Education cannot be a business : Dr. Kalam

Former President APJ Abdul Kalam said education cannot be categorised as a business product or system and only great teachers can inspire quality learning.

Addressing the students of Maharaja Sayajirao University and Prince Ashokraje Gaekwad School at two separate functions on Wednesday night, Dr. Kalam said, “It is not the great building or a great facility or great advertisements which give quality, but loveable education and great teachers do.”

“Education at the primary level has to be delivered in an integrated way by great teachers through great syllabus and by promoting affinity between parents, students and teachers. It cannot be business product or system,” he said.

He suggested educational institutions to introduce cutting edge technologies for enabling the students to make faster progress in their learning process.

Capacity building through education will enable students to deal with the real world, particularly to grow in their professional career and participate in the national development, he said.

Research creativity, innovation, ability to use high technology, entrepreneurial leadership, and moral leadership capacities are to be built up among students in their formative years by educational institutions for their participation in nation building tasks, Dr. Kalam said.

“If we develop in all our students these five capacities, we will produce ‘Autonomous Learner’ a self—directed, self controlled, lifelong learner who will have the capacity to both respect authority and at the same time is capable of questioning authority, in an appropriate manner,” he said.

Dr. Kalam also emphasised the need on students planting at least five trees and nurturing them for clean environment.

The challenges of corruption and moral turpitude in the nation, environmental degradation and need of building a compassionate society have to be overcome for making the country economically developed nation by 2020, he said.

Dr. Kalam also opened a scheme of Ramkrishna Mission Memorial which was launched at the youth convention at the C C Mehta auditorium of MS University as part of the 150th birth anniversary celebration of Swami Vivekananda.

The missing sentiment in polity

Bahujana hitaya, bahujana sukhaya

By Dr R Balashankar

"Bahujana hitaya, bahujana sukhaya." This has for long been the motto laid down for Indian rulers. The Indian ideal of statecraft so fascinated the sixth century Japanese prince Shotoku Taishi that he adopted bahujana hitaya as his country's motto and carved the first Constitution of Japan as Seventeen Articles Constitution based on it. He took the Sanskrit text Usnisavijaya dharani which contains these verses for the consecration of the Constitution in 552 AD. He wrote commentaries and these verses are still recited in daily rituals.

On her second return as Prime Minister, after the defeat of the Janata Party in 1980, late Indira Gandhi dismissed all Janata governments and held fresh elections. At that time Congress adopted the bahujana hitaya as its election slogan and plastered all over Delhi posters with Indira Gandhi's reassuring, smiling pictures with these lines on the top. Attending many election rallies as a cub reporter I remember the great BJP leader Atal Behari Vajpayee taking a dig at the Congress battle cry saying, 'bahujana hitaya bahujana sukhaya is a fantastic ideal. The poet attributed these words as the utterances of Gautama Buddha as he renounces his kingdom, palace, beautiful consort and toddler son and takes to sanyas for the emancipation of humanity. The words jar on the lips of Indira Gandhi who is out to perpetuate her dynastic rule undermining all democratic norms.'

On this Republic Day, sixty-five years after Independence it is worth analysing if we are anywhere near this goal of bahujana hitaya, bahujana sukhaya. We are again witnessing a number of assembly poll campaigns. Indira Gandhi's party under her Italian daughter-in-law seems to have rephrased bahujana (large majority) into alpajana hitaya, alpajana sukhaya (for the will and benefit of the smallest segment of the society). What else do we make of the persistent onslaught on Hindu interests and identities by a minority government, led by a non-elected, nominated Prime Minister, with all the major offices of the state and the ruling party reserved for individuals with minority tag and deliberate attempt to divide and subdivide and micro-divide the Hindu society in the name of caste, sub caste, mini and miniscule castes for special state patronage.

This is not the way of statecraft or nation building. This is deliberate and vengeful destruction of the nation and its moorings. Even the British did not perpetuate such cruel divide and rule policy on the people of this country. When free India adopted the new Constitution the ideal was to strive for the creation of one nation, one people where all minor identities were to enrich the macro Indian nationhood. The country was to be a model of welfare state. Democracy in true letter and spirit, with people as the sovereign was the goal. Not the repeated assertions by discredited politicians and media persons that Parliament is supreme.

We never envisaged a situation where the government on very flimsy grounds would pit itself against the Army Chief, who was forced to drag the government to the apex court for justice.

What it has exposed is the Achilles heel of the UPA government.  It has lost all its moral authority. A sagacious and popular Defence Minister or Prime Minister would not have allowed the escalation of such a situation. AK Antony is a good man. He could be a good PCC president. But he as Defence Minister is a big anachronism of our democracy, a travesty of Sonia Gandhi's whimsical selection of wimpy minions into onerous positions. The Army Chief who vowed to cleanse the system and restore the reputation of the Indian Armed Forces has become the fall guy. This is what happens when the system patronises mediocrity and denounces meritocracy. 

Does our Constitution reflect in any manner the government of today? Power without responsibility, power without accountability, power without constitutional sanction. This is what Sonia Gandhi exhibits with unfathomable display of brazenness. And we have a political class that has forgotten the fundamental principles of political career.

We are saddled with the shameful spectre of over two-fifths of India's children going to bed underfed. Infant mortality is one of the highest, not much improvement in literacy levels, access to safe and clean drinking water and countless other curses that afflict the poor. This is not the muckraking reporter's fantasy for raising uncomfortable issues. I recently came across a book that masterfully narrates the macabre wave of crime that poverty and  exploitation breeds in the society.

"…people say that they are going to Malaysia or United States with a glimmer of hope in their eyes. In Tsunami Nagar (Tamil Nadu) people speak that way about selling their kidneys," says the book with a revelation that every single person there has sold his/ her kidney because of poverty. The book, The Red Market, by Scott Carney (reviewed in this issue), narrates a heart wrenching situation where blood dairies thrive sucking the human blood by modern day monsters. The report reads like this; recently, a few days before the Indian celebration of Holi, an emaciated man with graying skin, drooping eyes, and rows of purple needle marks on both arms stumbled up to a group of farmers in the sweltering Indian border town of Gorakhpur… At first the farmers ignored the man's request for bus fare. But he persisted. He wasn't a refugee, he said. He was escaping from a makeshift prison where his captor siphoned off his blood for profit. The farmers shook off their stupor and called the police.

"The emaciated man brought the officers to his prison of the last three years: a hastily constructed shack sandwiched between Pappu Yadav's concrete home and a cowshed. A brass padlock hung from the iron door's solid latch. The officers could hear the muffled sounds of humanity through the quarter inch of metal.
"They sprung the lock and revealed a medical ward fit for a horror movie. IV drips hung from makeshift poles and patients moaned as if they were recovering from a delirium. Five emaciated men lying on small woven cots could barely lift their heads to acknowledge the visitors…The Blood Factory, as it was quickly known in the press, was supplying a sizable percentage of the city's blood supply…"

It is not only the blood and organs of the poor that is not safe in today's rich man's world. Even the dead body, hair, skin and burnt out bones are not enough to satiate their greed. Who buys all them? Only those who can afford. Where is the market? It is huge and mostly in the West elite circuit.

This is not the India of our dream. There is enough in the nature for the needs of every one, we often say. But not enough to satisfy the greed of even a few. The book says till recently, the trade in dead bodies was so extensive that just about every classroom skeleton in "America must have come from India." This is a story of the invisible crime and racket that lurks in the wings of every miracle medical breakthrough and dazzling recoveries from the jaws of death. It also exposes the savage human cruelty on the hapless victims by the powerful only to preserve and protect their health and beauty.    

Republic Day is not the time to entertain depressing thoughts. India's economy is thriving in spite of Sonia and Manmohan Singh. Perhaps we will still continue to be the second fastest growing economy in the world. The European Union and the US are looking at India along with other BRIC countries to maintain the momentum of capitalist growth model. The other day The Economist in its cover story acclaimed India's Unique Identity (UID) scheme saying, "one massive problem in India is that few poor people can prove who they are. They have no passport, no driving licence, no proof of address, The state spends a fortune on subsidised grains, for the hungry, but an estimated two thirds of it is stolen or adulterated by middlemen. Armed with the system, India will be able to rethink the nature of its welfare state, cutting back on benefits on kind and market distorting subsidies, and turning to cash transfers paid directly into the bank accounts of neediest"

But whose baby is the UID after all? Already 200 million identity cards have been made. Another 200 will be ready in the next one year according to reports. But the Planning Commission, Finance Ministry the Standing Committee of Parliament the sarkari NGOs and the Home Minister P Chidambaram have raised objections and it is being reported the scheme will be aborted. Is it that Sonia Gandhi does not want it? Because no other power in the UPA would have prompted such a massive opposition to a scheme launched with such fanfare. Perhaps an identity card might in many ways save the poor man from the crimes of the powerful as mentioned above. 

