Climatic Changes: A rude awakening (Part II)

The retreat of the glaciers!

The 2004, Dennis Quaid movie Day after Tomorrow starts with an opening sequence where a whole Antarctic Ice Shelf breaks into two. It is an scene which inspires awe (as much as the movie does). The problem is that within 4 years of a fictional rendition, we are beginning to see the real time breaking of the ice shelfs. An area of an Antarctic ice shelf almost the size of New York City has broken into icebergs this month after the collapse of an ice bridge. This is blamed on the glabal warming phenomenon.The northern ice front of the Wilkins Ice Shelf has become unstable and the first icebergs have been released.700 sq km (270.3 sq mile) of ice -- bigger than Singapore or Bahrain and almost the size of New York City -- has broken off the Wilkins this month and shattered into a mass of icebergs. Wilkins could lose a total of 800 to 3,000 sq kms of area after the ice bridge shattered. The Wilkins shelf has already shrunk by about a third from its original 16,000 sq kms when first spotted decades ago, its ice so thick would take at least hundreds of years to form.

Nine other shelves -- ice floating on the sea and linked to the coast -- have receded or collapsed around the Antarctic peninsula in the past 50 years, often abruptly like the Larsen A in 1995 or the Larsen B in 2002. The trend is widely blamed on climate change caused by heat-trapping gases from burning fossil fuels.Temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula have warmed by up to 3 Celsius (5.4 Fahrenheit) this century, Vaughan said, a trend climate scientists blame on global warming from burning fossil fuels in cars, factories and power plants.

While Ice sheets donot add to the level of sea water because the are mostly submerged and would release an equal volume as much they are submerged in, there is a grave risk that the retreat of ice sheets would accelerate Global warming which in return would melt the land based ice glaciers, not only increasing the sea water level but also making the availability of fresh water resources on earth scarce.

For a detailed report:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Health--Science/Earth/Global-Warming/ESA-satellite-images-show-ice-shelf-breaking-away-/articleshow/4464729.cms

Climatic Changes: A rude awakening (Part I)

The Death of Life Giving Rivers

A series of 5 articles published on the Times of India, 30th April 2009, was my rude awakening of how the environment against us dies, subject to the insensitive activities of human kind. These articles speak about silent changes in the environment, and yet these changes will at some point of time dramatically impact our lives, probably alter them forever.


Availability of fresh water from perenial rivers such as Ganga, Yellow and Niger has been severely compromised owing to the change in climatic patterns. Climatic changes and Global warming are impacting the water cycle in two opposite manners:
1. Increasing the glacial melts in the Polar regions thereby increasing the water level of the seas. This is expected to denude coastal areas of India and Bangladesh, not to mention New York City, San Francisco and London.
2. Global warming is also impacting the rainfall pattern and increasing the rate of evaporation thereby changing the flow leading to floods or longer dry spells impacting inhabitants, mostly in developing countries.
3. The state of the world's rivers and threat to freshwater are not entirely on account of climate change. Water pollution is another matter of grave concern. Effluents, garbage, sewage and other liquid and solid wastes that are deliberately pumped into rivers have been turning waters toxic as well as killing off aquatic life.
Thousands of litres of oil was spill into the Sutlej due to a industrial accident some time back. Besides polluting the river and cutting off oxygen suppkly to the river eco-system, the spill has compromised the Ropar wetlands, home to migratory birds.
4. And if all this is not enough, there are cases where the rivers are being killed off for supposedly "developmental" activities as is happening in Delhi where the Yamuna suffers because of the fact that our competent administration and authorities have not been able to handle the Common Wealth games preparations well. Read Post


How can we help? Increase awareness, be actively involved in saving this heritage, make your small attempts to make a large difference. I for once am joining the Jal Biradari in Delhi to save the Yamuna!

The Countdown to the end of Pakistan

7 months after my first story on Pakistan (2nd October 2008) and 13 posts later, its time for the final countdown to begin on curtains to the nation state of Pakistan. At the outer limit, experts give Pakistan 6 months before it calls in international troops to help control the fundamentalist Taliban from running over the state.

