Kosi : Adaptation, Information, & Preparedness

By Ramaswamy R. Iyer*

The current Kosi flood is undoubtedly a major national disaster. An embankment has given way in Nepal. The river has changed its course. There are different views on what brought this about, where the responsibility lies, and whether the situation can be reversed. The human tragedy is enormous, and there is widespread criticism of the tardiness and inadequacy of the administrative response to it.

There is also an inter-governmental angle to this disaster. To put it very briefly, the India-Nepal relationship has been badly mismanaged on both sides. Perhaps the best course would be to wipe the slate clean and start afresh. However, that is too complex a subject to be gone into here.

Immediate Priority

 

The immediate priority now is of course rescue, relief, assurance of essential supplies, shelter, medical help and so on. Belatedly, after much public criticism, the Central and State Governments seem to be swinging into action. Can they not enlist the assistance or advice of the governmental and non-government agencies that worked to good purpose in Tamil Nadu in the aftermath of the tsunami in 2004?

Causes and Consequences

 

Causes, consequences, and lessons are matters of great complexity, but may one venture into that dangerous ground with a few tentative remarks? Given the friability and proneness to mass-wasting of the Himalayan system and the waywardness of the Kosi and the heavy load of sediment that it carries, it was probably a mistake to have built a barrage and embankments on that river.

Be that as it may, embankments, even if they do not break down, might cause various problems, such as a rise in the level of the river-bed and the consequent elevation of the river above the level of the ground on either side, possible attacks by the river further downstream, and of course the emergence of water logging and even flooding in the areas ‘protected’ by the embankments because water cannot drain from those areas into the river.

While in some specific instances embankments might have done some good without doing any harm, they are in the case of a river like the Kosi a remedy worse than the disease.

A Minimalist Approach to Embankments and Dams

 

It might be argued that the arguments against embankments do not apply to dams, as they will provide space for the temporary storage and gradual release of floods, thus moderating them. That seems very plausible, but a dam-and-reservoir project is rarely built exclusively for flood-control. It is generally built for multiple purposes (irrigation, power-generation, flood-control, etc), and there is a conflict in-built into such projects.

Flood-control would require the intended space in the reservoir to be kept vacant for accommodating flood-waters, whereas irrigation or power-generation would require the reservoir to be as full as possible; and as the latter are gainful activities in an economic sense, they are apt to prevail over flood-control.

If the space meant for accommodating floods is not available when the flood comes, the gates will have to be opened in the interest of the safety of the dam, and the downstream area might experience a greater flood than it would have done if the dam had never been built. This has actually happened more than once.

Assuming that a flood cushion is built into a dam project and is operated as such, or alternatively that a dam is built exclusively for flood-control and strictly operated for that purpose, the dam might indeed moderate a flood up to a point; but a flood larger than the ‘design flood’ would raise safety concerns and necessitate the opening of the gates; and this can happen at any time. This is an inherent danger in all dams.

One is not saying that dams and embankments should never be built. All that one can say is that in general these are better avoided, and that where they are absolutely necessary, great care should go into their design, construction, maintenance and operation. In particular, the drainage aspect should receive the utmost attention. The decision-making in such cases should be open, accountable, and fully participative.

Fatalism and Floods

 

In recommending minimal recourse to dams and embankments, one is not arguing that calamities must be accepted and suffered fatalistically. Consider what we do in the case of earthquakes or hurricanes or tornadoes or tsunamis. Does anyone say that they should be stopped or prevented from happening or controlled?

What everyone would say is that they should be predicted, anticipated, and prepared for; that there should be timely information, a state of preparedness for disaster, the minimization of damage and prompt and adequate response by way of rescue and relief when the disaster actually strikes. Exactly the same point applies to floods.

Floods are natural phenomena. They will occur from time to time, in varying magnitudes and intensities. When the flood waters come, the river needs space to spread and accommodate them until they recede. The natural flood-plain of a river is an integral part of the river. If we build on it, or if we try to contain the river within embankments, we are asking for trouble.

Keys: Adaptation, Information, & Preparedness

 

Adaptation to floods, timely information, anticipatory preparations for minimizing damage, and prompt action when the flood comes, are the answer. In addition, we can also learn from well-established traditional coping practices evolved over centuries by communities accustomed to periodical floods.

That wisdom is for the future. What do we do about structures already built? If we repair the damage to the embankment and try to put the river back into its old course, we are running the risk of a recurrence of a major disaster in the future.

On the other hand, If we do not rebuild the structures but let the river find its natural course, we might be putting at risk a large number of people who are living and pursuing their livelihoods in areas earlier ‘protected’ by the embankments. That is a difficult choice but not really a dilemma.

Conclusion: Put the Clock Back

 

The argument that we cannot put the clock back is not valid. Having realized the errors of the past, there is no escape from reversing them over a period of time very carefully, minimizing the pain of readjustment to the extent possible. That applies to global warming and climate change, and it applies equally to the fallacy of ‘flood control’.

*The author is former Secretary, Union Ministry for Water Resources, Govt of India

**Article made available by Mr. Man Mohan on Kosi Discussion Forum 

Palestine State: Will Ms Livni help creat it?

By Dr. Abdul

Obviously, not many would believe she will or gather courage to do so. That is the political philosophy of Jewish leaders right form the day they established a Jewish State Israel in 1947 by annexing the Palestinian land with the support of UK, UN, USA and other agencies. And that is how the leadership is groomed by the elders in Israel with an “only Israel” bent to suit the national terror agenda of Israel, resulting in endless annexations and settlements in Palestine and continuous genocide by the Jews with an overt and shameless US backing. Strangely enough, there is a strong perception that even some Arabs themselves oppose the Palestine cause, though such arguments sound funny.

Israel occupies and controls the Palestinians, their lands, resources, economy, taxes and roads as well as the Palestine movements. Israeli arrogance, as a hallmark of its democracy plank, is revealed in its continuous settlement projects on Palestinian soil. While Israel itself behaves like a rogue state, it calls the innocent Palestinians the “terrorists”. The US never cares to attack Israel for its aggression, as it did when Iraq invaded Kuwait. In August, Israel approved construction of 400 new homes in a Jewish neighborhood in annexed east Jerusalem and invited bids for construction of another 416 settler homes in the occupied West Bank. The Israeli watchdog Peace Now has reported that the construction of settlements – viewed as a major obstacle to reaching a peace deal – has nearly doubled since 2007.

Israel now is more worried about Iran than its illegal settlements in Palestine. Israel seems panicked with Iranian “threat” and absence of fresh sanctions as part of economic terrorism unleashed on Tehran. If not a usual Israeli bluff, the new radar, which could cut the response time of Israel’s Arrow system, designed to intercept incoming missiles was launched last week along with some 120 American crewmen and has been set up at the Nevatim air base in the Negev desert. The system can pick up a ballistic missile shortly after launch. But that does not make Israel secure if it continues to occupy Arab lands, kill the Palestinians, block the routes from Palestine to outside world.

Right now, Israel is awaiting a new government, the Palestinians are seriously divided, and President Bush is looking for an agreement, if not a Palestine state, by the end of the year.. Having last week replaced Ehud Olmert as the leader of Kadima, the largest party in the Israeli Knesset, Tzipi Livni has accepted an invitation from the president Shimon Peres to form a new government. The request followed the resignation on Sept 21 of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who faces several corruption inquiries. He denies any wrongdoing, but police have recommended he be indicted over two of the inquiries – allegations that he misused cash payments from a US businessman, and accusations that he double-billed government agencies for trips abroad.

Continued Israeli settlement construction and Israeli security concerns have clouded Middle East peace negotiations. Both Palestinians and Israelis have expressed doubt about achieving an accord before Bush leaves office. As late as last month Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held out hope of talks succeeding. “God willing, with the goodwill of the parties, and the tireless work of the parties, we have a good chance of succeeding,” Rice said after seeing Israeli and Palestinian leaders and summoning top negotiators for a joint status report.

Past moves

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s achievement in office has been listed as direct talks with the Palestinians, indirect negotiations with Syria and a steady economy despite global financial turmoil. A US-Israeli strategy coerced the PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas to dismiss the elected Hamas government and seize control of the Gaza Strip, leaving West Bank of the Fatah control. Engineered by Israel, a war broke out in 2006 in south Lebanon – from where Israel had also since partially withdrawn.

The Kadima party was formed nearly three years ago by the then Prime Minister and leader of centre-right Likud party, Ariel Sharon. He brought left-of-centre figures together with Likud members willing to split off in support of his policy of withdrawing settlers from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank. There are many who followed Sharon from Likud, because the Likud alternative, Binyamin Netanyahu, is a “fake” with dubious morals. Olmert’s ratings have plummeted amid the corruption investigations which forced him to announce plans to step down.

Kadima represents a “new political paradigm” and has successfully carved out a centrist niche. Coalition needs 61 for majority. Current coalition (67 seats): Kadima: 29; Labour: 19; Shas: 12; Pensioners party: 7. Other parties: Likud: 12; Yisrael Beitenu: 11; National Union-National Religious Party: 9; United Torah Judaism: 6; Meretz: 5; Arab parties: 10.

Livni met Defence Minister Ehud Barak, who is head of Labour Party, the second largest parliamentary bloc, to negotiate a possible partnership. Several right-of-centre parties have called for early elections, arguing that any coalition formed by Ms Livni would not offer stable government.

Sharon’s protégé ? :Livni’s Profile

1983: Resigned from Mossad to marry and study law

1999: Elected as MP for Likud party

2005: Joined newly formed Kadima party

Ms Livni has generally kept a low media profile, leading some to consider her somewhat cold and aloof. She has tried to keep her family out of the limelight, but is married to Naftali Spitzer, who owns an advertising agency. She completed her military service, and went on to complete a four-year stint in the intelligence agency Mossad in her early 20s.Little is known about her espionage assignments, except that some of her work involved living in Paris. She later practiced as a lawyer for a decade before entering politics.

Tzipora Malka Livni, 50, who has won the vote to become leader of Israel’s ruling Kadima party, was born raised in Tel Aviv, and has been described as sporty, intelligent and a tomboy during her school days. Tzipi has come from relative political obscurity to within sight of the prime ministership within just 10 years. Ms Livni, a lawyer and mother of two, has moved from a strongly Zionist nationalist background to become a passionate advocate of a land-for-peace deal with the Palestinians.

Right-wing background has molded her political understanding. Becoming a proponent of unilateral disengagement and the formation of a Palestinian state was a major ideological transition for Ms Livni. Her Polish-born father Eitan was a key figure in the Jewish underground movement, the Irgun. It fought British rule in Palestine before Israel was founded in 1948, and is best known for its attack on the King David Hotel in 1946, in which 91 people died. But while she was raised on the dream of a “greater Israel” in a land including the entire West Bank, she came to believe co-existence with the Palestinians was necessary for Israel to survive as a democratic state.

Ms Livni’s relatively short parliamentary career began when she was elected to the Knesset in 1999 for the right-wing Likud party. She was a protégé of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who in 2001 named her minister for regional development.

