP Chief Minister pointed out that while his Government was offering incentives to farmers to procure more foodgrains for the PDS, the Centre was cutting corners. Its allocation of 35 kg foodgrains per BPL family was barely enough for 41.25 lakh families, whereas the number of families on the rolls totalled 62.5 lakhs. In addition, the Centre needed to allocate 1.19 lakh metric tonnes of foodgrains per month for the Above Poverty Line (APL) families. Worse, the allocation under APL was much higher for Congress and UPA run States. In the first six months of 2007-08 Tamil Nadu had been allotted 14.50 lakh metric tonnes, Andhra Pradesh 11.37 lakh, Karnataka 6.90 lakh and West Bengal 3.6 lakh metric tonnes. In sharp contrast, Madhya Pradesh was allotted only 66,000 metric tonnes. Ally CPM, too has not been able to digest Sonia’s sermon.  Commented Jyoti Basu: “Her words are not important.”

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J&K Militants Secure Voter I-Cards

The Election Commission (EC) has gone into a tizzy in its preparation for the Assembly election in Jammu and Kashmir this October. In an unprecedented security breach, electoral photo-identity cards were found on the bodies of two slain Pakistani militants in Handwara, Kupwara District, early this year. The cards were genuine and not faked by militants, as the State police would have liked to imagine. The names and address were correct, but the militants’ photos were put on the I-cards. Obviously, stating that it was an inside job, by an official in the electoral registration office (ERO). While one person has been arrested, the EC has decided to put on hold issuance of any fresh I-cards. It is to consider among other issues the possibility of whether it could replace all 40-lakh cards, first issued for the 2002 election. A meeting with State election officials has been called next week.

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Astrologers In Poll Demand

Astrologers are having a field day in Karnataka as the State moves towards its crucial Assembly poll, the outcome of which is anybody’s guess. Those close to the Congress and the BJP have again predicted that their best chance of defeating H.D. Deve Gowda and his sons, including former Chief Minister, H.D. Kumaraswamy, is by putting up women candidates against them. (Remember Deve Gowda lost the last Lok Sabha election from Kanakapura when pitted against a Congress newcomer Tejaswini Sriramesh). Consequently, the Congress has done two things. First, it fielded a woman candidate against Deve Gowda’s elder son and former Minister H.D. Revanna. Now it has pitted former Chief Minister, late Ramakrishna Hegde’s elder daughter, amiable Mamta Nichani, against Kumaraswami from the Ramanagara seat. The candidate against Revanna is one S.G. Anupama, daughter-in-law of the arch rival of Deve Gowda, late G. Puttaswamy from Holenarasiapura. Meanwhile, Kumaraswamy has ended speculation that he would contest from two Assembly constituencies in the first phase of the poll on May 10.

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No Sex Education In Maharashtra  

Introduction of sex education in schools in Maharashtra is clearly a no-go. The Education Minister Vasant Purkhe’s announcement that sex education would be made compulsory from class IX in the next academic year was met with furore and strong resistance from MLAs. Cutting across party lines, the Shiv Sena, BJP and NCP legislators had the following to say: the move was a “western conspiracy to corrupt local culture”, it would lead to “love gurus and sex gurus” being appointed and that the “issue is against all religions and that children should not be corrupted.” Sensing the members’ touchiness about educating students about the birds and the bees, the Speaker Babasaheb Kupekar has asked the Government to put its decision on hold and first consult educationsists, social activists and MLAs who had studied the issue.

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Villagers Turn Millionaires

Farmers are for once happily at the ‘receiving end’. A village in Punjab is proof enough. Around 175 farmers of Jhurheri village, in Mohali have become millionaires overnight. On Saturday last, they received cheques ranging from Rs. 4 crore to Rs 10 crore from the Land Acquisition Officer. The whopping amount was “compensation” for their lands acquired by the Government for extending the Chandigarh international airport. Interestingly, the rate applied was Rs 1.5 crore per acre, the highest ever in the country! The Government will disburse Rs 360 crore as compensation to a total of 222 farmers. Life for some, who were finding it tough to survive on small chunks of land, can now start afresh. In fact, perhaps for many others too, if only they would cite this case if necessary.  