To quote David Kilcullen, adviser to David Petraeus, commander of the US Central Command (that oversees operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan):
Pakistan is today a nation without a political gyroscope. Its political leadership is at war with itself and its army thinks India is top enemy while the Taliban steadily inch towards territorial control. In fact, its army elite are inclined in favour of the Taliban. When the radicals do take over the reins in Islamabad, it would be a unique example of a nation handing over the levers of state power to non-state actors.

The spectre is fearsome for India and the international community with around 100 nuclear war-heads within reach of the Taliban forces. Taliban have violated peace agreements with the Islamabad governments at will and have extended their run from FATA to Swat and Burner, which is 100 miles away from Islamabad. There is no doubt that Taliban advances are focussed on running over the whole state of Pakistan. Only if you are an individual called Asif Ali Zardari (AAZ) would you be hallucinating “all’s well in Pakistan”.
On one end, AAZ is talking about military and economic aid to the tune of $30 billion to finance his “efforts” against “war on terror”. On the other, AAZ effectively ratified the government's deal with the Taliban Monday by signing a bill that imposes Islamic law in Swat on 13th April 2009. Pakistani officials have touted the deal, reached in February, as a way to restore peaceful order in the bloodied region -- which lies just a few hours' drive from the capital -- and halt the Taliban's advance. Striking peace deals with some Taliban factions is part of Pakistan's broader strategy to counter the militants. The government's logic is that such accords can exploit the groups' fractious nature; one enemy can be neutralized with a peace deal while another is defeated on the battlefield. The deals also have been struck when the army has struggled to overcome militants. In Swat, about 3,000 militants pushed four times as many soldiers out of the valley in 18 months of fighting, leaving some 1,500 people dead.Nearly all the peace accords reached in the past few years in areas near the Afghan border, where the Taliban are strongest, have collapsed. Often they have left the militants more powerful. A similar deal in Swat fell apart last year after the Taliban renewed attacks on Pakistani forces.

The deal was counter productive if anything and served in strengthening the militant’s base for war in Swat Valley. The number of militants in the valley swelled to double the number at the end of last year. The Taliban's actions since the new peace deal was unveiled have alarmed Washington, where officials fear that Swat will become an effective launching pad for expansion into Pakistan's more densely populated plains. "This is a rest stop for the Taliban, it's nothing more," said a U.S. official in Washington.

On the ideological plane, the idea of Pakistan has ceased to be meaningful; it is a failed state led by reckless elite who could not care less. The fate is sealed more or less and the way it looks from here is that Taliban would run over the plains of Pakistan and establish a parallel government in the country-sides while the federal government would be confined to cities. Suicide attacks, terror training camps and bombings would increase as militants would find their first legitimate lands where Sharia laws would be imposed. A US-International attempt at purging Pakistan would result in a bloody civil war. The ISI- Pakistan Army loyalties would be tested and eventually Pakistan would emerge as a war devastated economy which for other political reasons would have to be split into three countries. The first would be the confederation of states NWFP, FATA and parts of Balochistan. In spirit, this would be exactly like Afghanistan and would continue to be the hot bed of terrorism. The other two states would be Punjab and Sindh. As far as AAZ is concerned, I see him to be a victim of an assassination much like his late wife. History would forget and forgive him for failing his opportunity as the last president of Pkaistan who could have altered the fate of the country.

'Pakistan in danger of fracturing into Islamist fiefdom'

Reprint from Times of India's article by the same name.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Pakistan-in-danger-of-fracturing-into-Islamist-fiefdom/articleshow/4412829.cms

With extremist elements gaining ground every passing day, Pakistan is in an imminent danger of disintegrating into a fiefdom controlled by Islamist warlords, having "disastrous" implications, a media report has said.

"It's a disaster in the making on the scale of the Iranian revolution," an unnamed intelligence official with long experience in Pakistan was quoted as saying by the McClatchy newspaper.

There is little hope to prevent nuclear-armed Pakistan from disintegrating into a fiefdom controlled by Islamist warlords and terrorists, who would then pose a far greater threat to the US than those in Afghanistan, intelligence officials keeping a close watch on the situation in the region told the paper.

They said Pakistan's government is in the danger of being overrun by Islamic militants and the development of such a situation could be dangerous not only for the US but also for the entire region.

"Pakistan has 173 million people and 100 nuclear weapons, an army which is bigger than American army, and the headquarters of al-Qaida sitting in two-thirds of the country which the government does not control," David Kilcullen, a counterinsurgency consultant to the Obama administration was quoted as saying.