Other ministerial portfolios followed – immigrant absorption, housing and construction, justice and later foreign affairs. She became a close adviser to Sharon and in 2005 helped to broker his controversial pull-out of Israeli troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip. When he left the Likud party, which was split over the disengagement issue, to set up the Kadima party in the autumn of 2005, Ms Livni went with him.

Ms Livni remained foreign minister under Sharon’s successor, Olmert, throughout the Israel-Lebanon war in 2006. There have been suggestions she was largely frozen out of military-political decision-making during the war, although she was very involved in negotiating UN resolution 1701 which ended the 34-day conflict.

Olmert was heavily criticized for the handling of the war, which was later condemned as an indecisive, badly managed campaign, carried out by ill-prepared forces. Since November 2007, Livni has been deeply involved in talks with the Palestinian Authority aimed at a deal for a Palestinian state by January 2009. In 2006, she told the New York Times: “I believe, like my parents, in the right of the Jewish people to the entire land of Israel. But I was also raised to preserve Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people and to preserve democratic values.”

Livni replaces party Chief Ehud Olmert, who resigned over corruption allegations. As anticipated, on the heels of Olmert’s formal resignation as prime minister, Ms Livni has been asked to form a new coalition government.

Challenges for Livni

President Shimon Peres has been holding consultations with a number of parties, inviting opinions on who the leaders wanted to see as prime minister or whether they were seeking early elections. A former spy and presently the foreign minister in charge, Ms Livni would deliver the Israeli and Palestinian peoples to safety by settling the long pending Palestine establishment issue. But she must be shrewd enough to care that the US-Israeli strategists might not harm her as well, like they did to Ariel Sharon, bedridden in coma, possibly as a punishment for “forgetting the expansionism cause” of the Jews.

Because of the terms of the talks, she is unable to reveal her current position on final status issues, such as borders and the fate of Jerusalem. She is, however, seen as being strongly opposed to an agreement that gives any ground on the right of Palestinian refugees to return to Israel. Ms Livni was opposed to the 1993 Oslo accords partly because they left the most contentious issues unresolved. And she is still said to be opposed to a suggested “shelf agreement” amid pressure for an interim document to be signed before US President George W Bush and Olmert leave office. She has to unify her coalition first.

If Ms Livni is successful in building an administration, she should be able to govern until elections in 2010. Some say she’s honest, but she is widely criticized for her lack of experience in security and politics. Opinion polls suggest that Likud would benefit from an early poll. Hence the new premier would strive hard to seek “adjustments” with coalition partners, including on Palestine issue. But she said that if she failed to do so, she would call an early election. And it is the battle for the centre ground that will loom large as the new leader tries to form a coalition, and takes the party to early general elections if he or she fails.

If Livni fails, a fresh general election will probably be called for the start of next year. But there are many, including key figures within Kadima, who believe Ms Livni is the party’s only hope for survival. Kadima might get more seats with Livni. Kadima means ‘forward’, but Olmert feels the party is going backwards.

Olmert is now the caretaker prime minister while Ms Livni tries to form the new government. Ms Livni now has 42 days to form a coalition and has quickly urged Likud party leader Binyamin Netanyahu to join a national unity cabinet – a call the Likud leader had rejected before. Livni needs to build a coalition representing 61 seats in the 120-seat parliament.

Quartet: Sabotage on Palestine?

The Annapolis process launched by the US in November 2007 was meant to herald a new dawn for the Middle East peace process, but conditions for Palestinians, which it was meant to improve, have worsened since peace talks recommenced under US sponsorship in 2007. The Bush administration wanted the November 2007 peace summit at Annapolis to lead to a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians before it left office but this is looking increasingly unlikely with both USA and Israel playing dirty games.

The key international players trying to promote peace in the Middle East meet on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly on Friday as the U.N. Security Council opens a high-level debate on Israeli settlements. The so-called Quartet — U.N, the USA, the EUnion and Russia — is meeting at a difficult period in the region. Quartet members attended an Iftar with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Arab partners on Friday night. Ban also met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sept 25 evening.

The Middle East diplomatic quartet, makes special efforts to support Israel and condemned “acts of terrorism” against Israelis; it has pressed Israel and the Palestinians to seal a peace deal this year and expressed “deep concern” over continuing settlement expansion by the Jewish state in the West Bank. A ministerial session of quartet ended with a call on the parties “to make every effort to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008.”

A report was issued ahead of a Quartet meeting in New York on 26 Sept said the Quartet of international powers has “lost its grip” on the Middle East peace process which it is meant to foster. In a damning report, the agencies say the Quartet – Russia, the US, the EU and the UN – is failing in its mission. “Nearly one year on, we are seeing exponential settlement growth, additional check-points and – because of this – further economic stagnation”. A coalition of 21 aid agencies – including Oxfam, Save the Children, Care, Cafod and World Vision – warned that the peace process would fall apart unless the Quartet made swift and dramatic progress towards its goals.

The Quartet has fundamentally failed to improve the humanitarian situation on the ground. There has been no change in a number of the 10 main objectives set by the Quartet to help improve the daily lives of the Palestinians and in five of them an actual deterioration. Unless the Quartet’s words are matched by more sustained pressure and decisive action the situation will deteriorate still further. The Quartet has totally failed to hold Israel to account for expanding the settlements on occupied land. Time is fast running out. There has been no immediate response from the Quartet, whose representative in the region is former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. Unless there is a swift and dramatic improvement, it will be necessary to question what the future is for the Middle East Quartet.

On 26 Sept, the U.N. Security Council held an open debate at the ministerial level on the ongoing Israeli settlement building in disputed territory. Saudi Arabia requested the debate to coincide with the General Assembly, which has brought a host of world leaders to New York. At a Security Council debate specially convened on the issue formally called for by Saudi Arabia, Arab countries on 26 Sept Friday slammed Israel over its settlement expansion policy. “Settlement makes the creation of a viable Palestinian state impossible,” Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said during the council debate.

In a cleaver move, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice shifted the focus from the settlement issue to appease her Jewish friends who throng around White House, and instead urged Arab countries to “consider ways they might reach out to Israel. She added that the Arab world needed to fully understand that “Israel belongs to the Middle East and will remain” in the Middle East, but US wants to make it the dominant terror state in the region. “Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas told the council that the Israeli settlement blocs “will not allow for the emergence of a viable Palestinian state because they divide the West Bank into at least four cantons.” “How can I convince my people of the necessity of peace with Israel when settlement construction continues?” he added.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, whose country currently chairs the European Union, meanwhile restated the EU view that Israeli settlements, “wherever in the occupied Palestinian territories, are illegal under international law.” Israeli President Shimon Peres told the General Assembly in his address on Sept 24 that despite “stagnation and regression and failure” in the peace process, “Israelis and Arabs are marching toward peace.” One does know if he could also joke.

An Observation

At one point Israel announced withdrawal of forces and settlements form Palestine. But the unifying banner of “unilateral disengagement” now droops at half mast. A near-fatal stroke has left Sharon in a coma, but it could not be ascertained if that had indeed been a natural development or some ploy to make his voice silent on Palestine. Or, was it US-Israeli game plan to thwart any Palestine move? Many hope Ms Livni would breathe new life into a political establishment mired in sleaze and dominated by ageing, male, former military figures, although she is widely criticized for her lack of experience. Will any new era with blessings begin now?

The task facing Tzipi Livni, however, is not an easy one. In her nearly two years as Israel’s second ever female foreign minister, she has led the team under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert negotiating with the Palestinian Authority. She remains highly popular with the Israeli public, seen by many as an “Ms Clean” – a fresh alternative to a political establishment dominated by ageing, military males, many of whom have been tainted by corruption. She could use her popularity to settle the Palestine issue and set in motion a new peace wave in the region.

Israel insists that its settlements in Palestine “are not an obstacle to peace.” The only path to Israel’s security is peace and it is time for Israel to understand that it cannot continue to exempt itself from behaving in accordance to international law. It is, first and foremost, about Israeli commitment to prepare their people, who are fed on lies about Arabs and Palestinians, for the price of peace, to accept the true meaning of peace. This will avert any leadership crisis whenever a deal for peace is struck.

Edited at ABC

The Kosi Balance Sheet

Kosi Victims being rescued by Nepal Police & Army in Sunsari Nepal

 

 

 

The Kosi Balance Sheet

Promised Irrigation

Through Eastern Kosi Main Canal                                   712,000 hectares

Slashed Down Target (1975)                                          374,000 hectares

Actual Irrigation            2003-04                                     141,970 ha (19.94%)

2004-05                                      91,560 ha (12.86 per cent)

2005-06                                    149,170 ha ( 20.95 p.c.)

2006-07                                    124,130 ha ( 17.43p.c.)

2007-08                                    136,180 ha (19.13p.c.)

 

Maximum that the canal irrigated was in 1983-84           213,133 ha (29.93%)

 

Western Kosi Main Canal

Promised Irrigation                                                       325,000 ha

Actual Irrigation            2003-04                                     13,750   ha (4.23%)

                                    2004-05                                     17,390   ha ( 5.35%)

                                    2005-06                                     21,620   ha ( 6.65%)

                                    2006-07                                     25,310   ha (7.79%)

                                    2007-08                                     23,770   ha (7.31%)

The Canal that was estimated to cost Rs 13.49 Crores in 1963 has consumed

 Rs. 1009 Crores till March 2008 and the construction still continues.

 

Flood Protection

 

Promised Protected Area                                              214,000 hectares

Land Waterlogged on the

east of the Eastern Kosi Embankment                           182,000 ha (a)

Land waterlogged on

the west of the Western Embankment                            123,000 ha (b)

 

Land permanently exposed to

 flooding / erosion/ sand casting

between the two embankments                                     110,000 ha ©

 

Sum of (a), (b) and (c)                                                 415,000 ha

 

This year’s flood has hit 5 districts, 35 blocks, 412 GPs, 1026 villages, a population of

 33.56 lakhs killing 162 persons and 767 cattle (Official Report 25^th September 2008)

 

Dinesh Kumar Mishra

Convenor-Barh Mukti Abhiyan

6-B Rajiv Nagar, Patna 800024, Bihar, INDIA

E- mail: dkmishra108@gmail.com  +919431303360 

Kosi: Of Deluge, Candles and Matchboxes

BY Dinesh Kumar Mishra*

The foundation stone of the Kosi Project was laid on January 14, 1955 amidst fanfare, jubilation and victory. Dr. Shrikrishna Sinha, the then Chief Minister of Bihar, laid the foundation stone near Bhutaha village close to Nirmali, in Saharsa (now Supaul) district with the chanting of mantras by Pt. Mahabir Jha of Jhitki village and shouting of slogans like ‘Aadhi Roti Khayengein, Kosi Bandh Banaayengein.’ (We will eat only half a chapati but we will surely build the Kosi embankments).

A majority of people lost the other half of the bread too on the 18th August 2008 when the Kosi embankment breached on that day. 

Col. Townsend of the US Army while deliberating in a seminar organized by the American Society of Civil Engineers to discuss the Mississippi floods of 1927 had said that even the best designed and carefully constructed embankments remain at the mercy of burrowing animals like rats, foxes, muskrats who can create a hole in the finest levee that has been devised, which if not closed within a few moments will ensure its destruction.  