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Workers Shortage in Tea Industry

The tea industry captains in Assam are a worried lot. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is cutting into their workforce. Not only is the number of plantation workers falling, worse it is so during peak plucking and pruning season (April-December).  Two divisions of Chandipur tea estate in Barak or Surma Valley had 400-odd workers this week, as against a normal strength of 600-700 workers. The management realized that they were among the 75 large tea estates which were facing a “NREG induced labour shortage.” The reason being a Rs 30 difference in wages--while tea gardens pay 48.65 per day to plantation workers, the NREGS ensures Rs 77 per day. The situation, according to an official of Indian Tea Association, is “getting out of hand,” but is hopeful of tiding over the crisis.

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Camels Make It Good

Incredibly enough the camel is in the news—for reasons both good and bad. The good news is that the camel has become dearer. The price of the camel in the Thar Desert, over the years has gone up primarily for two reasons: One, with the fuel prices escalating the animals are now replacing the tractors in farm-rich areas under the Indira Gandhi Canal system and are more in demand. Two, its milk is an elixir, now a cure for diabetes. Thus, gone are the days when the price a camel fetched was that of a goat. Instead, the herders now fetch Rs. 1.5-2 lakhs for a camel. The bad news is that the camel population is dwindling. In the 2007 livestock census it had come down to 4.30 lakh, from 6.68 lakh in 1997 and 4.98 in 2003. But now that the camel is fetching more, the demand for breeding the traditional ship of the desert is certain to go up. Moreover, fewer would come under the butcher’s knife for its meat. ---INFA

 (Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

Economic Highlights

New Delhi, 29 April 2008

Elusive SAFTA

OPEN MARKET TO SAARC NATIONS

By Dr. Vinod Mehta

(Former Research Director, ICSSR)

 Fourteen SAARC Summits have been held till date, but the South Asia Free Trade Area (SAFTA) is yet to take off!   While ASEAN and EU are reaping the benefits of a common market, South Asian countries continue to lag behind. Since the start of our liberal economic policies we have been opening up our market to foreign goods and investments, such as China and South East Asia. While we have signed FTA with Thailand, SAFTA is still elusive.

This raises the question: what should India do? With Pakistan unwilling to extend the MFN (Most Favoured Nation) status, should we keep waiting for it to act, or considering that India is a large country, should it unilaterally become more liberal towards imports and investments from small neighboring countries?

The relatively strained relations with Pakistan, which are showing signs of thawing, should not come in the way of trade and economic relations between India and other SAARC countries. Note that there is a huge potential for trade and economic links with Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives. With its elections over, Nepal is likely to concentrate a lot more on its economy to fight the widespread poverty and unemployment. As for Pakistan, with the new civilian coalition government in saddle, its attitude towards India may too change.

What about us? Well, at this stage we can afford to be a bit more generous with our smaller neighbours.  We need not become hyper-sensitive to being labeled as ‘big brother’ by some quarters in these countries. Both territory and population-wise, India is relatively much bigger than all SAARC countries put together. In economic terms too, India is large -- one huge market perhaps the size of EEC.

Besides, its GDP is much higher than its neighbours and at the moment India is enjoying a large and comfortable volume of foreign exchange reserves that it hadn’t seen in the past five decades. The Indian economy is growing at an average rate of 9 to 10 per cent per annum, which is a reasonable rate of growth. Reasons enough for us to be more liberal than what we had been in the past.

Apart from economic gains, India should also aim to earn the goodwill of the people of these countries by being more accommodative towards them. At the moment, Bangladesh is having adverse trade balance with India. There should be no problem for India to allow duty free import of certain Bangladeshi products like jamdani sarees and hilsa fish. Already some retail outlets in Delhi are selling biscuits from Bangladesh which are as good as any Indian manufactured ones and have not posed any threat to our producers.

In fact, India could make similar gestures to other neighbouring countries especially Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Maldives and allow their products to have an access to the Indian market in a big way. We have no reason to get paranoid that the neighbours’ goods would flood our markets. Their production bases are so small that it will call for huge investment before they can produce goods on a scale, which can flood the Indian market. In fact, following liberalization many Indian companies have shifted their production base to some of these countries.

