The NTCA must oversee the way the Bandhavgarh National Park is being managed and check how the tourism revenue is being distributed in the State
The Bandhavgarh National Park and Tiger Reserve, known for the highest striped cat density per sq km in the country, is one terrain where the chances of sighting the tiger are quite high. Situated in the Umaria district of Madhya Pradesh, the reserve with around 124 tigers is spread over 1,536 sq km. The core area is 716 sq km. It consists of 32 sandstone hillocks, marshy land, water bodies, rocky areas and grasslands, making it an excellent habitat for the diverse plants and animals that can be found here. Bandhavgarh was declared a National Park in 1968 and brought under Project Tiger in 1994. It has three tourist zones in Tala, Maghati and Khitauli where most of the sighting of the tigers and other wildlife occurs. Apart from the tigers, the park has 36 species of mammals, 250 species of birds and 70 species of butterflies. The tiger population in Bandhavgarh started growing only after the Baghel rulers, along with several villages, shifted their capital in 1617 from here to Rewa. The Bandhavgarh forests, however, remained the favourite hunting grounds of Baghel rulers, who, out of superstition and a false sense of pride, used to set the target of killing at least 109 tigers in a year. As a result, Maharaja Gulab Singh shot 83 tigers in 1923 while Maharaja Martand Singh shot 100. Thankfully, despite the extensive hunting, the area continued to support a large tiger population. This speaks volumes about the carrying capacity of the forests which are rich in both prey and predators.
The reserve is important from an archaeological, historical, cultural and religious perspective, too. It is said that Lord Rama made this fort for Laxman while returning to Ayodhya from Sri Lanka. The ancient scriptures Shiv Puran and Narad Panch make references to this fort. There is a temple at the top of a hillock, which the people flock to during Ram Navami and Janmashtami. There are a few caves here where ancient saints are said to have done penance and there are other archaeological monuments, too. There is a Shesh Shaiya near the fort depicting Lord Vishnu on the seven-hooded Shesh Nag.
Sadly, the wildlife map of the park is changing. Earlier it was home to gaurs but all of them died after contracting contagious diseases from cattle. In 2012, as many as 50 gaurs were relocated here from the Kanha National Park. Then, due to food shortage, a herd of 38 elephants entered the park from Chhattisgarh and are breeding here. They are a major management headache for the park as well as the neighbouring villages in the buffer zone. They have been destroying the solar panels and damaging buildings, staff quarters and eating rations, too.
Bandhavgarh needs immediate management intervention at the highest level in terms of infrastructure, manpower and efficiency. The fund position is awful, too, and the staff is facing severe housing, water supply and electricity issues. Six of their vehicles have been junked but the park authorities are not able to replace them. The souvenir shops being managed by private businesses are in a poor shape and the forest rest house is being run as a commercial venture by the staff. There is a shortage of funds released for grassland management by the State Government, even though grasslands are an essential requirement for herbivores. Thankfully some money was released by a few panchayats for the areas falling under their jurisdictions.
Though the Project Tiger authorities have released funds, the State Government has not given its share. Not maintaining the grasslands and negligence in releasing State’s funding is a serious matter and the Chief Wildlife Warden needs to act fast. Otherwise the condition of this park will deteriorate. It is said that the annual revenue from the park is around `8 crore but most of it is not ploughed back into the reserve and is distributed across the State. The Government must stop political interference in allocation and at least 70 per cent of the revenue collected from the park must be returned to the reserve and spent in a structured manner. The State wildlife wing must have a separate management scheme for the tuskers who are now part of this park and take advantage of the Project Elephant. The museum and the interpretation centre are in a pathetic state, too, and need total revamping. The Director is in dual charge and the Ranger and the Sub-Divisional Officer in Tala are under probation. This is not an acceptable situation for any well-managed reserve. The chinks in the park’s management are now visible as two tigers were killed by poachers and villagers. The Wildlife Crime Bureau of the Government of India recently apprehended the killers. This must serve as a wake-up call for the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA). It must step in and put things back on the right track. It needs to monitor the manpower here and address their issues. The NTCA must oversee the way the Bandhavgarh National Park is being run, check how the tourism revenue is being distributed in the State and fix a limit for use outside the reserve. The NTCA needs to act before the wildlife here runs out of time.
(The writer is a retired civil servant)
As India celebrates the International Human Rights Day today, it must ask the judiciary a few important questions
Lon L Fuller, in a rivetting piece written for the Harvard Law Review back in 1978, titled Forms and Limits of Adjudication, makes a compelling argument. He says that adjudication is a form of “social ordering” that manifests itself in two forms: Organisation by common aims and organisation by reciprocity. Institutions working on the principle of common aims share the same understanding and objectives whereas those working on reciprocity engage in a rational calculation of the advantages of an association. He explains this with an example. Imagine that a roadway connects two farms with a highway, which is now blocked by a boulder. There are two farmers. Neither of them is strong enough to remove the boulder by himself. However, when the two join hands, it is obviously an organisation by common aims. Now, imagine both the growers are engaged in subsistence farming and one has a large crop of onions whereas the other has an abundance of potatoes. A deal to trade a portion of their respective crops with each other will make both the agriculturists richer and that is the most obvious form of organisation by reciprocity.