The Mississippi River of the United States broke loose in 1927 inundating an area of 51,200 sq. kilometer and damaging property to an estimated extent of two hundred million to a billion dollars.  The breaches drove nearly three quarters of a million people from their homes and six hundred thousand of them were dependant on Red Cross. The wealth and power of the United States enabled much to be done for the sufferers, still they suffered.

Col Townsend further added a ‘careless supervisor and dark nights’ to his list of embankment destroyers. His observations remain valid till date as the Kosi comes out of its shackles at Kusaha in Nepal some 13 kilometers upstream of the Kosi Barrage. All the eight breaches that have occurred so far can be brought under these categories. 

 Col. Townsend gave benefit of doubt to the planners and engineers when he prefixed ‘best designed and carefully constructed’ adjectives to the embankments. The Kosi has breached its embankment eighth time and it is for the first time that the ‘disaster’ has generated so much of interest.

The embankments on Kosi are spaced at an average distance of 9 to 10 kilometers below the barrage with a maximum width of 16 kilometres between Kisunipatti and Bhaptiahi and minimum width of nearly 3 kilometres at the barrage itself. The spacing of the embankments is only 8 kilometres at the tail end, between Baluaha Ghat and Ghonghepur. In Nepal portion the spacing between them is restricted to between 3 to 6 kilometers.

Common sense suggests that the spacing between the embankments should increase as the river advances further as more and more streams join the river from western side. This simple common sense was kicked around when these embankments were constructed in late 1950s.

There were 304 villages with a population of 192,000 (1951 census) going to be trapped between the embankments and each one of them was trying to be located outside the embankments. Later the embankments were extended and 380 villages of Bihar and 34 villages of Nepal came within them. Their current population is nearly 1.2 million.  The village locations were fixed and it was the embankment on either side of the river that could be moved. So did it happen. Now the embankment alignment is a caricature of what it was designed, if there was any design. 

Chinese Deputy Prime Minister Teng Tse Hui discussing the floods in the Hwang Ho had once said in 1955 that according to historical records, there have been inundations and breaches on 1500 or more occasions on the lower reaches of the river and there were 26 important changes of course, nine of them major.

The terrible floods of 1933 caused more than 50 breaches of the dykes and brought disaster to more than 11,000sq. km. Over 3,640,000 people were affected and over 18,000 killed. Property worth some 230 million Yuans was lost.

 In 1938, Chiang Kai Shek Government opened the dykes on the south bankof the river at Huayuan Kou near Cheng Chow in Honan province. This led to a major change in the course of the river affecting 54,000 sq. km. with a population of 12,500,000 and 890,000 people died.In a hundred years, from 1855 till 1955, the dykes had breached on 200 occasions. 

In an on-the-spot survey, the river bed in lower reaches was found to be rising by one to ten centimeters every year in the middle of this century. In some cases the existing river bank was found even ten meters higher than the surrounding country level. Such rapid silting cannot be dealt with simply by piling up and reinforcing dykes. In a sense, higher and stronger the dyke, the quicker is the silt deposited because it has no way of getting out.

The Kosi embankments were constructed citing the wonderful performance on these two Chinese rivers. 

Had Col. Townsend been living today, he must have amended his statement saying that the embankments could also be ill-conceived, ill- designed and poorly constructed. Capt. G.F. Hall, former Chief Engineer of Bihar was of the opinion that the embankments can only postpone the day of retribution and will be a store of disaster for the future generation. A status paper prepared by Government of Bihar in 2003 suggests that those who subscribe to such views are the people of colonial mindset. 

The ‘nationalist’ embankment builders had a last laugh when they succeeded in bringing Dr. Rajendra Prasad, then President of India’ to Bihar between 17th to 22nd October 1954 and made him request the people to participate in the ‘yagna’ of nation building by constructing the Kosi embankments. His views in the Patna Flood Conference (1937) were diagonally opposite to what he was made to say in 1954. One can imagine the stress the President might have undergone during that trip of his home state of Bihar. 

Embankments prevent a river from overflowing its banks during floods but they also prevent the entry of floodwater. This leads to a major problem as the embanked river is no longer able to fulfill its primary function – draining out excess water. With the tributaries prevented from discharging into the river and accumulated rainwater finding no way out, the surrounding areas quickly become flooded. The situation is aggravated by seepage from under the embankments.

The areas outside the levees remain waterlogged for months after the rainy season because this water has no way of flowing out to the sea. Theoretically, sluice gates located at these junctions should solve the problem but, in practice, such gates quickly become useless; as the bed level of the main river rises above the surrounding land, operating the gates lets water out instead of allowing outside water in.  When the sluice gates have failed, the only option left is to also embank the tributary.This results, then, in water being locked up between the embankments.

Moreover, no embankment has yet been built or can be built in future that will not breach. When a breach occurs, there is a deluge. This is what happened at Kusaha this year on the 18th August 2008. 

Proponents of embankments have tried to rationalize the jacketing of rivers thus: Forcing the same quantity of water through a narrow area, as happens in case of an embanked river, increase the water velocity thereby increasing its eroding capacity. The increased velocity of water dredges the river bottom and transports the sediment out preventing the rise of riverbed levels, increasing the carrying capacity of the river and reducing the extent of flooding.

These were the arguments put forward by engineers in independent India when they resorted to massive embanking of rivers in the Ganga and the Brahmaputra basin. Unfortunately, there has been little evidence to date that this theory is actually being substantiated anywhere on Indian rivers. The technical debate, however, continues at that level. 

At the field level in the flooded areas of Bihar, there is a continuing debate on polythene sheets, rice, vegetables, salt, candle and match-boxes etc. How strategic is this deflection of debate that the people discuss keep discussing about sattu (ground gram), chura (flattened rice) candles and matchboxes. This is what precisely the politicians want and if they are not brought to the real issues of dealing with the sediments, floodwaters, accountability and an informed debate; the event would simply pass of as the earlier ones.  

*Convenor – Barh Mukti Abhiyan 
6-B Rajiv Nagar , Patna 800024 Bihar-India 
+919431303360 E-mail: dkmishra108(at)gmail.com 

India’s Options in Kashmir

By Dr. Abdul

First, the good news for Kashmiris. To the credit of the freedom leaders it must be stated that for the first time in Independent India, a few mainstream newspapers, academicians, public figures and even political parties have expressed their solidarity with freedom struggling Kashmiris and they support an independent Kashmir. That is the biggest asset the poplar uprising has earned since 1947 when conservative India quite tactfully annexed Kashmir and will help in ushering in a free Kashmir at the earliest.  

 

 

Any spontaneous struggle by people has a lot of historical significance and Kashmir uprising for sovereignty sent out that message to the world loud and clear. Finally, the world has realized it is no more any “terrorist’ adventure by few Kashmiris or Pakistan sponsored “cross-border-terrorist act” as India thus far claimed in international forums and propagated in world media, but it is indeed the popular freedom struggle being waged by Kashmiris on all-Kashmir basis. And, conservative India can no longer call the freedom fighting Kashmiris since there are no guns, grenades or any other weaponry in the hands of people here. They are protesting peacefully. However, India is using brute force against the unarmed protestors. They are firing bullets and teargas shells on them, torturing them and killing them.  

 

The spectacle of hundreds of thousands marching and protesting in both regions needs an explanation. Brutal murder of innocent Kashmiris who protested peacefully requires an explanation. Yet, Indian government, diverting the global attention by keeping alive a non issue like nuclearism which mean nothing to India and famous terror acts, still keeps criminal silence over surrendering sovereignty back to the struggling Kashmiri masses. US should use nuclearism flirting of India to make Kashmir free form India.

 

The Kashmiri population feels that their homeland is essentially occupied, and harbors a deep sense of oppression over several decades and generations by Indian governments. This powerful sense of unmitigated grievance was triggered by yet another ‘slight’ – the decision to transfer land without any consultation with the valley’s people. The Jammu agitation caused disruption to traffic on a highway running from Srinagar to Jammu and beyond that is the valley’s lifeline. In August over 30 Muslims died there when Indian security forces opened fire on large marches.

 

 

Hindu Atrocities in Kashmir

 

Oppression, suppression, torture, genocide are the hallmark of the Indian occupation in Jammu Kashmir. It appears the strategists in New Delhi are trying to split Jammu Kashmir to carve out a separate state for Hindus in Jammu as Kashmir becomes an independent nation. Kashmir Muslim leaders have seen through the Indian tricks and are determined to pursue their legitimate struggle to achieve freedom form occupying India. True, India is scared of the peaceful but massive demonstrations for freedom.  

 

The recent trouble started when the state government said it would illegally grant 99 acres plus (40 hectares plus) of forest land to the Amarnath Shrine Board. The allocation of land was aimed at altering the demographic balance in the area. The government said the board needed the land to erect huts and toilets for visiting pilgrims. But following days of protests, the government rescinded the order, prompting Hindu groups to mount violent protests of their own and creating havoc for the Kashmir Muslims. 

 

 

India continues to cause deaths to Kashmiris. Recent Mehraj’s death caused by Indian terrorist strategy highlights how youth are being treated in Kashmir. Mehraj’s death highlights how youth are being treated in Kashmir. On arrest of protesters, authorities have got no justification in arresting the peaceful and unarmed protestors. As it is known, India has zero tolerance for any opposition Indian occupation of Jammu Kashmir. Just as the Britishers used to do, the Indian forces have employed brute force against the peaceful demonstrators.

 

At some places Indian forces are intimidating the women folk by marching naked before them. The Hurriyat (G) chairman Geelani said this is an extreme measure of war crime against humanity. Geelani said United Nations should constitute a war tribunal in Kashmir to ‘investigate worst form of human rights violations, use of brute force and killing of unarmed protesters’ by Indian troopers. According Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, one of Kashmir’s main pro-independence politicians, “Such repressive measures will not work. We will emerge stronger and more vibrant”.  India seems to be keen to make Kashmiris “terrorists” by dirty provocative strategies like flying nuclear enabled jets in Kashmir, but the Indian colonizers will have to learn the lessons properly.

 

Talks and ceasefires

 

Recently several secret grave yards were discovered in Kashmir which is under Indian occupation. News about Kashmir is every where these days, making the Since its “discovery” in the mid-19th century by UK, the cave-deity has attracted masses of “Hindutva pilgrims” every summer from India. This May, the government of Jammu Kashmir decided to illegally transfer 100 acres of land on a mountain route leading to the shrine to a Hindu religious trust controlled by JK governor and central government. These sparked widespread protests in the valley through June, and six civilians were killed. The decision was then rescinded in early July, and this in turn triggered a large-scale and sustained protest campaign in the Hindu-majority districts around the city of Jammu. The Kashmir valley, though overwhelmingly Muslim, has an ice-formation located inside a remote cave that is regarded as a manifestation of the god Shiva.  Indians must feel vulnerable and concede guilty of decades of genocides in militarized Kashmir.