India’s external trade is today mainly oriented towards the US. The EEC and a few West Asian countries, and ASEAN would come second. As for SAARC, the trade turnover between India and its member countries is so small that it does not even attract attention in our annual Economic Surveys.

A few years ago when we opened up our economy, it was feared that cheap Chinese goods would flood the Indian market. While this did happen in a big way, the Chinese had to beat a hasty retreat as their quality was sub-standard. The Indian consumer refused to accept these even though they were relatively cheaper. Compared to China, our South Asian neighbours are small in every respect and unlike China would not be able to dump their goods on the Indian market.

There are also many additional opportunities to expand cooperation with the SAARC nations. For instance, the tourist sector within this   region has been neglected for long. While tourism has a low capital investment, it is relatively a high-earning potential. At one point of time, daily air services to link the capitals of all the SAARC countries was under consideration. This idea could be revived. We should learn from the ASEAN experience, wherein its capitals are linked by air and they have special low airfares for travel within the countries.

This apart, wherever possible rail, road and sea links must be strengthened among the SAARC countries. With Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh we can develop world-class road and rail links for speedy movement of both goods and people. With Sri Lanka, Maldives and Bangladesh we can develop sea links.

India must also take a lead in admitting more members.  It may be a good idea to allow other countries like Afghanistan and Burma to become full members, while Central Asian countries could be admitted as dialogue partners. It is India, which can take the initiative by lobbying with SAARC nations. And, if it calls for amending the original SAARC charter, India should be able to carry other members along with it.

Let’s take the example of Afghanistan. It is engaged in reconstructing its economy and not only needs humanitarian aid but also trade. If Afghanistan is admitted as a member of SAARC it would be easier for countries like Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and India to send goods by road through Pakistan as the latter would find it difficult to block transit facilities to Kabul.

Yet again, land-locked Central Asian nations like Uzbekistan, Tajikististan, Kyrghistan and Kazakhstan, too are looking for trade opportunities through land routes with India. If they become dialogue partners or associate members of the SAARC, it would again be difficult for Pakistan to stop the movement of Central Asian goods to India, Nepal and Bangladesh through its territory and vice-versa.

It is time India becomes active in SAARC by winning over its small neighbours. Allow them some duty free goods to India which are of importance to them. Let these nations also share India’s higher growth rate. For, India will benefit by large trade turnover within the region in the long run. ---INFA

 (Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

Open Forum

New Delhi, 1 May 2008

PSLV Mission

RECORD LAUNCH FOR INDIA

By Radhakrishna Rao

For India it was a red letter day. And for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), a memorable mission that created a record in the chronicles of space exploration. The 230-tonne, four-stage Indian space work horse PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) in its core alone version successfully orbited as many as 10 satellites in one go on the sunny morning of April 28.

It did so without the usual six strap-on boosters strung around the first stage and after an impressive and smooth blast off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota Island on the eastern coast. Never before has an Indian launch vehicle performed such a remarkable feat. This 13^th consecutive flight of PSLV, featuring alternate liquid and solid fuel driven stages by deploying the satellite payloads weighing 824-kg, proved its “versatility, reliability and flexibility”.

By all means, this PSLV mission was as much challenging as it was complicated. For each of the satellite was required to be deployed in orbit in a sequential manner with clockwork precision to obviate the possibility of collision. As an Indian space expert pointed out the challenge of this mission was that the fourth and final stage of the vehicle had to re-orient the satellites to ensure their smooth delivery into the required orbit.

Moments after the launch, a visibly jubilant ISRO Chairman G.Madhavan Nair said: “This is a memorable occasion for ISRO and India. We have set a new record by launching 10 satellites in one go, using a single launch vehicle. Very few countries have done it. Russia launched 13 satellites at a time. We do not know the result. We have, however, shown the world that we can do multiple launches in a precise manner.”