India would have been a better place to live had its politicians been less self-serving and more patriotic. In no other country a coterie of religious minorities and foreign born citizens would have been calling the shots in a democracy. It is often said that India is a rich country inhabited by poor people. It is more appropriate to describe India as a rich country held hostage by a gang of super rich politicians. If not, who has stashed away Rs 25,00,000 crore from the country and why does the government not bother  to get the money back? Not that all politicians are bad, but a vast majority are. If all this money had been put to public use, the Republic would have already become a superpower and there would have been no poverty, which according to a recent report leaves annually thirteen lakh children dead before their first birthday and 230 million Indians go to bed hungry, daily.

The missing sentiment in polity

Bahujana hitaya, bahujana sukhaya
The missing sentiment in polity

By Dr R Balashankar

"Bahujana hitaya, bahujana sukhaya." This has for long been the motto laid down for Indian rulers. The Indian ideal of statecraft so fascinated the sixth century Japanese prince Shotoku Taishi that he adopted bahujana hitaya as his country's motto and carved the first Constitution of Japan as Seventeen Articles Constitution based on it. He took the Sanskrit text Usnisavijaya dharani which contains these verses for the consecration of the Constitution in 552 AD. He wrote commentaries and these verses are still recited in daily rituals.

On her second return as Prime Minister, after the defeat of the Janata Party in 1980, late Indira Gandhi dismissed all Janata governments and held fresh elections. At that time Congress adopted the bahujana hitaya as its election slogan and plastered all over Delhi posters with Indira Gandhi's reassuring, smiling pictures with these lines on the top. Attending many election rallies as a cub reporter I remember the great BJP leader Atal Behari Vajpayee taking a dig at the Congress battle cry saying, 'bahujana hitaya bahujana sukhaya is a fantastic ideal. The poet attributed these words as the utterances of Gautama Buddha as he renounces his kingdom, palace, beautiful consort and toddler son and takes to sanyas for the emancipation of humanity. The words jar on the lips of Indira Gandhi who is out to perpetuate her dynastic rule undermining all democratic norms.'

On this Republic Day, sixty-five years after Independence it is worth analysing if we are anywhere near this goal of bahujana hitaya, bahujana sukhaya. We are again witnessing a number of assembly poll campaigns. Indira Gandhi's party under her Italian daughter-in-law seems to have rephrased bahujana (large majority) into alpajana hitaya, alpajana sukhaya (for the will and benefit of the smallest segment of the society). What else do we make of the persistent onslaught on Hindu interests and identities by a minority government, led by a non-elected, nominated Prime Minister, with all the major offices of the state and the ruling party reserved for individuals with minority tag and deliberate attempt to divide and subdivide and micro-divide the Hindu society in the name of caste, sub caste, mini and miniscule castes for special state patronage.

This is not the way of statecraft or nation building. This is deliberate and vengeful destruction of the nation and its moorings. Even the British did not perpetuate such cruel divide and rule policy on the people of this country. When free India adopted the new Constitution the ideal was to strive for the creation of one nation, one people where all minor identities were to enrich the macro Indian nationhood. The country was to be a model of welfare state. Democracy in true letter and spirit, with people as the sovereign was the goal. Not the repeated assertions by discredited politicians and media persons that Parliament is supreme.

We never envisaged a situation where the government on very flimsy grounds would pit itself against the Army Chief, who was forced to drag the government to the apex court for justice.

What it has exposed is the Achilles heel of the UPA government.  It has lost all its moral authority. A sagacious and popular Defence Minister or Prime Minister would not have allowed the escalation of such a situation. AK Antony is a good man. He could be a good PCC president. But he as Defence Minister is a big anachronism of our democracy, a travesty of Sonia Gandhi's whimsical selection of wimpy minions into onerous positions. The Army Chief who vowed to cleanse the system and restore the reputation of the Indian Armed Forces has become the fall guy. This is what happens when the system patronises mediocrity and denounces meritocracy. 

Does our Constitution reflect in any manner the government of today? Power without responsibility, power without accountability, power without constitutional sanction. This is what Sonia Gandhi exhibits with unfathomable display of brazenness. And we have a political class that has forgotten the fundamental principles of political career.

We are saddled with the shameful spectre of over two-fifths of India's children going to bed underfed. Infant mortality is one of the highest, not much improvement in literacy levels, access to safe and clean drinking water and countless other curses that afflict the poor. This is not the muckraking reporter's fantasy for raising uncomfortable issues. I recently came across a book that masterfully narrates the macabre wave of crime that poverty and  exploitation breeds in the society.

"…people say that they are going to Malaysia or United States with a glimmer of hope in their eyes. In Tsunami Nagar (Tamil Nadu) people speak that way about selling their kidneys," says the book with a revelation that every single person there has sold his/ her kidney because of poverty. The book, The Red Market, by Scott Carney (reviewed in this issue), narrates a heart wrenching situation where blood dairies thrive sucking the human blood by modern day monsters. The report reads like this; recently, a few days before the Indian celebration of Holi, an emaciated man with graying skin, drooping eyes, and rows of purple needle marks on both arms stumbled up to a group of farmers in the sweltering Indian border town of Gorakhpur… At first the farmers ignored the man's request for bus fare. But he persisted. He wasn't a refugee, he said. He was escaping from a makeshift prison where his captor siphoned off his blood for profit. The farmers shook off their stupor and called the police.

"The emaciated man brought the officers to his prison of the last three years: a hastily constructed shack sandwiched between Pappu Yadav's concrete home and a cowshed. A brass padlock hung from the iron door's solid latch. The officers could hear the muffled sounds of humanity through the quarter inch of metal.
"They sprung the lock and revealed a medical ward fit for a horror movie. IV drips hung from makeshift poles and patients moaned as if they were recovering from a delirium. Five emaciated men lying on small woven cots could barely lift their heads to acknowledge the visitors…The Blood Factory, as it was quickly known in the press, was supplying a sizable percentage of the city's blood supply…"

It is not only the blood and organs of the poor that is not safe in today's rich man's world. Even the dead body, hair, skin and burnt out bones are not enough to satiate their greed. Who buys all them? Only those who can afford. Where is the market? It is huge and mostly in the West elite circuit.

This is not the India of our dream. There is enough in the nature for the needs of every one, we often say. But not enough to satisfy the greed of even a few. The book says till recently, the trade in dead bodies was so extensive that just about every classroom skeleton in "America must have come from India." This is a story of the invisible crime and racket that lurks in the wings of every miracle medical breakthrough and dazzling recoveries from the jaws of death. It also exposes the savage human cruelty on the hapless victims by the powerful only to preserve and protect their health and beauty.    

Republic Day is not the time to entertain depressing thoughts. India's economy is thriving in spite of Sonia and Manmohan Singh. Perhaps we will still continue to be the second fastest growing economy in the world. The European Union and the US are looking at India along with other BRIC countries to maintain the momentum of capitalist growth model. The other day The Economist in its cover story acclaimed India's Unique Identity (UID) scheme saying, "one massive problem in India is that few poor people can prove who they are. They have no passport, no driving licence, no proof of address, The state spends a fortune on subsidised grains, for the hungry, but an estimated two thirds of it is stolen or adulterated by middlemen. Armed with the system, India will be able to rethink the nature of its welfare state, cutting back on benefits on kind and market distorting subsidies, and turning to cash transfers paid directly into the bank accounts of neediest"

But whose baby is the UID after all? Already 200 million identity cards have been made. Another 200 will be ready in the next one year according to reports. But the Planning Commission, Finance Ministry the Standing Committee of Parliament the sarkari NGOs and the Home Minister P Chidambaram have raised objections and it is being reported the scheme will be aborted. Is it that Sonia Gandhi does not want it? Because no other power in the UPA would have prompted such a massive opposition to a scheme launched with such fanfare. Perhaps an identity card might in many ways save the poor man from the crimes of the powerful as mentioned above. 

India would have been a better place to live had its politicians been less self-serving and more patriotic. In no other country a coterie of religious minorities and foreign born citizens would have been calling the shots in a democracy. It is often said that India is a rich country inhabited by poor people. It is more appropriate to describe India as a rich country held hostage by a gang of super rich politicians. If not, who has stashed away Rs 25,00,000 crore from the country and why does the government not bother  to get the money back? Not that all politicians are bad, but a vast majority are. If all this money had been put to public use, the Republic would have already become a superpower and there would have been no poverty, which according to a recent report leaves annually thirteen lakh children dead before their first birthday and 230 million Indians go to bed hungry, daily.