 

 

Kashmir last dominated world headlines in 2002, when India and Pakistan mobilized a million troops on the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border that divides the territory, contested since 1947, and on the international frontier between the two countries. Cold blooded massacres in Kashmir have snot made the Hindus panicky. But a stand-off was precipitated by using a “suicide raid” in December 2001 on India’s parliament in New Delhi and a massacre in May 2002 of families of Indian soldiers near the city of Jammu, Hindu-majority south of Kashmir. Prior to that, the Indian and Pakistani militaries fought a two-month war in the summer of 1999 on a stretch of the LoC in the remote Himalayas, in Ladakh’s Kargil district, after the LoC there was infiltrated by Pakistani army units. That conflict too threatened to escalate into a wider war between countries which had tested nuclear weapons just a year earlier, in May 1998. In late 2003, on the LoC took hold, and since 2004 relations between India and Pakistan have seen a thaw. But four years later, it is clear that the thaw has not developed into a serious peace process, and that a settlement to the Kashmir dispute is nowhere on the horizon. In April 2005, a fortnightly cross-LoC bus service was launched between Srinagar, the capital of the Kashmir Valley and the largest city in Indian-administered Kashmir, and Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir. Subsequently, there was no progress in the India-Pakistan dialogue on substantive aspects of the Kashmir problem, even on such relatively peripheral issues as the de-militarization of the Siachen glacier on the northern fringes of the territory. The paralyzed nature of the talks seemed bearable since the insurgency in Indian-administered Kashmir since 1990 ebbed during these years.

 

But in fact the past few years of relative calm represent a major missed opportunity for India to engage all communities and factions in Kashmir in a genuine and credible – as distinct from an illusory and vacuous – peace process. Kashmiris had been looking forward to getting back their sovereignty from India, however, India always takes a peaceful atmosphere to push further its hegemonic and colonial and imperialistic rule in Jammu Kashmir.  Any notion that the Kashmir conflict has been successfully put in cold-storage has been exposed as a delusion during the summer of 2008.

 

Indianization & Decline of Muslims in Jammu  

 

Discovery of secret grave yards in Kashmir has sent up cold waves across Kashmir about possible secret genocides of Muslims in Jammu as well.  It is a known strategy of colonizers to “import” their own people to settle down in colonies annexed so as to keep the legitimate inhabitants are pressurized and subjugated and punished. Indian Doctrine of containment of and unleash subversive agenda in its neighbors Since 1947 India has harped on this hidden agenda quite vigorously by inciting violence in Kashmir. Indian strategists even now believe that the only way they can preserve their identity and avoid being swallowed by the huge Indian population is by retaining control of their land. Kashmiris have to some extent resisted the Indian designs, but the militarization has overpowered the innocent Kashmiris. India wants Kashmiris encircled by Hindus and their culture so that Kashmiris, like Indian Muslims, “socialize and Hinduize partially”. Shri Amarnath illegal land deal is a part of the scheme.

 

India added more and more Hindus in Kashmir through militarization and other nefarious designs. In 1982, while Sheikh Abdullah governed the state, his National Conference party brought out a red book titled “Conspiracy to reduce the majority community in Jammu and Kashmir into a minority”. Other Kashmiri leaders have also, on many occasions, voiced their concern over what they say is the steady decline of the Muslim population in the Jammu region. They have blamed this on people from neighboring states settling down in the region.

 

India has strenuously tried to make Hindus infiltrate into Kashmir and settle down with military protection.  Several “Indian entrepreneurs are encouraged by India to buy land and promote Indian hidden agenda last year, Kashmiris effectively forced the state government to withdraw a proposal to allow non-Kashmiri investors to bid for plots of land on which to build hotels at the tourist resort of Gulmarg and other places.    

 

Every thing for Hindus in Indian Secular state

 

Hated and contained by the Hindus at all levels, Muslims in India feel neglected since 1947 and now they are treated as undesired “terrorists: and suspected ones in the country. There is a perception among Hindus in Jammu that they wielded little power in the state of Jammu and Kashmir as the minority population – and what leadership they did have was remote and inaccessible.

 

India follow not just “first Hindus” policy, but more atrociously, “Benefits only for Hindus”. Hindus in Jammu are very particular that similar things don’t happen to Hindus in Jammu Kashmir and a second capital was made out of Jammu where government functions one half of year. The predominately pro-India media managed by Hindus do the talking and guiding part of the Hindu agenda for JK. Congress party chose a leader form Jammu region, Gulam Nabi Azad, who is known to be feeling comfortable more with Hindus than Kashmiris and never even visited his partly office dung his tenure as JK chief-minister, to head the collation ministry so that Hindu interests are held supreme and effectively taken care of as governments in India effectively do by cheating the Muslim voters. 

 

With an imperialistic view to retaining Jammu Kashmir under its custody, since 1947 New Delhi engineered techniques to split the Kashmiris and Kashmir along regional and religious lines. The current turmoil in Kashmir has exposed that Indian strategy beyond doubts. Religious and regional conflicts have surfaced quite openly and Kashmiri Hindus encouraged by India seek the intervention of India in some measures.  Also, pro-and anti-Kashmir groups have been engineered among Muslims and Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh are, albeit in different ways, hostages to the frozen-yet-simmering disputes.

 

 

Ever growing Indian frustrations over Kashmiri resolve for independence could well be gauged form the military operations in Kashmir recently. Jammu region created economic terrorism for Kashmir Muslims, along with human terrorism unleashed from Indian terror forces, but authorities in Indian-administered Kashmir have imposed an indefinite curfew throughout the Kashmir Valley. It comes amid continuing protests by the Muslim majority population – with a major rally planned for the region’s main city, Srinagar.

 

The valley is already paralyzed by strikes called by freedom groups who want an end to Indian rule. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims took part in a protest rally called by freedom leaders in Srinagar. Reports suggested police had carried out raids on freedom leaders’ homes overnight. The strike comes amid continuing freedom movement in the region. Fifteen people died in a gun battle between militants and the authorities near the Line of Control – the de facto border dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

 

   

 Imperialist Repressions: Kashmiri resentments  

 

Obviously, Indian Government wants to create a rift between the regions and stop Jammu Hindus from joining a new free Kashmir state. Observers are almost unanimous that the land row is an effect rather than a cause of antagonism between the two regions, Kashmir and Jammu. They say the simmering discontent dates back to the ending of the monarchy in Kashmir in 1947. The monarch, Maharaja Hari Singh, was a Hindu who belonged to the main ethnic Dogra community of Jammu. When the monarchy ended, handed over Kashmir to India under secret agreements and a popular government were installed under the leadership of Sheikh Abdullah. Since then India systematically created a pro-India contingent of Kashmiris, killing many regularly.

 

 

Today the same feelings of resentment are still evident. Hindus and their media and governments talk ill of Kashmiris and, indirectly, also Indian Muslims for not opposing Kashmiris. They are not considered as citizens, let alone second or third class ones. But the Hindu specialists are there to defend the Jammu Hindus against Muslims. “It’s ironical that Kashmiris who don’t even consider themselves to be Indians are getting all the blessings of the government, while the people of Jammu are always treated as second class citizens,” said one Hindu in Jammu.  

 

 

The current ferment in the Kashmir Valley is a throwback to the turbulent winter of 1963-64, when the theft of what Muslims believe to be a hair of the Prophet Mohammad from Srinagar’s Hazratbal shrine ignited massive protests in the valley. Although the trigger was ostensibly a religious issue, the unrest resulted from pent-up resentment at a decade of Delhi’s Kashmir policies – which included the removal from office and incarceration of Kashmiri leader Sheikh Abdullah, the de facto scrapping of Indian-administered Kashmir’s self-rule powers, and the use of police methods to repress protest and silence dissent. Kashmiris hate India. But there is no precedent to both the major regions in Indian-occupied Kashmir simultaneously plunging into turmoil. Kashmiris want sovereignty.

 

 

India refuses to address the core Kashmir issue. After almost two decades of separatist violence, the situation in the Kashmir valley had improved in the past few years. Violence was on the decline and hundreds of thousands of tourists had returned to the valley, rekindling hope that Kashmir may be on the path to peace once again. But the latest violence by Hindus and Muslims seems to have dashed that hope.

 

 

India supports separatism of Hindus in Jammu. Encouraged by Hindutva forces in New Delhi, the Hindu groups in India and Jammu have always demanded abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian constitution which gives special status to the valley. The Hindu groups twice vetoed offers of autonomy for Jammu – first by Sheikh Abdullah in the 1950s and again in 1996 by Farooq Abdullah – because they have opposed the special status of the valley. The Jammu agitation is reminiscent of 1952-53, when the same areas in the Jammu region’s Hindu-majority south were convulsed by a Hindu movement calling for full integration of Indian-administered Kashmir with the Indian Union, meaning the cancellation of Indian-administered Kashmir’s autonomous status, recognized in India’s constitution and re-affirmed in 1952 in talks between India’s prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and the Kashmiri Muslim leader Sheikh Abdullah.

 

   

Peaceful Movement for Sovereignty

 

Indian strategists have every right to imagine. They think, once Kashmiris continue to be peaceful, India can go on militarizing Kashmir and occupying the alien land so long as USA does not offer an ultimatum to India on Kashmir sovereignty. Colonial minded Indians are terribly mistaken. In order to create obstacles to Indian support for the Kashmir freedom move they now cry loud that Kashmiris want to join Pakistan. How doe sit matter to them; Business of terror master India is to surrender sovereignty back to the struggling Kashmiris.

 

 Kashmiris feel they are systematically tortured, terrorized and killed by Indian forces. Like Muslims in India, Jammu’s Hindus have long felt bypassed and neglected as a minority in Indian-administered Kashmir. They viewed the subsequent revocation of the transfer as yet another cave-in to the valley’s more numerous Muslims, and reacted with raw anger. The competing mass mobilizations have precedents. Jammu Hindus are no different form those in India. Many in the valley argue that these groups have a barely concealed anti-Muslim agenda.

 

Perhaps, for the first time world media blasted the Indian atrocities in Kashmir in 2008, after so many years of Indian occupation of that part of the world. It is for the first time that Kashmiris are awakened to demand sovereignty back from India. The row over whether to allocate land to Amarnath Trust by New Delhi “Hindu specialists” in Muslim Kashmir, now under Indian occupation and hectic militarization, is unprecedented and has potentially caused the state to fragment along communal lines. Now it is no exaggeration to say that India is managing the state to be heading towards a communal meltdown, before the final settlement of Kashmir issue.

 

The conflagration was a setback for the Indian government which had made much of several years of relative calm in the Kashmir region and was under the impression that Kashmiris have compromised and recoiled to he Indian projects in Kashmir. India has tried to conclude that Kashmiris are finally over-powered by military threat and secret grave yards as there has been a decline of military exchanges with Pakistan across the Line of Control (LoC).  

 

The message from Kashmir for India and other oppressor nations is candid and clear: Frozen conflicts don’t stay frozen for too long and they cannot be put down with iron hands howsoever the power tries to suppress the freedom movement. Kashmiris now demand sovereignty peacefully and India has to concede. USA will certainly agree with this.   

   

 

Sense of oppression: Kashmir shall be Free!