Of course, this is not for the first time that PSLV has accomplished multiple launches. On three earlier occasions it had pulled off multiple launches involving satellites of foreign customers. Similarly, this is for the third time that the core alone version of the launch vehicle has been pressed into service. The PSLV in its full configuration with six strap-on motors attached to the first stage weighs around 295-tonne It’s a good experience to launch so many satellites because it was quite an involved and complex task, according to Dr.B.N.Suresh, former director, Thiruvananthapuram-based Vikram Sarbahai Space Centre (VSSC), the largest Indian space establishment responsible for designing and developing launch vehicles.

While the fully Indian-built advanced earth observation satellites  Cartosat-2A weighing 690-kg constituted the main payload of the PSLV mission, the other Indian remote sensing satellite IMS 1 weighing 83–kg along with eight nano satellites from foreign universities constituted the other passengers onboard  PSLV. In all they weighed 823-kg and it took around 15 minutes for the PSLV to place them into the orbit.

The data being made available by Cartosat-2A, a follow-up to Cartosat-2 mapping satellite launched earlier will have applications both in the civilian and defence sectors. In fact, though the defence establishment has evinced keen interest in the potentials of Cartosat-2A, ISRO has described the satellite as a purely civilian one. The satellite featuring a panchromatic camera with a resolution of better than one metre was built at ISRO’s   Bangalore-based Satellite Centre. ISRO says that high resolution Cartosat-2A data will be valuable in planning urban infrastructure, rural roads, ring roads and human settlements.

According to ISRO, the “highly agile Cartosat-2A is steerable along as well as across the direction of its movement.” As a follow up to this, ISRO is planning to develop an earth observation satellite systems featuring an imaging system having a resolution of around 30-cm.

On the other hand, IMS-1 earlier known as Third World Satellite (TWSAT) incorporates many new technologies and miniaturised systems for natural resources study with a focus on water and vegetation. The distinct feature of IMS-1 is that it carries a hyper-spectral camera operating in both the visible and near-infrared regions of the electro magnetic spectrum. Interestingly, IMS will serve as a trial platform to hyper spectral camera which will also be used in India’s first lunar mission Chandrayaan-1 slated for launch this July. Chandrayaan-1 is getting ready for launch by means of an augmented version of PSLV.

“The data from IMS-1 will be made available to interested space agencies and student community from developing countries” said a ISRO statement. The IMS-1 is envisaged as a space platform for a series of low-weight and low-cost satellites for a variety of missions, including remote sensing and space science studies. It was designed and developed by the ISRO Satellite Centre.

The eight nano satellites that were launched by PSLV formed a part of the contract with Antrix Corp, Bangalore-based commercial arm of the space programme. These mini satellites, meant to demonstrate the efficacy of small satellite technology for a variety of end uses, were built by the universities in Canada, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands. Six of these satellites were bundled together under the collective name of NLS-4. Along with two other satellites NLS-5 and RUBIN-8, they weighted 50 kgs.

The launch of eight nano satellites has brought Antrix Corp a modest fee of US $ 0.6-million. This PSLV mission has buoyed up the spirits of Antrix, which has been on the look out to expand its market for launching small and medium class satellites. Its Executive Director K.R. Sridhara Murthy has said that discussions are already on with a couple of players for more commercial launches which would take place this year. “Countries around the world are looking for low launch cost options and this is where we come in,” he added. Murthy also revealed that a mini satellite from Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University and a set of Cubesats from Netherlands would be launched as piggyback payloads onboard PSLV.

Murthy couldn’t have summed up better: Not only is the PSLV a reliable and cost-effective launch vehicle, it has got a good brand value. It has flexibility. It can launch nano, mini and big satellites. It is versatile. It can launch satellites into any type of orbit that our customers want. All these attract customers.

Meanwhile, in about seven years from now, India will be able to send two of its astronauts into space onboard the three-stage Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV). For the past four years, ISRO has been conducting studies on sending a manned capsule into orbit and the Government has sanctioned around Rs.950-million for doing the initial studies on it. In about six months the project might get its final approval. Let us wait and watch. --INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

Open Forum

New Delhi, 24 April 2008

Nuclear Deal

WHY IS IT STILL CRUCIAL?