Swami Vivekananda’s stone cot to be preserved

Swami Vivekananda’s stone cot to be preserved

 

  With India set to celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda, a granite cot on which he slept during his visit here in 1892, has been handed over to a cultural forum, by the family which played host to the great saint-philosopher.
The ownership right of the granite cot was on Sunday given to the Bharathiya Vichara Kendram director and RSS ideologue P Parameswaran by descendants of famous scholar Manonmaniam Sundaram Pillai, in whose home here, Vivekananda slept.
P S Ramaswamy, the present head of the family, exuded confidence that the Kendram would preserve the monument with all sanctity that would remind the visitors of the life and contributions of Vivekananda in the national awakening.
The cot would be brought to the Kendram’s headquarters here on January 11 in a procession from Karakulam, a city outskirt, where it has been lying for 111 years.
Though it was not known much outside, the family has kept it as a precious asset, Mr. Ramaswamy said.
Vivekananda toured various parts of Kerala in 1892 and reached Thiruvananthapuram, which was then the capital of princely state of Travancore, in December that year.
It was during his trip that he famously described Kerala as a “lunatic asylum” after being shocked to know about the rigid caste system and cruel discrimination that prevailed in the society.
Vivekananda had interactions with spiritual leaders like Chattampi Swamikal and Sree Narayana Guru and also many reformers and scholars.
Later, he left for Kanyakumari where he meditated on Christmas eve ‘on the last bit of India’s rock’, which was later converted into the Vivekananda Rock Memorial.
Swami Vivekananda was born in Kolkata on 12 January 1863.

A collector's edition of Ramanujan notebook

A collector's edition of Ramanujan notebook

The familiar face of Srinivasa Ramanujan looks up in relief from two classy hardback volumes in black. Inside is proof of the mathematician's genius. For both form and content, there can be no doubt that the second edition of Notebooks of Srinivasa Ramanujan is a collector's edition. notebooks of the ‘man who knew infinity,' originally believed to have been written down on loose sheets of paper, have kept mathematicians busy for over a century, scrambling to provide derivations for the results. An effort by the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, the two volumes contain over 700 pages in Ramanujan's neat hand, some of his finest work. The books also have a foreword from Bruce Berndt, American mathematician known for his work in explaining the results Ramanujan postulated in his notebooks.

It is believed that Ramanujan actually worked out the problems on a slate in an attempt to save paper, using the sheets only to note down results. Since the discovery of the notebooks, mathematicians have wrestled with the results trying to arrive at plausible derivations. Most of the work has now been solved, thanks to Professor Brendt, according to M.S. Raghunathan, Vice-Chairman of the National Committee supervising the Ramanujan 125 year celebrations.

The books were launched at a function in which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh participated here on Monday. The release was possible with help from the archiving and digitising team at the Roja Muthiah Research Library (RMRL) in Chennai.

The production quality is of excellent standard, a huge improvement over the first edition published in 1957, again by the TIFR.

“They were the same notebooks, but the technology was not as advanced as it is now. So the publication was in black and white,” explains Professor Raghunathan. The current edition has reproduced faithfully the different colours Ramanujan originally used for his longhand.

RMRL director G. Sundar details the process involved in producing the new edition: “The 1957 edition was in a very bad shape. With the available technology of those days, they took a photostat and then published the books. As a result, the contrast was not satisfactory, either too bright or too light between foreground and text.” So, the RMRL asked the TIFR to locate the original plates used to print the first edition, but they could not be found. It was then decided to use the original manuscripts being preserved in the University of Madras.

“They gave us the manuscripts for a few days. Though readable, we found that the corners had turned and there was some distortion. We decided to copy them in all formats — microfilm (black and white), scanned images stored digitally. The microfilm is key, because we used that for the printing. Since we knew the colours [from the scanned images], we rendered them finally on the black and white microfilm. The inner pages are now a delight,” Dr. Sundar, an archivist himself, explained.

The entire process took about nine months, with a team of 14 people comprising, both in-house experts and technology experts from outside, working on the notebooks. The graphic images are also being stored with the RMRL and the TIFR, in order to be able to vectorise them for editing and resizing later.

The book will be available with the TIFR for sale, likely in a week, Professor Raghunathan added.

"It's a story of human triumph"

The story of mathematician genius Srinivasa Ramanujan is a story of human triumph and an example of what genius can accomplish against the odds, Robert Kanigel, Ramanjuan's biographer said on Monday.

Delivering a lecture hosted by the Organising Committee of Ramanujan 125, TNQ Books and Journals and the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Mr. Kanigel said that while illuminating the genius of Ramanujan, "we should also momentarily hold the spotlight briefly" on the scores of people who did not make it due to adverse circumstances.

After giving a bare-bone account of the Ramanujan story, Mr. Kanigel who for his research visited India, which remains a jumble of mostly happy experiences and memories, and the beautiful but slightly forbidding Cambridge, took several questions from the audience.

Responding to a question on the everyday applicability of Ramanujan's theorems, Mr. Kanigel pointed out that Ramanujan's work was in pure mathematics and he took delight in exploring numbers without attaching any larger purpose.

Saying that he felt good when his book was translated into German, Italian or Greek, Mr. Kanigel also admitted to a certain sadness that it was not available yet in Tamil. His delight would know no end if "The Man Who Knew Infinity" were to be available in Ramanujan's own language, he said.

Offering his reasons for the title of the book, Mr. Kanigel said it defined though in a narrow sense the intimacy with which Ramanujan worked with numbers and theorems; it was as if "he knew infinity as his homeland."

Mr. Kanigel was amused by a suggestion to get Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci to make a film based on his biography and to a questioner, who wanted to know whether Ramanujan would have felt more comfortable and enjoyed greater creative freedom in the U.S. than in Cambridge, he said he would like to think that Ramanujan in the U.S. might have felt more at home and a little "less stiff."

When someone wanted to know whether working on the biography on Ramanujan had in any way changed him as a person, he remarked in a lighter vein that the impact would have been more on his wife when he got immersed in work.

N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, said Mr. Kanigel's biography on Ramanujan, which was first published in 1991 and has undergone several printings, was perhaps his best and most influential works.

Among the many features of this book was its perfectly legitimate practice of the art of narrative journalism, or the use of a novelistic imagination in bringing a story alive without ever crossing the line between fact and fiction, he said.

The biography counters the flatness of the picture of Ramanujan's origins and life in 19 century south India, locates him in everyday life, brings alive the emotional geography of family relationships and the imprint on a young man of the cultural ethos, religious values and rituals of the times.

Mariam Ram (TNQ Books and Journals) and Balasubramanian of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences also participated.

Happy Birthday 'Jana Gana Mana'

'Jana Gana Mana', the country's national anthem penned by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, turned 100 on Tuesday as it was first sung on this day a century ago at the 1911 Calcutta Session of the Indian National Congress.

Written in highly Sanskritised Bengali in 1911 by one of the greatest poets of the 20th century, the song fired patriotism in every Indian during the Independence movement.

The song was adopted as the country's national anthem by the Constituent Assembly on January 24, 1950.

The anthem was first performed on December 27, 1911 at the Indian National Congress session in Calcutta when the outfit was associated with the country's independence movement.

Rabindranath Tagore translated "Jana Gana Mana" from Bengali to English in 1911 and also set it to music in Madanapalle, a small town in Rayalaseema region of Andhra Pradesh.

After it was translated into English, Indian students took the song beyond the country's borders making it 'The Morning Song of India' and subsequently the national anthem.

Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose's Indian National Army adopted Jana Gana Mana as the National Anthem, while Father of Nation Mahatma Gandhi had in 1946 said the "the song has found a place in our national life."

The song was selected as the national anthem of India in 1950 after considerable debate overruled Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay's popular Bengali song 'Vande Mataram' in the face of opposition from certain communities.

Right to Recall is a must and it is possible also

Right to Recall is a must and it is possible also

By M.G.  Vaidya

    -The Election Commission is reported to have opposed one of the major points in the Electoral Reforms demand, viz Right to Recall the elected representative. The Chief Election Commissioner has said that "such a move would bring instability as the losers could start such a campaign from day one." He further pointed out that "this would also hamper development activities because of frequent elections and imposition of Model Code of Conduct." Senior BJP leader LK Advani too is reported to  have shared the Election Commission's view. I beg to differ from them.

    Many thinking people think that there is an urgent need to reform our prevalent electoral system. And one of the main points is the Right to Recall the elected candidate. Team Anna, too insists on this point. But Anna Hazare is not the initiator of this demand. If I remember correctly, the Sarvodaya people had made this demand quite a few years ago. I, too, in my weekly Marathi column published on September 4, 2011, had discussed the issue of electoral reforms and one of the points in that article is the right to recall (The complete article is available on www.mgvaidya.b logspot.com). It is reported that team Anna, which included Shanti Bhushan, Prashant Bhushan, Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and Kiran Bedi had called on the Chief Election Commissioner and discussed this point. A news item, as published in the media, says that the team has agreed to further examine this point of their demand. It can be inferred that the team Anna is not definite on its demand. I feel,  Anna Hazare and his team should be firm and not vacillate.

    I think this right is essential, and it is possible too. If a successful candidate is alleged to have employed fraudulent means and/or has committed breach of electoral rules, his election can be challenged. Number of election petitions are made, and if the elected person is found guilty, his election is annulled and a fresh election takes place. There is nothing extraordinary about this. Election Commission must have handled such re-election processes  a number of times. If an offender is punishable for offences during the election process, why not for offences after the election?