 

Discovery of secret grave-yards in Kashmir reminds the world of Indian gray policy for freedom seeking Kashmir and remains the ugliest display of inhuman misadventure on innocent Kashmiris. If India showcases the graveyards as the peaceful place for freedom fighters, it is terribly mistaken. Historic Significance of Kashmir Uprising cannot be belittled by Indian strategists and leaders.

 

 Like the USA, India is keen to punish Muslims, kill them mercilessly. The turmoil comes at an uncertain time for India-Pakistan relations. Last month, there were localized ceasefire violations on the LoC, militant bombs killed 50 people in India’s Gujarat state, and India’s embassy in Kabul was attacked in a deadly suicide-bombing. Armed freedom groups in Kashmir have been lying low since the post-2004 thaw, but they remain present and dangerous. The lesson is frozen conflicts don’t stay frozen, and windows of opportunity to make real progress towards solutions don’t come often. Stalling on such opportunities can be perilous.

 

Under the prevailing freedom circumstances, India is keen to implement its pet and illegal Amarnath land deal by hook or crock and JK governor is dying to persuade the Kashmir leaders to convince the masses to “oblige’ the New Delhi masters. While many Kashmiris are kept under brutal custody in Indian jails, JK Governor N N Vohra had said that the administration was ready to hold talks with Jammu and Kashmir Coordination Committee (JKCC), which is spearheading the agitation in Kashmir.  

 

Of course, JK Governor should to talk to the freedom fighters, their leaders like Syed Geelani, but the agenda of any such future talks should be on Kashmir sovereignty and announced before hand so that there are no embarrassments for him and the freedom leaders. However, freedom leaders clearly smell a rat in the invitation extended recently by Vohra for talks; they see the New Delhi’s dirty hand stained with Kashmiri blood in new maneuverings and coercing the freedom leaders to agree to Indian Hindu demand for illegal land deal for Amarnath shrine. In stead, India should rebuild Grand Babri Mosque that was destroyed in 1992 by Hindu Al-Queda militants.

 

Rather, Vohra should invite the freedom leaders to discuss the sovereignty issue and formation of an independent nation with their own constitution, currency and flag for Kashmiris. It is for them to decide if they would eventually join Pakistan or Afghanistan. History tells that Kashmiris would prefer an independent nation with good relations with Islamic nations. That is quite natural.

 

Unfortunately, Terror India is dying hard to hold “democratic” polls in JK to see its agents come back to power and put a full stop to freedom struggle. No, that would be unwise and first of all, a peaceful atmosphere has to be created by promising the Kashmiris of independence following the polls. Find out how many Kashmiri Muslims have been murdered by India recently. Leave the polls to an independent Kashmir.  

 

Indian media had harped on releasing the detainees in Pakistan before any poll was to be held in that Islamic state, but in Kashmir India has a different face to show; many innocent protests are behind bars and many are being killed on a day to day basis, but Indian media want elections immediately so that Kashmiris are forced to forget about their agitations, and freedom from Indian yoke. 

 

But Kashmir is now under curfew, people are on the streets and Indian jails for peacefully demanding freedom from occupying India. But JK Governor and Indian government are focused on the dirty illegal land deal, unmindful of the ghastly deaths of Kashmiri Muslims, both in the streets and jails. Yes, Governor, first of all, a peaceful environment has to be created for any meaningful dialogue and jailed Kashmiris should be released unconditionally.  

 

It is high time India woke up to face the reality and boldly announce independence of Kashmir. The issue at dispute is Kashmir is not part of India and Kashmiris never like the idea of becoming Indians. Decades of Indian atrocities including regular genocide have not made the freedom seeking Kashmiris bend even a bit. India cannot refuse to address the key Kashmir issue any more?  Surrendering the Kashmiris their sovereignty!

 

Since Kashmiris have decided to get back sovereignty from India by all means and have shed violence against deadly Indian provocative methods, time is quite ripe for conservative New Delhi to consider, equally seriously, surrendering sovereignty back to them without delay and without once again tricking them into “terrorist” path. One hopes India will shed its “innocence” symptoms and come out to face the emerging reality when Kashmiris are together now and international community is on their side. In stead of behaving like a tight lipped or close mouthed rogue, India must talk, as before when they slammed Kashmiris, now about Kashmir sovereignty; after all fanatic New Delhi is not a shy guy.

 

Trade and contacts across the Line of Control (LoC) should lead to joining of the both parts of Jammu Kashmir. The same could be better achieved by returning sovereignty back to Kashmiris. Both India and Pakistan should come forward to uniting the Kashmir as a sovereign nation at the earliest.

 

Colonizers and imperialist strategists in Terrorist India should keep in mind Jammu Kashmir will be free form Indian yoke, all Indian leaders including military terrorists will be tried in special tribunals set by the UN and punished in due course. India has to answer for each and every Kashmiri Muslim lost life for their sacred cause of freedom form occupying India. Yes, India should stop fooling Kashmiris!

Kosi High Dam will only bring great disasters

 Drainage Crisis of North Bihar & Nepal Remains Unattended

 

New Delhi

17 September 2008

All talk about seeking review of Kosi agreement that created the rationale for embankments and dams on the Kosi River seems like empty rhetoric. The Nepalese prime minister who has reportedly said that he favoured the idea of setting up a high dam on the river Kosi (though it doesn’t appear on the Joint Press Statement), at a meeting with Bihar chief minister at meeting hosted by President of JD (U) in Delhi on September 16, 2008. Leaders from Nepal and India have agreed to set up a new mechanism headed by the water resources secretaries of both countries to discuss issues related to flood control, strengthening the embankments and water management.

 

This is a welcome step provided it is credible, open and independent review of the experience of the past treaty over the last five decades. It is only through such a review in a participatory, democratic way that contours of future steps emerge. Any talk of big dams in absence of this seems like vested interests pushing a high cost project for reasons other than merits of the project, which is the situation today.

 

The Kosi agreement that was signed in 1954 was amended in 1966 to address Nepal’s concerns. According to the treaty, the repair and maintenance of the embankment was India’s responsibility. “It is clear that the embankment breached on Aug 18, due to the criminal neglect of those who were responsible at Govt of India and Bihar for the proper upkeep of the embankment. Govt of India has yet to set up an enquiry as to who is responsible for the worst ever flood disaster that Kosi basin in Nepal is facing today. Jumping to push high dam on Kosi, is an invitation to even greater disaster and the new Nepali government seems to be walking into that trap,” Dr Dinesh Kumar Mishra of Barh Mukti Abhiyan.

 

“The proposed Kosi High dam is in a highly geologically unstable and earth quake prone area – a recipe for disaster in the waiting. Besides the inherent dangers, there is also a growing evidence of dam-induced seismicity that is being completely overlooked. The proposed dam (even if we consider the highest proposed height) would silt up sooner than 40 years, according to government’s own reports. The silt from it cannot be released, as that silt would only end up again in the Kosi embankment and in the downstream Farakka, which would be an invitation to even greater disaster of Ganga bypassing the Farakka, already waiting to happen,” says Himanshu Thakkar of South Asian Network for Dams, Rivers & People.

 

“The rulers will have people believe that completing the projects (although a dam will take about 20 years for completion) especially a dam) tame the Kosi and solve the flood problem. It is being suggested to the Nepal Prime Minister that the Saptakosi high dam project besides Sunkosi diversion scheme and the Kamla dam project at a combined estimated cost of Rs. 38,000 crore would address the crisis in Bihar and Nepal. These claims need to be summarily rejected,” says Dr Sudhirendar Sharma of The Ecological Foundation.

 

It is noteworthy that the proposed dam is supposed to be for multiple purposes (irrigation, power-generation, flood-control, etc), and there is an in built conflict in-built into such projects. Flood-control would require the intended space in the reservoir to be kept vacant for accommodating flood-waters, whereas irrigation or

power-generation would require the reservoir to be as full as possible; and as the latter are gainful activities in an economic sense, they are apt to prevail over flood-control. If the space meant for accommodating floods is not available when the flood comes, the gates will have to be opened in the interest of the safety of the dam, and the downstream area might experience a greater flood than it would have done if the dam had never been built.

 

 This has happened in the past. In fact experience of Surat in 2006, of west Medinipur in W Bengal and Lakhimpur in Assam in June this year show that  flood disasters can be caused by wrong operation of large dams, while those guilty never get punished.

 

The Kosi High Dam proposal measures against the following facts:

 

1. The National Flood Commission, 1980, had noted: “The flood problem being more acute in the basins of rivers originating from the Himalayas, the reservoirs for flood moderation have to be sited in the Himalayan region, where there are complex problems to be dealt with in putting up large dams due to geological, seismic and topographical constraints. Because of narrow valleys, capacities of reservoirs on Himalayan rivers are not very large. Also, the rivers carry very large silt charge. The factors limit the economic life of the reservoirs, which, in turn, affects the economic feasibility of the project.”

 

2. The idea of 269-metre Kosi dam was first mooted in 1937 and has been projected to have a lifespan of no more than 37 years, owing to about 90 million cubic meters of silt being carried by the river each year. Thanks to faster-than-expected silting of the reservoir of the proposed dam, neither will it produce the promised power nor provide intended irrigation benefits. The learned public representative must know that the existing East Bank Kosi canal is heavily silted and delivers just 7 per cent of its irrigation potential.

 

3. While the proposal has conveniently ignored the issue of displacement and rehabilitation of over 75,000 Nepalese, the populist nature of the appeal discounts the fact that it will not be before next 20 years that the proposed dam will actually get built at a whopping cost of over Rs 50,000 crore. The flood plains of Kosi have immediate problems at hand, created and caused by the embankments that need to be addressed. North Bihar needs sustainable solutions and not technocratic interventions, which cannot guarantee protection from floods.

 

“In the context of the proposed dam, it must be remembered that it is the same area where earthquake measuring 8.3 on the Richter scale hit Nepal/Bihar in 1934. The real crisis of North Bihar is not floods but drainage, which the UPA’s Common Minimum Programme acknowledged. But did you hear anyone talk about responding to the drainage crisis, which has rightly been diagnosed as the real problem,” asks Gopal Krishna, a Member of the Fact Finding Mission on Kosi & Convener, WaterWatch Alliance.

 

What we need to do urgently is to institutionalise participatory governance in the Kosi basin, so that people in whose name all this is being pushed have a role. What is claimed to be solutions today are certain to be problem tomorrow, as is clear from the experience of Kosi embankment. Kosi and its people will not allow more of such faulty prescriptions. Kosi belongs to the ecosystem and all of society. The river must be allowed to perform its role in maintaining a natural evolutionary balance and continuing with its land building work.