"The implications of this are disastrous for the US," he said. Unlike Afghanistan, which is a backward, isolated, landlocked place, officials said Pakistan is a developed state with a major Indian Ocean port and ties to the outside world, especially the Persian Gulf that Afghanistan and the Taliban never had.

Another Pentagon advisor told McClatchy that Pakistan's government in the next 10 years would be overrun by Islamic militants.

"The place is beyond redemption," he was quoted as saying. "I don't see any plausible scenario under which the present government or its most likely successor will mobilize the economic, political and security resources to push back this rising tide of violence," the advisor said.

"I think Pakistan is moving towards a situation where the extremists control virtually all of the countryside and the government controls only the urban centers," he said.

The report said such a pessimistic view of Pakistan's future has been bolstered by Islamabad's surrender this week of areas outside the frontier tribal region to Pakistan's Taliban movement for the first time.

Growing militant infiltration of Karachi, the nation's financial centre and the industrial and political heartland province of Punjab, in part to evade US drone strikes in the tribal belt, also strengthens the view, it said.

Zardari's begging bowl

In over 11 previous posts, I have written on the central issue plaguing Pakistan- An inept and corrupt leadership (sans influence and control) playing puppet to army/ISI powers playing puppet to a larger and high orthodox Islamic order (Taliban being one of the faces of this front). It is indeed a shame that the world watches as Pakistan deteriorates into an Islamic Anarchy. The human, economic, trade and infrastructure indexes in the Pakistan are retrogressing to put it mildly. For a long tiem now, it has been running on IMF and American aid. However the spends have not shown any "developmental" returns.

While Zardari goes about begging for aid from the developed economies, there is little he can show as real time development during his 1.5 year tenure. Forget the state, a justice for his wife's assassination is pending. Zardari has proven to be a very weak and vacillating leader of a country, which at this time needs a visionary, dare- all statesman leader more than anything. The greatest acheivements that Zardari can talk about is his tenure as far as Pakistan is concerned is the success of his aid accumulation efforts. US has aided him, so has the IMF, so has China and now Japan. $1 billion aid to Pakistan has been promised by Japan and US to support economic reforms and developmental assistance.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/US-Japan-pledge-1bn-each-to-Pak/articleshow/4412576.cms
Furthermore, Zaradari has set claims to such aids as a measure (pay back) for Pakistan aiding the "war against terror" on its soil. According to Zardari "If we win, you win. If we loose, you loose" can be construed as a thinly veiled persuation tactic.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Zardari-seeks-aid-like-Marshall-Plan/articleshow/4412121.cms
On a subject such as winning and loosing, Zardari prefers silence on why he would agree to sharia laws and let Taliban "rule" a part of the Pakistani territory. It only proves a complete breakdown of the security systems in Pakistan and the helplessness of Islamabad in managing this muck that they have gotten themselves in.

As if a $7.5 billion civilian aid and $3 billion military assistance is not enough, Pakistan’s envoy to the US Husain Haqqani has sought $30 billion under Marshall Plan to fight Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.$30 billion is far less than the current stimulus packages being doled out to banks and other US companies. “Despite the economic issues that the world is facing, the cost of a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan and Pakistan is going to be minuscule (compared) to the bailouts being given to American car companies and AIG (American International Group),” Haqqani was quoted.Kerry-Lugar bill has proposed tripling of the non-civilian aid to Pakistan to $1.5 billion a year, he said Pakistan needs $5 billion a year for the next five years from the US and its allies to build local law enforcement of about 100,000 men, strengthen counterinsurgency against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and persuade average citizen that the US-led war on extremism is Pakistan’s war and essential for the country’s survival.

It is baffling as to how such huge aid moneys are routinely routed to Pakistan, even while western states express shock, anger, grief and admonishment at Islamabad's mis-governance.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=6898150&page=1. As of 8th April 2009, Taliban broke the "peace deal" between themselves and the government that was drawn in March, 2009. As of 10th April, Taliban fighters were barely 60 miles (97km) north-west of Islamabad.
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20090090259
http://www.zeenews.com/South-Asia/2009-04-09/522070news.html
http://www.livemint.com/2009/04/10000833/Time-distance-and-Taliban.html

It is time for the international forum to see beyond Islamabad's diversionary tactics and be satisfied with the aid lumpsums that they deliver to Islamabad. There is a real problem out there and it is for the average Pakistani citizen that the international community now needs to react and call for a broader military action in Pakistan. Else the whole country is in a real danger of descending into lawless fiefdoms, much the same as Afghanistan fate.