    I give two examples. One is of Shibu Soren, who along with his party members had taken bribe from the then Government, headed by PV Narasimha Rao. Did all those JMM MPs-so-called representatives of the people lose their membership of the Lok Sabha? The other example is more recent. In July 2008, quite a few MPs were bribed either to vote for the Government of Dr Manmohan Singh or abstain from voting feigning illness. The matter is sub-judice. What punishment, did those who accepted the bribe money get? They are all free and continue to represent the people. Should people not think of rejecting their representative character?

    My question is why should people suffer such representatives? Why should they not have a right to reject them, and elect new ones? I admit that the process of recalling will not be easy. But I have a workable suggestion. I elucidate :

    An aplication signed by at least 10 per cent of the total voters, who had cast their vote, in the election that had elected this unwanted person, should come to the Election Commission with a security of Rs 25,000. The EC will then arrange for a fresh election. But, this election will be done by a Special Electoral College (SEC). This Electoral College, in the case of a member of State Legislature, will consist of all members of the Gram Panchayats, Panchayat Samitis, Zilla Parishads and Municipal Committees, falling within the area of that Assembly constituency. It should be noted that all these members are elected representatives of the people. If desired, this SEC may have some representatives of the civil society in the form of all headmasters of recognised primary and secondary schools in that area. If the resolution recalling the elected person gets 60 per cent or more votes, his election shall be invalidate, and a fresh election will be declared. The process of this fresh election will be similer to any by-election caused by death, or resignation or disqualification of an elected person. For the purpose of this election by a SEC, promulgation of the moral code shall not be necessary. In the by-election that will follow, the recalled member shall be debarred from contesting it.

    In the matter of a MP the membership of the SEC may be changed. Instead of all members of the village Panchayats, Panchayat Samitis, and ZPs, only the Chairman and Vice-Chairman shall have a voting right. But all members of the Municipal Committees and all Councillors in the Corporations in that area will have the voting right. To add representation of the civil society, all Principals of recognised colleges and all Readers and Professors at the Univercity level, residing in that constituency may be included. If the resolution for recalling the elected member fails to get 60 per cent but gets 40 per cent or more votes, the security deposit shall be refunded. If it gets less than 40 per cent the security deposit will be forfeited. This will serve as a check on frivolous applications.

    I don't claim that my proposal is final or exhaustive. It can be rejected in toto or amended. What I am interested in, is some serious debate on this issue.

    (The writer is former Chief Editor of  Marathi daily Tarun Bharat, Nagpur)
Source: Organiser - Weekly      Date: 12/10/2011 9:51:47 PM

NC has become a liability for Congress

Prevarication on AFSPA makes Congress lose credibility in J&K

From Khajuria S Kant in Jammu

National Conference's new spokesperson, a family man of Abdullahs continues to indulge in 'misadventures' by making statements, one after the other which are proving to be disastrous not only in the present political environment of the State but in particular to Congress as alliance partner of the ruling government.

While directly blaming Army for current spurt in grenade blasts, Dr Kamaal has gone unusually whole hog against the party that installed NC back into power in 2009. Significantly, his tantrums began within days of his induction as his party's 'only spokesman' and additional General Secretary last fortnight.

Even as the NC President and the Union Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah has been telling everybody around in New Delhi that Dr Kamaal would be pacified by the party in a couple of days, those conversant with his behaviour for decades are said to be highly sceptical. Munna bhai lage raho is reportedly the pat from the party. At least two of Soz loyalists, both Ministers in Omar Abdullah's Cabinet, are understood to have sweared to AICC General Secretary incharge Jammu & Kashmir that NC's enfant terrible had "full support" from key members of the Sheikh dynasty—Dr Farooq Abdullah, General Secretary Sheikh Nazir Ahmed and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah.
Even after Dr Abdullah purportedly called his younger brother and advised him against creating any space for Congress-PDP patch-up, Dr Kamaal continued to fire his salvos on Congress with total impunity. "Farooq sahib was angry with me. He spoke to me on phone and told me not to speak against Congress. But I have no hesitation in saying that Congress is a problem", Dr Kamaal reportedly told Kashmir News Service.

In the same interview, Dr Kamaal dug into the roots of the NC-Congress bonhomie while disputing existence and authenticity of so-called Indira-Abdullah Accord of 1975. According to him, it was never inked as the Congress chief Indira Gandhi played tricks with Sheikh Abdullah. "If version of Congress is right on 1975 agreement then why then Chief Minister Mir Qasim wrote in his book that the exercise wasn't complete. Sheik and Indira had nominated G Parthasarthy and Mirza Afzal Beg to look into those laws which were passed between 1953 to 1975 in violation of autonomy which J&K had. And they prepared a document on 86 laws out of 92. Rest of the five which included jurisdiction of Supreme Court, CAG, Election Commission, Wazeer-e-Azam and the Sader-e-Riyasat were left to Indira and Sheikh to decide," he is quoted to have said.

"Sheikh smelt rat in it. He was supposed to go to Delhi but when he didn't get the assurance he refused to sign the document. Let them (Congress) show me signatures of Indira and Sheikh on the 1975 accord," he said. "They are insulting a political party which has been at forefront for the emancipation of people from 1938," Dr Kamaal is reported to have assailed Congress.

A day after publicly castigating Prof Soz and Congress party's Cabinet Minister in Omar Abdullah's Council of Ministers, Taj Mohiuddin, Kamaal overtly charged Congress with impeding and denying autonomy to J&K. "They don't seem to have reconciled to the tragedy which happened with people and NC from 1953 till date. They are trying to erase the history. It will haunt them today and tomorrow. They should no longer play tricks with us", Kamaal is reported to have warned and remarked on Congress. Not a naive or novice in politics Mustafa is uttering all what he has been ever since 'entrusted' with new job by the party high command , apparently to nourish his party's constituency in Kashmir.

Congress too is not ignorant about the implications and negative fallout it can have on their constituency. The moot question remains why Congress is tolerating all that comes in damaging doses from Kamaal and why it chooses to play these down by ignoring and not reacting to the accusations first against Army and now directly blaming New Delhi?

The Congress either at the local level or New Delhi have conveniently chosen to give deaf ears to Kamaal's uttering. Congress silence has only resulted in emboldening the courage and boldness of Kamaal by the day which reflects in the tone and tenor of his statements which have now reached blaming New Delhi for committing all wrongs in Kashmir for decades. While the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah himself as also his spokesperson Uncle appear to be hell bent to humiliate, defame and undermine the dignity of Congress , despite being its alliance partner, the latter's silence and its strength to bear this disrespect shown directly from ruling ally is quite surprising.

With Kamaal's statements in series against Congress silence raises the question again and again that why the party is in such a damaging mode. Whatever response has come so far is only an 'advising' note asking NC leadership to tell its spokesperson to maintain restraint while opening his mouth. However, this is only being seen as a token reaction whereas the same should have been on a harsh and castigating note, at least on the comments he has brazenly made against Army and now New Delhi. One fails to understand why Congress is allowing NC to consolidate its political ground at the cost of its own ground which is getting slippery and weak by the day. What is the compulsion that holds back Congress in not even asking ruling partner to stop humiliating it publicly.

What is even more astonishing is the fact that Congress on the contrary goes on to pamper and safeguard NC interests by prompt announcements that Chief Minister Omar Abdullah is there to be in the chair for full six years term and there is no question of changing the guard. One can understand the proximity of Omar with Rahul Gandhi or his direct approach with Chidambaram or others who matter in New Delhi that makes him undermine the local leadership including PCC chief Prof Saif-u-Din Soz. One can also understand the assessment and understanding of New Delhi about sensitivities of J&K State on account of which they cannot afford to let coalition break or get weakened in present circumstances. But turning deaf ears to bashing at its extreme by the lone basher Kamaal at the cost of its image and ground makes no sense nor can it be taken as a compulsion of the coalition anymore, if the spree continues like this. NC leadership will keep on playing to gallery in the same manner but can Congress afford to tolerate such tactics for long…?

The specific grouse of the JKPCC chief was that the Chief Minister made the announcement without consulting his coalition partner. What Soz said once again proved that the relations between the NC and the Congress are far from normal and that the Chief Minister has been ignoring the JKPCC.

"This is simply not done that National Conference despite being an alliance partner, it is spreading hatred against Congress upon which it is totally dependent for its survival. Ironically this all is a family affair as the main faces of its three-pronged strategy are the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Union Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah and his sibling and former minister Dr Mustafa Kamaal. While the first two faces make reconciliatory gestures, it is the third face which is the major irritant," a senior PCC member states while referring to a sequence of venomous statements of Dr Kamaal made in the last one year or so as a part of his unrelenting tirade against Congress.