 

For Details Contact:

Dinesh Kumar Mishra: Mb-09431303360, dkmishra108@gmail.com

Sudhirendar Sharma: Mb-9868384744, sudhirendarsharma@gmail.com

Himanshu Thakkar: Mb-9968242798, ht.sandrp@gmail.com

Gopal Krishna: Mb-9818089660 krishnagreen@gmail.com

 

*Press Release made available by Mr. Ram Manohar Sah 

Japan Crisis: Aso replaces Fukuda

Japan Crisis: Aso replaces Fukuda as Premier in US-led Terror Era

By Dr. Abdul

Japan, a land of three thousand islands stretching for about 2,400 km, a constitutional monarchy, a NATO member and collaborator of the US-led terror war in Islamic world and the richest Asian Giant has over the years developed politico-economic crisis leading to exit of its premiers one after another. Less than a year after he took office Japan’s Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda of ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) abruptly announced his resignation on Sept 01 after less than a year in the job, having fought chronic low approval ratings and political deadlock caused by the opposition’s popularity. Japan’s next general election is expected to be in April, but must be held no later than September 2009.

Taro Aso has been elected the new chief of the LDP and would be anointed new premier by next Thursday. Japan’s ruling party members have selected on Sept 22 a bluff conservative, Taro Aso, as their new leader, meaning he is almost certain to become the next PM. Aso received 351 out of the 527 votes cast by MPs and members of regional chapters. Kaoru Yosano, the minister for economic and fiscal policy, trailed in second place at 66 votes. Former defense minister Yuriko Koike, who hoped to become Japan’s first female prime minister, placed third with 46 votes.

Combating Unpopularity

 

 

 

The government of Yasuo Fukuda has suffered chronic unpopularity. Lost pension records, a controversial healthcare scheme and a sliding economy have added to his woes. Fukuda has also been frustrated by the upper house of parliament, which is controlled by the opposition. The main opposition Democratic Party (DPJ) made big gains in recent elections and controls the upper house of parliament. At its own convention on Sept 21, the DJP gave another two-year term to leader Ichiro Ozawa.

Last month, Japan’s then Prime Minister, Yasuo Fukuda instigated a major cabinet reshuffle in which one of his main political rivals, Taro Aso, assumed the key role of secretary general. The move was seen as a last-ditch attempt to shore up Fukuda’s government and boost its flagging popularity, but it failed to improve low cabinet approval ratings, which had been below 30% for several months.

The LDP is struggling to combat a long-term slump in public popularity, and early general elections are now likely. The LDP’s recent slump in popularity has led some to suggest that the party could be on the verge of losing power – an almost unthinkable prospect for most of the past 50 years.

New Premier

 

 

 

Taro Aso went from being a foreign minister to becoming party secretary general under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in August 2007. However, following Abe’s resignation, he left the post and lost the LDP leadership contest to Fukuda soon afterwards. Known for his conservative views, he has advocated a tough line towards North Korea. The 68-year-old veteran is promising greater public spending to try to stimulate the economy – particularly in rural areas, where the party is traditionally strong. Aso advocates greater public spending to promote the economy, and an assertive foreign policy. He overwhelmed his four Liberal Democratic Party rivals for the party leadership in a crowded race. “America is facing a financial crisis… we must not allow that to bring us down as well,” he said.

Before the vote Aso pledged to a crowd of supporters in Tokyo that he would sort out Japan’s economy. Aso called for unity among the five contenders for the LDP leadership, and reports suggest some of them may feature in his cabinet once he is confirmed as the prime minister. Aso’s rival Yosano accused him of risking Japan’s long-term interests through wasteful spending. Other colleagues fear higher spending could mark a return to the old profligate ways of the LDP, where expensive public works projects were used to create jobs, hollowing out the public finances.

Japan Power

 

 

 

A big power, Japan is the world’s second largest economy by nominal GDP, after the USA. It is a member of the UN, G8, and APEC, with the world’s fifth largest defense budget. It is the world’s fourth largest exporter and sixth largest importer. Japan is the second largest financial contributor to the United Nations, providing 20 percent of the UN budget (the U.S. contributes 25 percent).

Japan is a non-nulcear power and is against nuclelarization of international politics. Close cooperation between government and industry, a strong work ethic, mastery of high technology, and a comparatively small defense allocation have helped Japan become the second largest economy in the world, after the USA, at around U.S.$4.5 trillion in terms of nominal GDP and third after the United States and China in terms of purchasing power parity.

However, of late, Japan is now at a crossroads, re-evaluating its place in Asia and world. Japan’s economy is struggling with consumers facing high energy prices and the country’s exporters suffering as the global economy slows. The economy shrank from April to June. In August Japan unveiled a stimulus package worth 11.7 trillion yen ($107bn; £59bn) to boost the country’s economy. The government hopes that the plan will help people cope with rising prices and stave off a recession. The plan only includes 2 trillion yen of fresh government spending, with 9 trillion yen in loan guarantees and aid for small businesses. The package also included discounts on motorway tolls, assistance to farms and help for part-time workers to find better jobs. The rise in Japan’s industrial output, against forecasts of a 0.5% drop, surprised analysts.

For close to five decades after World War II, Japan’s economy grew steadily through policies that closely aligned government and large manufacturers. But after reaching its peak in the late 1980s, Japanese economy began faltering. In 2001 newly elected Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi introduced policies meant to revive the economy through deregulation, privatization, spending cuts and tax breaks. Growth resumed in January 2002 and has turned into the longest economic expansion through the post-war era. But Koziumi’s policies also have brought about a growing income gap in a rapidly aging country. The country’s long-term outstanding debt has also grown, to the equivalent of 147% of annual gross domestic product.

In foreign policy, the rise of China and North Korea’s nuclear ambitions led Japan to actively review long-held policies. After decades of sheltering under the American security umbrella, Japan has begun seeking a more assertive role in the region, even while strengthening ties with the U.S. After the September 11 attacks, Japan dispatched its naval vessels to the Indian Ocean to supply fuel for warships of the coalition forces operating in Afghanistan, and send troops to Iraq for humanitarian assistance, along with planes to transport cargo and American troops.

The Japanese military, which has one of the largest budgets and most sophisticated weapons in the world, began developing their offensive capabilities. Japan also decided to join the U.S. in developing and financing missile defense shield and its defense agency was upgraded to a full ministry in 2007.

Koizumi and his successor, Shinzo Abe, helped win approval of these changes by emphasizing nationalism. Abe, who gained popularity as a Cabinet minister by pursuing the issue of past abductions of Japanese citizens by North Korea, took a hawkish stance toward Pyongyang. Abe did mend relations to an extent with China, which became Japan’s largest trading partner in 2004, and with South Korea. Beijing had refused to hold summit meetings with Koizumi because of his visits to the Yasukuni shrine, but Abe remained ambiguous about his stance toward the issue and made a trip to Beijing and Seoul in October 2006, a few weeks after taking office. Abe abruptly stepped down in September 2007. His successor, Yasuo Fukuda, visited China in December 2007, seeking to further improve relations between the two Asian giants.

A Word

 

 

 

US-led terror war in Islamic world on fictitious pretexts like WMD, regime change, democracy and Osama has already caused deaths to thousands of innocent Muslims in these countries and tortured many more thousands all over the world. Many countries like India have cleverly utilized the “terror and Sept 11 opportunity to track, torture and kill Muslims in Kashmir and India. Many Muslims are still in jails without trials and they are meted out most inhuman treatment under brutal custody of Indian officials and their henchmen.

Japan as a close NATO ally of USA offers all necessary assistance from cash to weapons toilets to the war fronts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Tokyo shares equal responsibility with the USA in the killing of Muslims in Islamic world. Abe’s fall clearly signified defeat for Japanese terror war strategy. Aso should better keep in mind this fact as well as he pursues Japan’s policies in future.

Tokyo is yet to admit the domestic crisis as being the fallout of the US-led Terror war in Islamic world. Fall of Abe and Fukuda makes the position of the new incumbent Aso more worrisome and complicated. The previous two prime ministers had to quit after serving just a year each and Aso is expected to continue until the polls next year. It seems the ruling LDP suffers from chronic unpopularity and the new leader is charged with the task of revamping the party and instilling new vigor in the economic agenda.

Aso will face the uphill challenge of steering the Japanese economy away from the brink of recession. The party now hopes Aso’s brash straight-talking style and will prove an antidote to the opposition’s rising popularity. Whether Aso would be able to over the economic pains Japan is facing which his two immediate predecessors Abe and Fukuda failed to tackle, remains to be seen. Speculation is thrilling indeed!

*Edited at ABC

God’s Creatures in Kathmandu

Fiery God inspires protests in Kathmandu

By Divas

The ongoing protests by the Newar community in Kathmandu may be the first major public defiance faced by the barely one month old Maoist led government. The protesters clashed with the police calling for the shutdown of the markets surrounding the Durbar Square area condemning Finance Minister Dr. Baburam Bhattarai’s announcement of reducing the budget on traditional rituals.

The Maoists, who were overwhelmingly supported in the capital by the Newars during the Constitutional Assembly elections, felt the heat so hard that Dr. Bhattarai had to apologize for infringing on the “cultural rights” and announce immediate resumption of the funds for “sacrificial rituals”.

However, the violent protests against the government is not only unjustifiable, but also another example of sheer non-sense prevailing Nepali society. Each year thousands of animals worth millions of Rupees are offered to the deities in the rituals according to the Hindu and Mahayana Buddhist traditions.

In the GadhiMai Mela (Worshipping of the Goddess) alone, more than 40,000 animals are killed to “appease” the Goddess. In another ritual practiced in Kathmandu, a live goat is thrown into a pond and youths jump into the water biting the animal to death.

Until recently, being the only Hindu theocracy in the world, such traditions were encouraged by the state to preserve the monolithic culture of the ruling classes. The people of New Nepal being the inhabitants of the newest secular republic in the world must also review their nonsense traditions.

The irony this time is that the Maoists who have been held responsible for sacrificing more than 15,000 human beings for “grabbing” the power were the only government in Nepal’s history who dared detaching the state from the costly and cruel animal sacrifices.

If everything can be acceptable in the name of rituals and tradition, then why was the Sati Pratha – in which the wife is burned alive in the funeral pyre with her dead husband – abolished from Nepal?

The Maoists and their allies better “watch” their public image mirrored in this incident. Unless they abstain from coercing people to behave according to the party guidelines, even such positive and pious intentions of refraining from animal-killings would invite confrontations.

ABC

Moscow Worries: Dagestan & other Freedom Nations

 

By Dr. Abdul

Once regained its independence from the then occupying forces, and subsequently settled down, Russia began invading the neighboring free nations and annexing them to Russian empire. There have been a few such nations, like Chechnya, Dagestan and Tatarstan, all Muslim nations (but have got a plenty of Russians as a result of official settlement policy of the past Kremlin rulers in non-Russian regions), have been demanding sovereignty from Russia, but the movements are being ruthlessly suppressed by Russian military forces, especially in Chechnya the forefront nation championing the cause of freedom. While Chechnya struggle is a global issue, other conflicts, effectively controlled and contained by Moscow, have only the simmering effect.    

During the erstwhile Soviet era, many under developed countries that included India and Pakistan obtained independence from the colonizers, but they discouraged freedom for the struggling non-Russians, like Chechens, Dagestanis and Tatars. In order to promote communism across the globe, Soviet leadership encouraged and supported the freedom movement across the globe, much against the chagrins of the European powers.  