By T.D. Jagadesan

Homi Jehangir Bhabha, a great advocate of civil nuclear energy who envisioned that abundant availability of nuclear energy--both fission and fusion together--would serve to eliminate poverty, was acutely aware that India was short of uranium and had plentiful thorium. Therefore, even at an early stage he formulated the three-stage nuclear energy plan--heavy water natural uranium reactor at the first stage, fast breeder at the second and thorium-bred uranium 233 reactor at the third stage. He further hoped that fusion energy would be tapped in about 50 years’ time. Therefore, uranium shortage in India should not come as a surprise to those interested in the country’s advance in nuclear energy programme.

According to M.R. Srinivasan, nuclear reactor engineer and former Chairman, Department of Atomic Energy, (DAE) India has only about 1,00,000 tonnes of uranium on the ground and this will be sufficient to support 10,000 MW heavy water-natural uranium reactors for their lifetime. While, some complacency on the part of the DAE in the early 90s may have led to the serious uranium crunch our reactors face now, he rightly highlighted that there is a long-term Uranium shortage if our nuclear power programme has to go beyond 10,000 M.W. He has also pointed out that without at least 50,000 MW reactors producing plutonium the country cannot have a viable thorium-bred uranium-233 programme.

This situation was fully known to the NDA government. When it initiated the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership (NSSP) negotiation, it was ready to put under safeguards two of the then operating reactors and full future reactors. Since at that time only 10 reactors were under operation (four more came on stream between 2004 and 2006), the NDA government felt that eight reactors, not under safeguards, would be adequate to sustain our strategic programme. The present separation plan is more or less the same.

Presumably because the then Natural Security Advisor, Brajesh Mishra, was fully aware of our uranium crunch situation and the magnitude of our strategic requirements, he has come out in favour of India going ahead with the 123 agreement with the US and thus saving the future of our nuclear energy programme.

Srinivasan was among the nuclear scientists who signed a letter to Parliament specifying the conditions that needed to be fulfilled before the Indo-US nuclear deal could be considered as acceptable by the scientific community. After the finalization of the 123 draft, he, Secretary, DAE and Chairman Atomic Energy Commission Anil Kakodkar and others have come out in favour of India going ahead with the Indo-US nuclear agreement. Now, he is sounding an alert about the risks to India’s nuclear future if the Indo-US agreement is not signed.

The data published by the Nuclear Power Corporation has made it clear that all our reactors are operating at 50 per cent capacity and according to Srinivasan they will continue to operate at that low capacity for the next five years, unless India is able to sign the 123 agreement and import uranium. This situation poses a challenge to the opponents of the 123 agreement other than the Left, which is in any case against our strategic progarmme and not enthusiastic about civil nuclear energy for India.

What about those who took pride in the fact that they made India a nuclear weapon power? Do they want to wind up the Indian nuclear weapons and civil progamme? It is well-known that the decision to conduct a nuclear test, formulation of a nuclear command and control arrangements and the entire nuclear policy had to be kept highly classified and only a few top leaders of the BJP were fully acquainted with it. The former NSA has come out in favour of the treaty Former Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, while not responding to Manmohan Singh’s appeal for support, has not come out against it. In these circumstances, to whom will the NDA’s prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani, turn to for sound advice?

He can consult Brajesh Mishra or talk to Kakodkar, Srinivasan and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram or retired service chiefs and retired foreign secretaries. The issue is too serious for the party, which rightfully claims to have made India a nuclear weapon power to depend upon those who are less than well-informed on the issue.

The situation portrayed by Srinivasan is known all over the world. Therefore, if India misses out on the present opportunity it is not likely to get as good a deal for quite some time to come. While as the leader of the party which established India as a nuclear weapon state Advani has his responsibilities cut out to support the deal. The Prime Minister too has a responsibility to summon leaders across the political spectrum, including the NDA and nuclear scientists and explain the consequences of not going ahead with the 123 agreement.

There will be people who would like to ask why this situation was not brought to the notice of the people and Parliament earlier. The reason is quite obvious. While negotiating an agreement one does not want to disclose the weakness of one’s hand. The question facing the NDA leadership is clear: Will it be the party that established India as a global nuclear weapon power or will it go down in history as the party which contributed to India’s nuclear power programme winding up? ----INFA

 (Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)