"Last year he claimed that his father and NC patriarch Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah wanted to die in prison to fight last war with India as he had realised that New Delhi betrayed him, NC time and again. In July, 2010 when the Valley was on the boil, in the most objectionable way, he had described Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the extension of Congress while accusing it of fomenting trouble there. He had accused Congress and PDP of hatching a conspiracy to weaken NC in the Srinagar city. He did not stop there only," senior vice president of PCC said. "Although even that time Dr Farooq Abdullah had publicly admonished him (Dr Kamaal) for his statements, yet that admonition was too late and too little. In fact he was promoted to the post of spokesperson," he pointed out.

The issue under scrutiny is what is Kamaal up to? The manner in which he is abusing, taunting, insulting and ridiculing the Congress; the way he is questioning the State's accession with India; and the manner in which he is taking about the Army, all indicate that he is working as per a plan. It appears he wants the NC to break ties with the Congress on the issues of AFSPA and the Army so that the NC is able to recapture the lost political space in the Kashmir Valley.

The Congress itself is responsible for its woes and humiliations. Had it asserted its authority from time to time and told the Chief Minister to behave failing which the Congress would have its own way, things today would not have assumed such dangerous proportions and Omar Abdullah would have thought hundred times before making any statement unilaterally.

It is the Congress which has allowed the Chief Minister and his NC to flout the cardinal principles of coalition dharma. It's time for the Congress to assert its authority and play a constructive role taking into account the fact that the NC has become a liability.(12-11-2011, http://organiser.org)

Dragging their feet on paid news

Dragging their feet on paid news

By Narad

P Sainath of The Hindu is at it again. According to him (October 10) Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Sanjiv Khanna of the Delhi High Court have dismissed former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan's petition challenging the power of the Election Commission of India (ECI) to go into the truth of falsity of his 2009 election expenses account.  The Court apparently upheld the jurisdiction of the ECI to  probe into the 'paid news' charges made against Chavan. It may be remembered that several Marathi newspapers had carried praiseful of articles about Chavan. Were they paid for?

First, the Central Information Council (CIC) had ordered the Press Council of India (PCI) to inquire into the matter. The Press Council in turn set up a sub-committee comprising of Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and Srinivasa Reddy to do some investigation. Reportedly the sub-committee produced "an explosive" 71-page report, which, according to Sainath named names "pointing fingers". Sainath reports that the sub-committee "did this within all the norms and ethics that such an exercise demands". Then what happened? Sainath says that "the big guns of the media establishment struck back in panic". The PCI reportedly "buckled, burying its own report" and "a larger committee drafted a 12-page version that dropped all references to the offenders". The final report reduced the original to a single footnote". One understands that the CIC has told the Press Council to put the full report up on its website. Has it done so? That is not clear. But importantly, who were the "big guns of the media" who originally demanded that the 71-page report  be kept out of the public eye? Aren't the readers entitled to know who they are and what was the nature of the pressure they put on the Press Council? Shouldn't they be named?

What is even more surprising is the response of some of the Marathi papers which published articles favouring  Chavan. Two points arise here: Let us say that all the Marathi papers named, published  the same article, even under different names. If a paper published the article because it genuinely supported Chavan's candidature, can one blame it? But Sainath says that "their individual perceptions are at odds with the whole media scene portrayed in the suppressed PCI report". Isn't it imperative then that the PCI publishes the full text of the report, firstly in its own journal, even while making it available to whosoever demands it? What one should remember is that as a sequence to the 'paid news' syndrome, the average reader is left wondering whether any editorial – for or against a person or a party – published in any paper may have been paid for. And not just an editorial, but even news damning or praising an individual or an organisation. Are all those stories damning Narendra Modi, for instance, paid for? We have reached a stage where even an honest comment – say, in a column – may raise doubts about the columnist's credibility. What are we coming to?

Presently, two of Anna Hazare's team mates are under strong attack. Kiran Bedi and Arvind Kejriwal have wild charges made against them. The charges are obviously Congress-inspired. If a paper publishes them – and gives them front page prominence – it may raise doubts about the paper's veracity. If it doesn't publish them, then again the same doubts can be entertained. For a paper a stage has been reached that it is damned if a certain news item is published and damned just as well if it doesn't. A news editor must be in a frightful dilemma.
The Hindu (October 22) thus carried a news item that said that the Election Commission adjourned till November 11 the hearing of a complaint against former Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda alleging that he "encouraged" paid news during the 2009 Lok Sabha polls and that one TV channel was paid Rs. 1.25 crore to telecast news in his favour.

The 'paid news' allegation reportedly surfaced when Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax authorities who raided his office and residence found diaries with details of the amount he spent towards payment to newspapers and other media organisations for writings /telecasting reports in his favour. Koda allegedly paid Rs 25.76 lakh to three organisations in April 2009 and against the limit of Rs 25 lakh for the Lok Sabha poll he allegedly spent Rs 9 crore. One doesn't remember seeing that report the same day on some other papers. What are we to surmise? Again The Hindu (October 23) carried a report from Ahmedabad, obviously written by its own correspondent that said that "digging up more old cases against the suspended Gujarat cadre IPS officer, Sanjiv Bhatt, the State CID (crime) is believed to have 'unearthed' financial irregularities to the tune of over Rs 20 crore by him and a retired IPS officer RMS Brar". To the best of one' knowledge, The Hindu is the only paper that published this news. What are we supposed to derive from this incident? That other Ahmedabad-based reporters are not good at their job? Or can it be that they did report the news, but their bosses back home decided to cut it out? Earlier another paper published some damning information about Bhatt which has gone unnoticed in many English language newspapers.

Again, The Hindu (October 23) published another news item that said that "the reporter of Raju Ramachandran, the amicus curae in the Zakia Jafri case has laid the ground for Narendra Modi to be charge-sheeted for his alleged role in the 2002 anti-Muslim Gujarat progrom." Obviously. The Hindu in its reporting, does not take sides. Indeed, it was recently highly praised by a retired columnist as being better than any paper in the world. Meanwhile, may one make an observation concerning accuracies in the Bible challenged by an Islamic evangelist in his Peace Channel? The comments were not called for and should not have been aired. Naik, who made those charges, should be sharply pulled up. this is a secular state and no one has the right to challenge a Holy Book publicly under any circumstances, whether it is the Bible, the Koran of the Bhagavad Geeta. Naik in the past has been seen making silly remarks on Hinduism. The channel in which he appears needs to be warned. His criticism of the Bible appeared on Saturday night (October 22. http://organiser.org)

Subramanian Swamy files FIR against Sonia Gandhi

Communal  Violence Bill anti-national

From R Vasudevan from New Delhi

Janata Party President  Subramanian Swamy has filed an FIR in New Delhi against United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi and members of the National Advisory Council' (which is headed by Ms Gandhi) 'for committing offences of propagating hate against the Hindu community by circulating for enacting as law a draft bill described as Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence Bill, 2011.'

In his complaint Swamy said that the 'draft bill is mischievous in content of targeting the Hindu community, malafide, unreasonable and prejudicial to public order, is apparent from the second section of explanatory note to the draft bill titled "Key Provisions of the Bill", thereby inciting crimes against the Hindu community with impunity, and thus committing offences under section 153A & B, 295A and 505(2) of the Indian Penal Code.'

Swamy noted that when the draft bill was introduced in 2005, 'it did not find much support from any of the political parties', as they felt it 'provided sweeping powers to the central government thus undermining the authority of the state governments.'

"But the most vocal opposition to this draft bill came from the Muslim, Christian and so called secular quarters...who demanded that the powers of managing communal violence be vested in non-government actors and make governments and administration at all levels accountable to them for communal violence," the complaint added.

"From their (Muslims' and Christians') arguments in opposition to the draft bill, it is clear that they wanted a bill that would consider only the Christians and Muslims as the "generally targeted" victims of communal violence; and that the word 'communal violence' be re-defined in such a way that only the Muslims and Christians are treated as victims and Hindus as predators, and that the local police and administration, including the state administration, considered hand-in-glove with the perpetrators of violence," Swamy noted.

The NAC was re-constituted in 2009 by the UPA government again under the chairmanship of Sonia Gandhi. The UPA government promptly handed over the re-drafting of the bill to the newly constituted NAC and asked it to come up with a fresh draft, Swamy added.

He thus noted, "The object of the re-drafted bill thus was the basic premise of the NAC that the majority community — read Hindus — are the perpetrators of communal violence in India and the minority — read Muslims and Christians — are the victims, clearly is incitement of religious strife."

"What is more important is to conclude is that in all cases of communal and targeted violence, dominant religious and linguistic group at the state level is always the perpetrator and the other the victims. Similarly the conclusion that the state machinery is invariably and always biased against the non-dominant group is a gross misstatement of the sincerity and commitment of millions of people who form state administration in the country," Swamy said.

"This dangerous premise is the incitement of communal strife in this bill," he added.

Swamy went on to say, "One can safely conclude that the script writers of this bill are themselves blinded with religious biases. In India communal violence happens mostly because of politico-communal reasons. In many instances, as documented by several commissions of inquiry, it is the so-called minority group that triggers the trouble. We hence need laws that can prevent such violence irrespective of whoever perpetrates it. To argue that since the administration is always biased in favour of the dominant group we need acts that are biased in favour of the non-dominant group is imprudent and puerile."