Last Soviet leader Michael Gorbachev allowed the constituent Republics that constituted the USSR to cede form the Union and become independent, but he over looked the issue of freedom for Chechnya and Dagestan and other regions  that were annexed in the past, hoping that in due course they all get freedom form Russian Federation. The first president of post-Soviet Russia did allow plenty of autonomy to these regions, but eventually started war to stop their freedom moves, especially with Chechnya, the most prominent among the freedom seeking nations.  President Putin ‘finished’ off the movement stock and barrel killing thousands of Chechens, but the war, as it is seen today, did not die down.   

Dagestan

Dagestan is one of the most ethnically diverse regions in the world, counting 30 ethnic groups and 80-odd nationalities. The Republic of Dagestan is located in the eastern part of the North Caucasus on the northeastern slopes of the Caucasus Range and the southwestern Caspian Lowlands. It is the southernmost part of the Russian Federation. In size (50 300 km2) and population (2 120 100 as of 1999), the Republic of Dagestan is the largest Caucasian republic in the Russian Federation. 

Like Chechnya, Dagestan is one of the nations currently in Russia Federation struggling to gain independence from Moscow, but they are being brutally oppressed by the Federal authorities and their terror forces. Earlier the USA championed the cause of their independence. Dagestan has not hit the international attention so far, because of their belief that Moscow would let the have freedom in “due course”. But the freedom leader are targeted and killed regularly by Russian forces using remote surveillance gadgets. Russia allows rampant corruption in Dagestan so as to keep the pro-Moscow elements in good hours. 

Recently, Russian Security Service FSB killed 10 freedom leaders in Dagestan on Sept 17. Dagestan branch of the FSB said in a statement that the commandos along with arms and explosives ambushed a Gazel minivan carrying the “insurgents”, on a road near Russia’s border with Azerbaijan. They fired several rocket-propelled grenades into the minibus and sprayed the rebels with automatic gunfire.  In the process of killing the Dagestanis, dozens of law enforcement officers are also killed each year in Dagestan, where ethnic rivalries and Islamist freedom — exacerbated by police brutality and official corruption — prompt young men to join violent anti-government groups. Recent sting operation came after two recent crackdowns by security services on the same Islamist rebel network, which is active in southern Dagestan. In a major operation by Moscow in a Sept. 7 clash, Ilgar Mollachiyev, whom the Chechen rebel leadership had appointed last fall as commander of the Dagestan insurgents, was among several Muslim leaders killed in a skirmish with members of Mollachiyev’s group whom law enforcers attempted to encircle near the village of Sirtych. 

People generally are disgusted with rampant corruption and crime promoted by Russian authorities in Dagestan. The all pervasive corruption and entrenched nepotism in Dagestan and Ingushetia have forced the people to resort to deadly violence having become the only available form of political protest for those unhappy with the status quo. An expert on Caucasus said the latest events in Dagestan demonstrate that the Kremlin’s claims of having crushed the insurgent networks in the Caucasus are not true. 

People of Dagestan have time and again warned against brutality against the freedom leaders and supporters. Dagestan leader Mukhu Aliyev has repeatedly demanded — to no avail — that police desist from brutal attacks on local residents. A campaign is under way in the republic to oust Dagestan Interior Minister Adilgirei Magomedtagirov, who answers to the federal government. Moscow mixes its terror campaign with politics of freedom nations to confuse the people and media. This is how every colonizer does in its captured colonies. 

The trouble has its history when these freedom seeking nations like Dagestan had been cheated by Russian rulers. In December 1994, Russian federal troops transited through Dagestan en route to Chechnya, to confront the separatist government of President J.Dudaev. The attack provoked an outcry of indignation all over the Caucasus. Thousands of Dagestanis, Avars, Chechens, Lak, Dargins and others formed human blockades to stop the advance. This massive popular reaction caused anxiety that the war in Chechnya would be the start of an all-Caucasian war including Dagestan. The political elite has succeeded, however, in keeping nationalist ambitions in check. They were helped by the fact that the mountainous and ethnically diverse nature of Dagestan renders irrelevant any idea of an independent state based on the concept of a single nation.   

The incursion into Dagestan leading to the start of the new Russian-Chechen conflict was regarded by many as a provocation initiated from Moscow to start war in Chechnya, because Russian forces provided safe passage for Islamic fighters back to Chechnya. 

Moscow took care to see the war in Chechnya has had surprisingly little impact on Dagestan. The ethnic conflicts that emerged in Dagestan in 1990-1991 have lost most of their political relevance by 1995. to do their share in “liberating Dagestan and the Caucasus from the Russian colonial yoke.” Putin double-crossed the Chechens and started an all-out war. A transcript of the conversation was leaked to one of Moscow tabloids on September 10, 1999. The Chechen victory was essential to boost the image of Putin as a reliable Iran ruler of the Kremlin. Incapacitated President Boiris Yetsin appointed him in 2000 as acting president as a gift for his “bravery”. 

Struggle 

The fighting erupted in the Russian Republic of Dagestan, “country of mountains”, about the size of Scotland and counting approximately two million inhabitants, Chechnya’s eastern neighbor is a Muslim republic, home to more than 36 nationalities in addition to Russians transplanted during the Soviet era. The Republic is mostly mountainous, and although its mineral and oil potential remains untapped, it has strategic importance due to its location on the oil-rich Caspian Sea and its close proximity to Azerbaijan, a main conduit for Caspian oil. 

Combating anti-Islamism is a tough task. USA fights for Human Rights selectively, but it did support Chechnya and other nations in Russia seeking independence. With advent of Sept 11, the US-led West stopped harboring any human rights in Chechnya and Dagestan and other freedom regions. They are killing Muslims around the world and their media arousing Islamophobia. This reality has worsened the life and situation in general in these Autonomous Republics of Russia. But actions by Russia encourage countries like India sporting imperialist ambitions to kill the innocent Kashmiris.

HISTORY 

According to historical information, humans were living in the territory of present-day Dagestan as far back as the Paleolithic Age. The Sassanid Persians seized Dagestan in the 3rd century A.D., and the Huns invaded the northern plains in the 4th century. Tatar-Mongol forces invaded Dagestan in the 13th century, and forces under the leadership of Uzbek, Tokhtamysh and Tamerlane [also known as Timur] invaded in the 14th century. For a prolonged period in the 16th century, Dagestan was caught up in a conflict among three powerful political forces: Persia, Turkey, and Russia. Russian fortress towns subsequently began to appear in Dagestan. Tsarist Russia’s colonial policy in Dagestan gave rise to a political movement for independence and unification that was suppressed. Unrest broke out repeatedly from then on, but it was always put down with the full force of colonial brutality. Participants in the uprisings were arrested along with their families and exiled to hard labor and permanent residence in the interior provinces of Russia.  

Starting in the mid-19th century and especially in the 1890s after the construction of the Vladikavkaz Railway connecting Dagestan with central Russia, Baku, and Grozny, Dagestan entered the stream of capitalist development. By the early 20th century, there were nearly 70 companies in Dagestan and local bourgeois and working classes were forming. Dagestan gained political status after the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War. On November 13, 1920, an Extraordinary Congress of the people of Dagestan declared Dagestan’s autonomy. Since 1991, Dagestan has been a republic within the Russian Federation. A new Constitution of the Republic of Dagestan was passed on July 26, 1994. 

As with much of the Caucasus region, Dagestan’s native Islam consists of Sunni Sufi orders that have been in place for centuries. Resul Magomedov, who is a contemporary writer of Dagestan, writes about the unifying role of Islam: “Before Islam, all Dagestan tribes were divided in respect of language, religion, ethnic structure and geography like all other Caucasian peoples. This situation caused severe hostility and conflicts. After all native tribes became Muslims, a unity in belief could be sustained among Dagestan tribes which also stopped ethnic conflicts among them.  

Russia originally annexed Dagestan in 1813, although the inhabitants resisted Russian domination throughout the nineteenth century. The country was absorbed by the Soviet Union in 1920 and became an autonomous republic in 1921. After the breakup of the Union in 1991, Dagestan became a signatory to the March 1992 Treaty of Federation which created a new Russian state. As such, Dagestan is legally a Russian republic and a member of the Russian Federation. Despite the reshuffling of the Russian government, President Boris Yeltsin has kept his “no compromise” policy, saying that he will never give up Dagestan. In a telling move, Yeltsin replaced Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin with the experienced Federal Security Service and National Security Head Vladimir Putin, a hardened ex-KGB official who pledged to crush the rebels.  

Economy

Dagestan has a well-developed transportation system. The Rostov-Baku railway line and the Caucasus federal highway pass through the republic, and republican roads within it reach even the most remote areas. The republic extends nearly 400 km from north to south and an average of 200 km from west to east. It borders on Kalmykia in the north, Stavropol Territory in the northwest, the Chechen Republic in the west, Georgia along the Divide Range of the Greater Caucasus, and the Republic of Azerbaijan in the south. Eastern Dagestan has nearly 530 km of coastline on the Caspian Sea, the hotspot of regional energy politics. 90.7% percent of Dagestan’s population is Muslim, with Christians accounting for much of the remaining 9.3%. Engineering and metalworking and the flavoring, light, and chemical industries are important economic sectors in the republic. Dagestan also has five hydroelectric power plants on the Sulak River. Oil and gas, hard coal, quartz glassmaking sand, building materials (sand, limestone, marl, dolomite, gypsum, marble, and gravel), oil shale, and iron and polymetallic ores are among the commercially important mineral resources. There are also mineral springs.

The capital is Makhachkala, a port on the Caspian Sea and a large center of the engineering, metalworking, light, and food industries. There are about 1800 rivers in Dagestan; for the most part, they are rain and snow-fed. Dagestan is part of the Northern Caucasus economic district and is among the Russian regions with a low concentration of industries that in addition are mainly oriented toward supplying raw materials and components for industries in other regions. The fuel and energy complex is especially important to Dagestan’s economy. This industry is based on oil and gas production from fields within the republic. The oil is of high quality and is delivered to other regions. Natural gas goes mainly toward satisfying the republic’s domestic needs and is used as a high-calorific fuel for industry, agriculture, and gas supply systems of cities and villages.  

 The Caucasus

The Caucasus, also referred to as Caucasia, is a geopolitical, mountain-barrier region located between the two continents of Europe and Asia, or Eurasia, with various altitude highlands and lowlands. The Caucasus comprises Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, southern Russia, northwestern Iran, northeastern Turkey and includes the disputed territories of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh. The Caucasus is one of the most linguistically and culturally diverse regions on Earth. The nation-states that comprise the Caucasus today are the post-Soviet states Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Russian divisions include Krasnodar Krai, Stavropol Krai, and the autonomous republics of Adygea, Kalmykia, Karachay-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Chechnya, and Dagestan. Three territories in the region claim independence but are not acknowledged as nation-states by the international community: Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh and South Ossetia. 