Profiling our Lok Sabha Candidates for Phase 1 General Elections

The first phase of polling is underway as i pen this blog. A quick update on the candidates and their profiles as researched and published by http://www.adrindia.org/home/index.asp, www.nationalelectionwatch.org:

1. Total no. of Candidates with Criminal Records = 222 (i.e. 16% of 1425 candidates)

2. Most of the major political parties have fielded candidates with criminal records, with top four parties being INC (24), BJP(23), BSP(17) and SP(10)

3. Most states have candidates with criminal background contesting elections- Bihar is at the top with 51 candidates (or 26%)

4. There are 306 charges of heinous nature on the candidates which includes, murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, extortion, etc.

5. 193 crorepatis are contesting the phase 1 Lok Sabha elections. Congress has the maximum number of crorepatis (45), followed by BJP (30) and BSP (22).Percentage of contesting crorepatis has increased from 9% in 2004 to 14% in 2009

6. 68% candidates have not furnished their PAN card details.

7. Number of women candidates is just 122(7%) as compared to 1593 of men(93%).

8. Amongst the major parties, the average asset per candidate for INC is Rs.4.3 Crore, BJP is 2 crores and NCP is 1.06 crores.

9. Only 60% of the contesting candidates have a Graduate + level of education.

I have a very prejudiced view of the treatment to be metted out to these candidates: Shoes instead of Votes

Sri Lanka's silent horror

For as long as i can remember, Sri Lanka has been in war with itself. My first recollections of Sri Lanka's Tamil crisis is the decision of sending the Indian peace keeping force to Sri Lanka in 1987-88 by Rajiv Gandhi. The IPKF was thoroughly unsuccessfull in doing much in Sri Lanka and Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in 1991. For long the Sinhala - Tamil crisis has been raging in Sri Lanka and there has been no effort by the successive democratic governments and international community to address the issue in an amicable manner. The troubles date back to political and social attempts of the Sinhala dominated administration to isolate the Tamil community and subjugate them. The deeply ingrained racist prejudice had resulted in marginalization and alienation of Tamilians, social ostracism, economic blockades, pogroms and torture. Now it morphes into the worst yet: Genocide, the mass killing of innocent unarmed civilians.

In the fresh round of offensive launched on the Tamil dominated north areas, the Sri Lankan army has systematically decimated the LTTE strong hold. However, what lies beneath is a more sinister Human tragedy unfolding. Tamilians are being subjected to genocide in Sri Lanka and the world is unaware of it. There has been a silence on the issue and it has not hit the media but then, word goes that there is no Free Media in Sri Lanka. While there have been voices from around the world, the spot light on the issue was generated by Arundhati Roy in her article, "The silent horror of the war in Sri Lanka", which was published by Times of India, Guardian and many other news houses around the world.

There is a studied silence around the horrors perpetrated by the Sinhaleese army on the Tamil population. Sri Lankan army's war on terror has turned from its anti LTTE offensive to a well orchestrated conspiracy to wipe out the island's 350000 Tamilians. The Tamilians are being subjected to unspeakable crimes and the army rationale driving this is that every Tamilian is a terrorist unless proven otherwise. Earlier, this year, when its offensive on LTTE was abating, Tamilians in the north were deported to Welfare Villages/Safety Zones (thinly veiled concentration camps) while the countryside, villages and Tamilian homes were razed to ground by the army and airforce offensive. Civilian areas, hospitals, shelters have been bombed for being friendly towards the "Tigers".This brazen racist war has already claimed several thousand lives and more face starvation, mal-nutrition and death at the welfare villages. A humanitarian tragedy of gigantic proportions in unfolding here and now. Dissenting voices are being quickly stiubbed out by abduction and assassinations. Death Squads and White Van abductions terrorize the innocent Tamilian population.

India is silent and according to Arundhaati an accomplice! The UN and other international forums are willing to overlook this crisis. It is for the 350000 tamilians out there, India and other nations need to step in before it is too late.