"The present draft bill will only promote disharmony. With these kind of laws the LeTs (Lashkar-e-Tayiba) and HuJIs (Harkat-ul-Jihadi Islami) across the border need not have to promote terrorism in our territory anymore. All that they need to do is to encourage a minor communal riot and they can achieve what they want — huge rift between the majority and minority communities," he added.

"Hence, the NAC, with Sonia Gandhi as chairperson, and other members have jointly committed offences under IPC Sections 153A & B, 295A, and 505," Swamy concluded . 

Nuclear power is our gateway to a prosperous future : Dr.A.P.J Abdul Kalam

Srijan Pal Singh

'Economic growth will need massive energy. Will we allow an accident in Japan, in a 40-year-old reactor at Fukushima, arising out of extreme natural stresses, to derail our dreams to be an economically developed nation?'

Every single atom in the universe carries an unimaginably powerful battery within its heart, called the nucleus. This form of energy, often called Type-1 fuel, is hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of times more powerful than the conventional Type-0 fuels, which are basically dead plants and animals existing in the form of coal, petroleum, natural gas and other forms of fossil fuel. To put things in perspective, imagine a kilometre-long train, with about 50 freight bogies, all fully laden with the most typical fossil fuel — about 10,000 tonnes of coal. The same amount of energy can be generated by 500 kgⁱ of Type-1 fuel, naturally occurring Uranium, enough to barely fill the boot of a small car. When the technology is fully realised, one can do even better with naturally occurring Thorium, in which case the material required would be much less, about 62.5 kg, or even less according to some estimatesⁱⁱ, and thus enough to fit in a small bagⁱⁱⁱ. (Note: 500 kg of naturally occurring Uranium would contain about 3.5 kg of Uranium-235 fuel.)

Energy and economy

Energy is the most fundamental requirement of every society or nation as it progresses through the ladder of development. Of course, once it reaches a relative degree of development, the energy demand becomes more stable. There is a distinct and categorical correlation between the energy consumption and income of a nation — each reinforcing the other. Look around you: every step into progress comes with an addition of demand for energy — cars, ships and aircraft to move, hospitals to give quality healthcare, education, as it follows the model of e-connectivity, production of more and better goods, irrigation for better farming. In fact, every element of our lives is increasingly going to become energy-intensive — that is a necessary prerequisite for development. This is clearly reflected in the average energy consumption per person across nations — for instance, an average American consumes more than 15 times the energy consumed by an average Indian (see Figure 1)^iv

Today, India finds itself going through a phase of rapid ascent in economic empowerment. Industries are evolving at a significantly higher rate since liberalisation. Our focus for this decade will be on the development of key infrastructure and the uplifting of the 600,000 villages where 750 million people live, as vibrant engines of the economy. In 2008, we crossed the trillion-dollar mark, and it took more than six decades for us to reach that milestone. However, it is predicted that the Indian economy will double again, to reach the $2-trillion mark by 2016, and then again redouble, to reach the $4 trillion milestone by 2025^v. All this economic growth will need massive energy. It is predicted that the total electricity demand will grow from the current 150,000 MW to at least over 950,000 MW by the year 2030^vi — which will still be less than one-fourth of the current U.S. per capita energy need. In fact, by 2050, in all likelihood the demand could go even higher, and the per capita energy demand would be equal to the current French or Russian figure of about 6000 W per capita.

Analysing the international scenario on nuclear energy

So, will we allow an accident in Japan, in a 40-year-old reactor at Fukushima, arising out of extreme natural stresses, to derail our dreams to be an economically developed nation? When a few European countries, particularly Germany, decide to phase out nuclear power, that should not become a blanket argument to take a view against our nuclear programme.

A few things need to be put in context here. The decision of Germany suits its current scenario which goes beyond mere concerns of risk posed by nuclear power. Germany is a developed nation, a power-surplus nation — so it can afford to lose a few plants. More important, Germany has completely exhausted its nuclear resources. Against a total demand of 3,332 tonnes (2006-08)^vii it was able to produce only 68 tonnes (Note: This was the production in 2006) of Uranium, and for the deficit it was relying on imports^viii. Thus, nuclear energy never fits into its goal of energy independence. India, on the other hand, is the leader of the new resource of nuclear fuel called Thorium, which is considered to be the nuclear fuel of the future.

The Indian population is misled when it is said that some Western nations have ended their nuclear programme, or that Japan is reconsidering nuclear power plant expansion. Study the accompanying Table, which shows what share of energy these advanced nations are generating by means of nuclear power.

The study indicates that most of the prosperous nations are extracting about 30-40 per cent of power from nuclear power and it constitutes a significant part of their clean energy portfolio, reducing the burden of combating climate change and the health hazards associated with pollution. Meanwhile in India, we are not generating even 5000 MW of nuclear power from the total of about 150 GW of electricity generation, most of it coming from coal.

We should be careful not to be carried away by the barrage of anti-nuclear news often being generated by many of the same nations that are enjoying the maximum benefits from it. The economically developed world has a well-trained habit of presenting their success in a distorted context to misguide emerging nations like India, which are a potential challenge to their neo-age proxy-imperial economic subjugation. What is needed for our India, we Indians have to decide.

Hence, we and we alone will decide what is the best needed action for our economic prosperity, based on our context and resource profile. India is blessed with the rare, and very important, nuclear fuel of the future – Thorium. We cannot afford to lose the opportunity to emerge as the energy capital of the world, which coupled with the largest youth power, will be our answer to emerge as the leading economy of the world. India has the potential to be the first nation to realise the dream of a fossil fuel-free nation, which will also relieve the nation of about $100 billion annually which we spend in importing petroleum and coal. Besides the billions spent on importing coal or oil, we are also importing millions of tonnes of CO₂ and other greenhouse gases, which are a hazard to the environment and human health. It is noteworthy that in 2010-11, India imported about 82 billion tonnes of coal^xii, a large fraction of which was for the thermal power plants. Experts believe that this number will continue to rise exponentially in the times ahead, as shown in Figure 3^xiii.

The greenest sources of power are definitely solar and wind. With abundant sunshine and places of high wind velocity, the nation definitely has potential for these forms of energy. But solar and wind power, despite all their advantages, are not stable and are dependent excessively on weather and sunshine conditions. Nuclear power, on the other hand, provides a relatively clean, high-density source of reliable energy with an international presence. Today, there are 29 countries operating 441 nuclear power plants, with a total capacity of about 375 GW(e). The industry now has more than 14,000 reactor-years of experience. Sixty more units, with a total target capacity of 58.6 GW, were under construction. (Note: This is according to data from 2010.)

Much of the destructive power of nuclear accidents is compared against the benchmarks of the atomic bombing of Japan by the U.S. forces during the Second World War. Pictures of mushroom clouds looming over cities, charred buildings, and massive death scenes are awakened to form our opinion of nuclear dangers and disasters. But that is far from the reality. It is poor judgment and a deliberate act of spreading fear to compare a nuclear bomb with a nuclear plant. The bomb is designed to deliver a large amount of energy over a very short period of time, leading to explosions, firestorms and massive heat energy generated to obliterate every object in its path. That is what a bomb is supposed to do!

Civilian nuclear applications in the form of a power plant, on the other hand, are designed to deliver small amounts of energy in a sustainable manner over a far larger time frame. It is designed with systems to control and cool the nuclear reaction. There are safety procedures and back-ups, and even in the event of failures, as in the 2011 disaster, the destructive might will never be even a fraction of what happens in the case of a nuclear bomb.

Nuclear risks

We need to put the Fukushima-Daiichi events in the historic frame of nuclear accidents and analyse them. While there was huge loss to property and disruption of normal life, there was no direct loss of life due to the accident or during the operation in its aftermath to contain it. As a silver lining, the way the accident was handled — compared to the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 — showed how much progress we have achieved in nuclear emergency management over a period of two and half decades. The Fukushima-Daiichi plant was almost five times as big in terms of power generation and, more significantly, contained about nine times the nuclear fuel at the time of the accident. Yet, with better emergency management learnt over the years, the maximum radiation was less than 0.4 per cent of that released during the Chernobyl disaster. So, while the Fukushima-Daiichi accident was unfortunate and needs review, one must also acknowledge the advancement of national and international capabilities to manage nuclear emergencies now.

Another argument which surrounds the nuclear debate is that nuclear accidents and the radiation fallout as the aftermath would not only harm the exposed generation but also continue to impact generations to come. If available facts and scientific inquiry was given more weightage than mere conjectures and comic-bookish imagination, this argument will in all probability be proved a myth. The strongest case of human exposure and destruction due to radiation is, without argument, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings of 1945. These are the only two occasions when nuclear force was intentionally developed and deployed to kill human life. Post the bombing, the U.S. government established the Atomic Bombing Casualty Commission (ABCC) in 1946 to assess the late-effects of radiation among the atomic bomb survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It operated for 30 years until, in 1974, it was reconstituted as a joint venture between the U.S. and Japan under the name of Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF). It is operational even today. The ABCC and the RERF have extensively studied the long-term impact of radiation and nuclear disaster across generations for over six decades now, and the findings throw light on the possible effects of radiation. Its report says that chronic (sustained) exposure of about 100 millisieverts (mSv, which is the international unit to measure radiation), increases cancer risk by 0.5 per cent to 0.7 per cent. Notably, the areas in close proximity of Fukushima had a peak exposure of 800 mSv^xiv.