Located on the peripheries of Armenia, Turkey, and Russia, the region has been an arena for political, military, religious, and cultural rivalries and expansionism for centuries. Throughout its history, the Caucasus was usually incorporated into the Iranian world. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Russian Empire conquered the territory from the Qajars. The region was unified as a single political entity twice – during the Russian Civil War (Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic) from 9 April 1918 to 26 May 1918, and under the Soviet rule (Transcaucasian SFSR) from 12 March 1922 to 5 December 1936. Following the end of the Soviet Union, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia became independent in 1991. The Caucasus region is subject to various territorial disputes since the collapse of the Soviet Union, leading to the Nagorno-Karabakh War (1988-1994), the Ossetian-Ingush conflict (1989-1991), the War in Abkhazia (1992–1993), the First Chechen War, 1994–1996, the Second Chechen War (1999–present), and the 2008 South Ossetian War.                                    

The hydroelectric power industry is developing rapidly. A cascade of five power plants has been built on the Sulak River: Specialists estimate Dagestan’s total potential hydroelectric power resources at 4.4 billion kW. Engineering and metalworking are Dagestan’s leading industries. Dagestan produces electric welding and electro-thermal equipment, computer-aided devices and facilities, electronic goods, separators, centrifugal pumps, and other consumer goods. The chemical and building material industries account for about 9% of industrial output. Light industry comprises companies in the textile, leather shoe, knitwear, clothing, and carpeting sectors. The food industry in Dagestan specializes in canning, winemaking, fishing, and processing and accounts for 25% of all industrial output. The Caspian Sea, the Terek, Sulak, and Samur rivers, and numerous inland water bodies provide plenty of stock for various fish products. More than half of the companies in this sector are located in Makhachkala. The most important agricultural sectors in Dagestan are winegrowing, vegetable and melon growing, and sheep farming.    

As with much of the Caucasus region, Dagestan ’s native Islam consists of Sunni Sufi orders that have been in place for centuries. Resul Magomedov, who is a contemporary writer of Daghestan, writes about the unifying role of Islam: “Before Islam, all Daghestan tribes were divided in respect of language, religion, ethnic structure and geography like all other Caucasian peoples. This situation caused severe hostility and conflicts. After all native tribes became Muslims, a unity in belief could be sustained among Dagestan tribes which also stopped ethnic conflicts among them.  

Russia originally annexed Dagestan in 1813, although the inhabitants resisted Russian domination throughout the nineteenth century. The country was absorbed by the Soviet Union in 1920 and became an autonomous republic in 1921. After the breakup of the Union in 1991, Dagestan became a signatory to the March 1992 Treaty of Federation which created a new Russian state. As such, Dagestan is legally a Russian republic and a member of the Russian Federation. Despite the reshuffling of the Russian government, President Boris Yeltsin has kept his “no compromise” policy, saying that he will never give up Dagestan. In a telling move, Yeltsin replaced Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin with the experienced Federal Security Service and National Security Head Vladimir Putin, a hardened ex-KGB official who pledged to crush the rebels.  

Since 2000, Dagestan has been the venue of a low-level guerilla war, bleeding over from Chechnya ; the fighting has claimed the lives of hundreds of federal servicemen and officials – mostly members of local police forces – as well as many Dagestan national rebels and civilians. Militia numbers include Arabs and Africans as well as Dagestanis and Chechens.                                 

Tatarstan 

Tatarstan is an autonomous republic of west-central Russia. The majority of the population support Tatatrstan’s independence. Along with Chechnya, the republic was not a signatory to the 1992 treaty that created the Russian Federation, but it did join later, in 1994. 

In 1992 Tatarstan held a referendum on independence from Russia, and 62 percent of those who took part voted in favor of independence. On February 15, 1994 the Treaty On Delimitation of Jurisdictional Subjects and Mutual Delegation of Authority between the State Bodies of the Russian Federation and the State Bodies of the Republic of Tatarstan and Agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Republic of Tatarstan (On Delimitation of Authority in the Sphere of Foreign Economic Relations) were signed. These agreements may be considered as temporary recognition of Tatarstan’s independence by the Russian Federation, because it mentions the Declaration on State Sovereignty of the Republic of Tatarstan. Tatarstan was conquered by the troops of Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible in the 1550s, with Kazan being taken in 1552. Some Tatars were forcibly converted to Christianity and cathedrals were built in Kazan; by 1593 all mosques in the area were destroyed. The Russian government forbade the construction of mosques, a prohibition that was not lifted until the 18th century by Catherine II. The first mosque to be rebuilt under Catherine’s auspices was constructed in 1766-1770. Under the influence of local Jadidist theologians, the Tatars were renowned for their friendly relations with other peoples of the Russian Empire. However, after the October Revolution religion was largely outlawed and all theologians were repressed. 

Tatar soldiers took part in all Russian wars, sometimes in national units (as was the case during the Napoleonic Wars. During the chaos of the Russian Revolutions of 1917, Tatarstan became functionally independent with a national parliament, but the Moscow Bolshevist government moved to prevent an independent Tatarstan on its flank. The “Muslim Council” was overthrown by a “Workers’ Bolshevik Council” in a mostly Tatar-populated part of Kazan province called Bolaq artı or Zabulachye. In 1919 the Bolsheviks declared an autonomous Tatar-Bashkir Soviet Socialistic Republic, but the region was at the time largely occupied by the Whites, the leader of whom, General Kolchak, did not support an independent Muslim republic. The Russian Civil War ended in Tatarstan with the suppression of anti-communist peasan Pitchfork Uprising in March 1920. As a result of war communism policy the 1921-1922 Famine in Tatarstan had began and annihilated neraby half a million. In the late 1920s the Soviet government under Stalin began to place restrictions on the use of the Tatar language (among many other minority languages in the Soviet Union).

From the 1930s through the 1950s Tatar-language press, cultural institutions, theatres, national schools and institutes gradually disappeared, as education was required to be conducted in the Russian language. Industrialization, the rise of the collective farms kolektivizatsiya and persecutions such as the Great Purge contributed to this decline. The religion also was repressed. However, the Tatars fought for Russians during the World War II and more than 560,000 Tatarstan soldiers took part in World War II and more than 300,000 of them were killed.

Tatarstan is one of the richest regions of Russia, primary because of its oil industry (it was a leading oil-supplier in USSR in 1960s). Industrial production constitutes 45% of the Republic’s gross regional domestic product. The most developed manufacturing industries are petrochemical industry and heavy truck production (KamAZ). The territory of Tatarstan is crossed by the main gas pipelines carrying natural gas from Urengoy and Yamburg to the west and the major oil pipelines supplying oil to various cities in the European part of Russia. 

A Word

It is true, Russian rulers coerced the Muslim nations after annexing them into Russian mould. It is also true Islam had been threatened by Russian rulers. It is also true, even a real progressive leader like Michael Gorbachev, Nobel laureate did not think right to let Chechnya, Tatarstan and Dagestan to go free from Moscow’s rigor of control mechanism.  

But in the fast changing times of globalization and democratization processes, it is worthwhile for the new Russian rulers like president Medvedev and Vladimir Putin to consider granting sovereignty back to these nations at least as a gift for their services to Russia even by scarifying lives in honor of the Kremlin’s rule. It is a wrong notion to assume that more free nations would harm the potentials of the strong nations around, but on the contrary, the existence of more of free nations promote many human virtues to the world over.  

One hopes, Russian leadership initiates steps to address the long pending issue of freedom of these nations under Russian control for centuries quite sympathetically. 

Manchester Conference: Fate of Brown

Dr. Abdul

Driven by agony of repeated defeats for his Labour party in polls, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is facing the political fight of his life as his Labour Party gathers for its annual 5 day conference that has just begun today the 20 Sept with several lawmakers openly calling for a new leader. Fifteen months after taking over from Tony Blair, who almost crashed to unfullfil his “new labour era” promise of governing Britain “whiter than white” and vacated the 10 Down Street, Brown’s popularity is also in tatters with poll after poll showing Labour trailing the Conservatives by some 20 points as the economy balances and teeters on the brink of its first recession in 16 years. It appears Brown could not undo what Blair had done for the English both on domestic corruption and foreign terror war. The conference, which began in Manchester, is the party’s most eagerly-awaited in years.

 

Obviously, all world eyes are now on his showcase speech to the “faithful”, but just as important will be the “noises off” from union barons, constituency delegates, MPs regrouping after a calamitous summer for the party, ministers and Cabinet colleagues. Since it is considered to be very important meeting, Brown and his supporters would have spent weeks, if not months, trawling for the right phrases, the right tone of voice, the right blend of rhetoric and hard policy, to try to make sure that history records this was where his renaissance truly began.

 

The Prime Minister’s future could depend on whether activists echo last week’s calls for a debate on his leadership on the conference floor or turn their backs on plotters and rally around him in a display of party unity. Brown will get the “labour pulse”, as his loyalists fan out across the various venues to report back to the Prime Minister’s inner circle on just how strong, or weak, his support is among Labour’s grassroots loyalists. A rousing rallying-call in contrast will at least keep the doubters at bay for a while as they wait to see whether enthusiasm in the conference hall translates into action, and a bounce in the party’s opinion ratings. A faltering performance could finally, in some measure, convince Brown that ex-Home Secretary Charles Clarke was right to say the premier should resign with honour if he cannot swiftly rebuild Labour fortunes.

 

A recent online poll of 788 Labour Party members showed 54 percent want another leader. Panicked about losing their seats in the next national election, expected in 2010, some Labour lawmakers have called for a leadership race and in the last week, Brown has lost four junior members of his government who were trying to oust him. Down swing for Labour party started right during the Blair’s regime, but Brown was thought to bring up the prestige of the labour. Brown’s allies say there is no question of the prime minister stepping down and he is the best person to guide the country through the global financial storm — the 57-year-old Scot was chancellor for a decade. “I’m not going to be diverted by a few people making complaints,” Brown said in an interview with Sky News broadcast on Sept 19 Brown wrote to party members on Sept 19 that he was confident “we can come through this difficult time. That’s the stuff of politics. We get on with the business of government.”

 

But so far no credible challengers have shown their hand and cabinet ministers have so far rallied behind the prime minister with varying degrees of support. Every minister’s speech to the annual conference in Manchester will be examined in forensic detail for any sign of disloyalty. No immediate rebellion is expected, either, but Brown will have to show he can still electrify the party with his own conference speech on Sept 23 if he is to have any hope of stopping the constant challenges to his authority. Brown is expected to focus on the economic crisis. Inflation is more than double the central bank’s target, unemployment is rising at its fastest rate in 16 years and house prices — an obsession of the middle classes — are slumping. The government was forced to nationalise Northern Rock bank earlier this year and had to broker a rescue takeover this week regarding the country’s biggest mortgage lender, HBOS. But the UK premier will also need to pull a few rabbits out of the hat if he is to give the party faithful something to cheer about and quell dissent in the ranks. He has to convince the people of righteousness and efficacy of his foreign as well as domestic polices, especially in the background of the current financial and economic crises.

UK Conservatives have made steady gains against the Labour in the polls conducted till recently and pressure is mounting upon Brown to show results. It seems the British people are not happy about the ongoing US-led terror wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and if so, Brown has to make the suitable amendments in his policy statements. Unless there is a strong anti-incumbency factor working against Labour party, Brown could still try to tide over the tight situation in favour of his party and his premiership. Will he succeed?