Of course, there is some correlation between radiation exposure and cancer risk, which must be acknowledged. But the notable aspect is that, contrary to popular belief, the findings clearly state that the effect of such exposure is limited only to the exposed generation. To quote the report, "Our studies have not found thus far any inherited genetic effects from parental radiation exposure among the children of A-bomb survivors."^xv (Note: A-bomb stands for the atom bomb. Two atomic bombs were dropped by the U.S. on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, as part of the Second World War.) Thus, while radiation due to a nuclear disaster is dangerous, it would amount to wrong propaganda to state that nuclear disasters will affect generations to come. Of course, the technology has been advancing over the decades and the human capability to contain nuclear disasters has definitely advanced.

There is no doubt that nuclear power is superior along three dimensions, namely, energy density, effect on improved quality of living, and the economic benefits. Now let us look at the key challenges which pertain to the sector, especially in the wake of the recent natural disaster impacting the Daiichi plant in Fukushima. Two concerns are prominent here. The first is that of safety against the plant's disaster, and the second relates to the environmental impact and the nuclear waste which the plant generates.

Let us consider the second issue first.

Opportunity cost of nuclear energy

a) Abstinence from nuclear power is an incomplete response without the logical alternative. If we look at the complete picture of alternative measures, we will have to endorse the fact that our current and future energy demands have to be met. In economics, there is a concept called "opportunity cost," which refers to the cost incurred when one chooses the next alternative. So what happens if we pronounce a total ban on nuclear energy generation? Some part of the future need, although only a small fraction, would come from solar and wind sources, with great unpredictability as pointed out earlier. A part would be offset by hydro-power too. But in all probability we will continue to increase our reliance on fossil-based fuel power generation methods, at least in the near and mid-term future. And that is where the problem lies.

Every year, human activities are adding about 30 billion tonnes of CO₂ ^xvi into the atmosphere. The IPCC estimates that 26 per cent of this emission (about 7.6 billion tonnes) is a direct consequence of electricity generation requirements. This is not really air pollution but it adds to the risk of climate change, which is exhibited in changing rainfall patterns, sea levels and temperatures, leading to food shortages, malnutrition, and disease alterations. The WHO estimates that about 1.3 million people^xvii lose their lives as a result of urban outdoor air pollution alone, and about 140,000 are causalities to adaptation challenges of climate change^xviii. (Note: Additionally, about two million lives are lost due to indoor pollution, the primary victims being women, and children under the age of five.) Thus, the pollution caused by power generation activities, and the climate change associated with them, are directly or indirectly responsible for about 481,000 deaths every year. Comparatively, in the case of the worst civilian nuclear disaster ever at Chernobyl, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic radiation (UNSCEAR) predicted up to 4,000 cancer^xix cases (often curable) due to the accident, besides 57 direct causalities. Unclean fossil energy is definitely not sustainable in the future. Moreover, fossil-based fuels are fast depleting, and their scarcity is inspiring geopolitical instabilities around the world.

Furthermore, it is believed that the changing climate patterns will carry a costly adaptation price tag in the future — an enormous $300 billion every year, which will be a huge drain on the global GDP^xx. All these issues can be addressed only when we graduate from Type-0 fuels to the next-generation fuels — the most prominent amongst them being nuclear fuels, which will also power our deep space missions of the future. A standard approximate comparison between a 1000-MW coal plant and a similar nuclear plant is given in Table 6.

Safety issues of nuclear power

b) Now, let us delve more into the other issue — that of plant safety. Throughout the history of nuclear power generation there have been four major incidents of plant failure — the Kyshtym accident in fuel reprocessing in 1957, the relatively smaller Three Mile Island meltdown (United States), the much bigger Chernobyl accident (USSR, 1986) and the recent Japanese incident at Fukushima. The first accident was purely due to underdeveloped technology, and much of the blame for the next two disasters is attributed to human error. Even in the case of the Fukushima disaster of 2011, there were extraordinary natural forces in action — the rare occurrence of the tremendous stress load of an earthquake coupled with the unprecedented shear load of a tsunami. Of course, there is a need for better technology and more stable plant design across the world, but the occurrence of four failures in six decades cannot be made out as a case for completely disbanding the technology — which is one of our foremost keys to graduating beyond the fossil fuel-based low-end energy. The best of technological progress, while being the biggest ally of mankind, does come at an incremental risk. The key is to learn and evolve to mitigate the risk, rather than use the first incident as an excuse to disband science.

Let us take a few examples. In 1903, the Wright brothers translated into reality the remarkable dream of controlled human flight. Not more than half a decade later, in 1908, the first flight disaster occurred, which severely injured Orville Wright and killed his co-passenger. Many accidents followed, and even today air accidents kill more than 1,500 people every year. Imagine whether we would be flying between distant cities, across oceans and continents, if the incident of 1908, or the ones later, were used as a reason to disband human flight? When the mighty ship Titanic set sail in 1912, it was heralded as the pioneering mission in the field of large and comfortable ocean liners. But on its first voyage it struck an iceberg and sank, killing more than 1,500 people, more than two-thirds of those on board. But that never stopped our quest for bigger and faster means of ocean travel. The very first attempt to send man to the moon, Apollo-1, met with an accident and killed three prominent astronauts. It took another 10 missions, with mixed results, before Apollo-11 finally made it to the moon in 1969, with Neil Armstrong setting foot on the lunar surface and declaring to the world those never-to-be-forgotten words: "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Indeed, that small step was preceded by many a stumble.

The Indian space programme, which is now ranked among the best in the world, started with a failure in 1979 when our first rocket, instead of putting the satellite into a near-earth orbit, went into the Bay of Bengal. I was the Mission Director of the launch, and we were accused of putting a few crores of rupees into the sea. We did not wind up our dreams with that one accident and the criticism. The mission continued and the next year we were successful. Today, that programme, which started with a failure, is the first and only one to discover the presence of water on the moon with its Chandrayan mission, and is now a pride of the nation. The argument is, of course, that all failures and accidents propel us to think and develop better and safer technologies towards better service. And in the case of nuclear power, we do acknowledge that the effects of radiation can reach a wider impact zone. But then, improvement, and not escapism, should be our step forward.

Nuclear fuel of the future: Thorium

Let us introduce a lesser-known member among radioactive materials — Thorium. It is perhaps the best solution possible in the future and would be technologically and commercially the best option in another two decades. Thorium, the 90th element in the Periodic Table, is slightly lighter than Uranium. Thorium is far more abundant, by about four times^xxvi, than the traditional nuclear fuel, Uranium, and occurs in a far purer form, too. It is believed that the amount of energy contained in the Thorium reserves on earth is more than the combined total energy that is left in petroleum, coal, other fossil fuels and Uranium, all put together. And information revealed in an IAEA Report (2005) on Thorium fuels indicates that India might have the largest reserves of Thorium in the world, with over 650,000 tonnes. (Note: The IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, is the world's centre of cooperation in the nuclear field. It was set up in 1957 as the world's 'Atoms for Peace' organisation within the U.N. family.) This is more than one-fourth of the total deposits of Thorium; in comparison, we have barely 1 per cent of the world's Uranium deposits, which is currently being put to effective use, our having opted for the closed fuel cycle technology. Thorium has many other advantages. It is estimated that Thorium may be able to generate (through Uranium-233 that could be produced from it) eight times the amount of energy per unit mass compared to (natural) Uranium^xxvii. In the much debated issue of waste generation also, Thorium has a relative advantage. It produces waste that is relatively less toxic due to the absence of minor actinides (that are associated with Uranium).

At the same time, it is acknowledged that the long-lived high-level waste from Uranium, especially in light of the Indian strategy of adopting the closed fuel cycle involving reprocessing for the recovery of Plutonium and Uranium, can be effectively managed using technologies available today. Indian nuclear experts tell us that the relatively small volumes of such waste (long-term storage space of less than a quarter of the size of a football field is adequate for the estimated waste from a 1000 MWe plant) can be safely stored after vitrification for hundreds of years without causing any risk to the environment or the people.

One question that crops up is, why then has Uranium rather than Thorium become the popular choice for nuclear energy programmes across the world? There are two reasons: one is technological and the other is historical.

The technological reason stems from the simple fact that at first one needs to produce Uranium-233 from Thorium, and for this, reactors based on the naturally available nuclear fuel material, Uranium-235, are required. In addition, the recovery of Uranium-233 by large-scale reprocessing of irradiated thorium, as well as the likely presence of hard gamma emitting Uranium-232, pose certain practical hurdles. But according to experts, all these can be overcome technologically.

The second and the historical reason why Thorium has lagged behind in the ladder of development, comes from its advantage of being able to provide Thorium-based fuel, as seen from the context of the relatively unstable geopolitical conditions — which is that Thorium cannot be weaponised. Unlike Uranium, which is always on a tight-rope walk between being a power source and finding destructive applications, Thorium bombs just cannot be made. Here history steps in. It must be remembered that much of the current civil nuclear applications are direct offshoots of the military nuclear technologies of the Cold War period. So, the first significant outcome of nuclear technology was the Manhattan Project during the Second World War, which ultimately culminated in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing of 1945 by the U.S.

A nuclear weapon is different from a nuclear plant, as in the former there is no need to control or slow down the reactions that lead to a catastrophic energy release in a short time interval — which is the essence of a bomb. However, a nuclear plant needs moderation of the reaction to sustain a steady but controlled release of energy. It was only by the end of 1951 that some noteworthy work was done in controlled nuclear power generation at the EBR-1 experiment in Idaho to produce 100 KW of nuclear power. This "weapon first" approach to nuclear technology led to the fact that there was little focus on developing methods to energise from Thorium, which is non-weaponisable, and a larger focus on Uranium, which can be weaponised.

But now, being the largest owner of Thorium, and also being amongst the nations which will see the highest surge in power demand with its growth, the opportunity is for India to pursue its existing nuclear programme with a special focus on research and development on the Thorium route as the long term sustainable option, which we are already undertaking. For this purpose, it is imperative to continue to implement the current Indian plan of making use of the uranium and plutonium-based fuel cycle technologies as well as irradiate larger amounts of Thorium in fast reactors to breed Uranium-233 fuel as it graduates to the Thorium-based plants. It is noteworthy that the Indian plan for an advanced heavy water reactor (AHWR) is an important step to launch early commencement of Thorium utilisation in India, while considerable further efforts to use Thorium in both thermal and fast reactors would be essential to harness sustainable energy from Thorium-generated Uranium-233.

Various technologies for Thorium-based plants are already being developed and deployed on a test basis across the world including in India, which have a promising future. These include first breeding it to fissile Uranium-233 isotope in the conventional reactors or through the revived interest in technologies like the Molten Salt Reactors (MSR) which use salts to trap the fissile material and do not react with air or burn in air or water. In this technology, the operational pressure is near the ordinary atmospheric pressure, and hence the cost of construction is low and there is no risk of a pressure explosion^xxviii.

A significantly large quantity of highly active nuclear material exists, and will continue to exist in the form of nuclear armaments — which was the mother programme of the nuclear energy programme. In 2010, there were about 22,000 nuclear warheads spanning at least nine countries of the world, and 8,000^xxix of them are in active state, carrying a risk far greater than controlled nuclear power reactors. If the argument of risk is to be used to eliminate the peaceful energy generation programme, then the nuclear opposition factions must first direct their efforts at Washington and Moscow, the owners of 90 per cent of the world's nuclear warheads, to disband their nuclear arsenal — which is, by design, intended to be hostile. Would that happen? Unlikely, at least in the foreseeable future. Our aim should be to minimise the risks associated with nuclear power.

The power of the nucleus is mighty and the future of humanity lies in harnessing it in a safe and efficient manner. In the years to come, it will fuel not only our earth-based needs but also our space missions and perhaps even our civilisation's reach to other planets for habitation. Our current nuclear projects will expand into better and safer materials, like Thorium, and later on, into better reactions like fusion, which once completely developed, will be able to generate hundreds of times more of power than current fission methods. Affordable, clean and abundant energy provided by nuclear sources is our gateway to a future that is healthy, learned and connected — a future that will span deep into space and crosses the boundaries of current human imagination.

Coalfields and burning earth

The Jharia coalfields in Jharkhand constitute the richest coal-bearing area in the country: they contain large quantities of high-grade coking coal. But the presence of this natural resource has been a curse for the local tribal villagers. The Jharia area also has a large number of ongoing mine fires, which have a history of more than a century and have been causing great loss to life and property.

I am reminded of an incident that happened when I was President of India. I was travelling from Sindri to Dhanbad. Hundreds of villagers rushed to my car. We immediately stopped and listened to them. They narrated the heating and spot-fire which regularly take place near their houses. A major challenge to the mining community is that of tackling fires, which have engulfed large and densely populated coal-bearing areas. I and my team visited their houses, where we discovered intense, unbearable heat, emanating not from the skies but the ground below. Occasionally, jets of flames would spurt out from the ground, scorching the earth.

The entire area has been destroyed by the mining activity and rendered uninhabitable for humans or any other life form. Sadly, it can never be restored, at least not for the next million years. Much of the coal mined today is used for electricity generation across the world, and there are many more Jharias being created across the rural and forest lands of earth. These will continue to swell in numbers and size — unless we find sustainable alternative fuel sources to replace fossil fuels.

Pollution, outdoor and indoor

Urban Outdoor Pollution (UOP): It refers to the air pollution experienced by people living in and around urban areas, generally in open space, for example, roads.

Indoor Air Pollution (IAP) refers to pollutants found indoors, generally due to inefficient fuel consumption, chemical pollution to building material, and so on. UOP contributes to IAP. Nearly two million lives are lost due to Indoor Air Pollution, the most common victims being women, and children under the age 5.

Endnotes

i http://www.world-nuclear.org/education/whyu.htm

ii Thorium as a Secure Nuclear Fuel Alternative, A Canon Bryan, 23-April-2009, Journal of Energy Security (available at http://www.ensec.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id= 187:thorium-as-a-secure-nuclear-fuel-alternative&catid= 94:0409content&Itemid=342)

iii Steve Kirsch, The Most Important Investment that We Aren't Making to Mitigate the Climate Crisis, 26.12.2009 Huff Post Green, (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-kirsch/the-most-important-invest_b_402685.html)

iv Data from World Resources Institute (for 2003)

v India and China, Raghav Behal

vi India envisages about 950,000 MW power requirement by 2030, http://bit.ly/vTv5Qx

vii "World Nuclear Power Reactors 2006-08 and Uranium Requirements." World Nuclear Association. 2008-01-14.

viii "World Uranium Production U3O8/ million lbs." Ux Consulting Company, LLC

ix World Nuclear Power Reactors & Uranium Requirements, World Nuclear Association (21 October 2011) (available at http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/reactors.html) Data is for 2010

x Nuclear Power Plant Information, IAEA PRIS (2010), available at http://www.iaea.org/cgi-bin/db.page.pl/pris.nucshare.htm

xi International Monetary Fund, 2010

xii India 2011/12 coal import needs may jump to 114 mln T, Reuters, September 27, 2011

xiii Rise of the Coal Bill, RN Bhaskar, Forbes India Magazine (April 2010)

xiv Matters elucidated thus far by RERF studies, http://www.rerf.or.jp/rerfrad_e.pdf

xv Matters elucidated thus far by RERF studies, http://www.rerf.or.jp/rerfrad_e.pdf

xvi IPCC Reports on climate change

xvii Air quality and health, Fact Sheet, WHO (http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs313/en /index.html)

xviii Climate Change and Health, WHO 2010, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs266/en/

xix "UNSCEAR assessment of the Chernobyl accident." Unscear.org.

xx Climate change fight to cost $300 billion a year, Alister Doyle (12-August-2009), OneWorld (available at http://southasia.oneworld.net/globalheadlines/climate-change-fight-to-cost-300-billion-a-year)

xxi How Coal Works, Union of Concerned Scientists (available at http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/coalvswind/brief_coal.html)

xxii Each kg of coal generates about 2.93 kg of CO2

xxiii Considering the following calculations. About 30,000 million tons of CO2 is responsible for the casualties of about 1.3 million lives per year. (1 billion ton = 1000 million ton). Thus, 1 MT corresponds to about 43.33 causalities per year. And 8.37 million tons would be responsible (by interpolation) for about 362 lives being lost.

xxiv Similar to the above derivation

xxv Based on the eight fold mass to energy advantage we have earlier cited from the article: Thorium as a Secure Nuclear Fuel Alternative, A Canon Bryan, 23-April-2009, Journal of Energy Security

xxvi IAEA, 2005

xxvii Extracted from http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf62.html

xxviii Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/feature/2010/4/liquid-fluoride-thorium-reactors Thorium Fuel for Nuclear Energy, http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/feature/thorium-fuel-for-nuclear-energy/3

xxix "Federation of American Scientists: Status of World Nuclear Forces." Fas.org.

A.P.J. Abdul Kalam was the 11th President of India, from 2002 to 2007, and pioneered the Vision for an Economically Developed India by 2020. He is at apj@abdulkalam.com

Srijan Pal Singh is an expert in the area of sustainable development and is an Electrical Engineer with an MBA from the IIMA. He is at 7srijanpal@iimahd.ernet.in

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