Now imagine the judiciary as an institution working on the principles of reciprocity by engaging itself in a mathematical calculation and drawing out the benefits of its association with different branches of the Government. What if this happens in a democracy where the judiciary is supposed to remain independent and function as a sentinel of individual liberty, human rights and basic freedoms of the citizens?
This criticism of the judiciary in the recent past, that it is an executive court, is by far not just the most important but also a sensitive one. If the court’s moral and political positioning is in alignment with the Government, it is problematic for the citizens. This is so, because then the court would fail in its most important job, enforcing the fundamental rights of citizens against the State’s arbitrary, unfair, unjust and unreasonable actions. The court is supposed to act and function as a counter-narrative to the executive. This duty becomes even more important in a democracy because democracies can tend to slip into a majoritarian rule, given that there is a very thin line between the two.
Senior advocates, retired judges, civil society organisations, political parties and even citizens have gone on to criticise the courts for their alleged role in selectively protecting human rights of citizens and social activists. The criticism extends to the selective listing of cases, delay in hearing on important issues and the highly controversial issue of post-retirement jobs for judges. The judiciary has not responded to these criticisms.
Many citizens believe that such a trend in the judiciary will see its rise and fall with the rise and fall of populist governments in the country. The last time we saw the judiciary working the way that it is today was during the era of Emergency. And that is a part of its history that India is not particularly proud of. Justifiably, the nation does not want to see history repeat itself in that sense. As we celebrate Human Rights Day today, it is important to look into other troubling issues that plague the judiciary, which have existed and have been continuously raised for quite some time now.
Attorney-General KK Venugopal, while speaking recently on the ways to gender sensitise the courts and judges, said that one of the ways in which this could be done was by increasing the representation of women on the Bench. Article 15 of the Constitution of India guarantees to every citizen that s/he shall not be discriminated on the basis of their gender. Despite the presence of Article 15 in the Constitution as a fundamental right, only eight women judges have been appointed to the Supreme Court out of a total of 245 appointments post-Independence.
Even more crucially, till date, no woman has ever served as the Chief Justice of India. This in a country that worships goddesses and reveres women as an incarnation of shakti (power). For Constitutional courts that are responsible to continuously challenge, transform and redefine stereotypical notions of gender, identity and race within the society, it is important to have wider and larger representation on the Bench from those who have had such experiences of their own.
The criticism that the judiciary works like a hollow chamber, devoid of any human emotions, often falling into the trap of “abstract notions of justice”, flowing from complex and incomprehensible legal jargon, can only be answered by increasing diversity within the judiciary and making it more and more representative.
Another issue that needs to be focussed on is the huge pendency of cases. There are more than three crore cases pending before several courts in India. Litigants are often disillusioned when they approach the courts. Even the smallest of cases, involving little to no questions of law, take years if not decades to be decided. This huge pendency of cases and the continuous delay in deciding them has had three major consequences. First, it has led to the criminalisation of politics. More than 4,500 cases against sitting and former Members of Parliament and MLAs are still pending before several courts across the nation.
Worryingly, many of these cases have been pending before the courts for decades. They range from serious and heinous offences like crimes against women, corruption and so on, to offences that have long-term impacts on the democratic fabric of our country. These include complaints registered against crimes like damaging public property, instigating riots, religious offences, and so on.
What this has done is that it has only inspired a future generation of politicians to commit more of such crimes and get away with it easily. This has resultantly weakened the strength of our democracy as someone who at one time used to commit crimes is now sitting in the temple of democracy, i.e. the Parliament.
Second, it has motivated criminals to commit excesses across the country almost professionally and third, this has pushed the victims to a position where they now prefer not approaching the court at all even after a crime. Cases, therefore, don’t get reported in our police stations and instead end with an out of court compromise. Access to justice is a fundamental right of the citizens in this country and yet we see that a majority of our population doesn’t even understand what it means to have been justly adjudicated. Even cases where the police commit violation of human rights don’t get heard speedily, eroding the faith of the people in the justice system.
The common perception that judges are extremely powerful adjudicators and that the parties before the court will in no case be given biased treatment needs to be actualised. The courts can no longer work as unaccountable isolated chambers of delivering justice.
So, when India celebrates Human Rights Day today and Minorities Rights day on December 18, the questions that need to be asked to the most important institution responsible for enforcing these rights, is this: Has the judiciary, in the recent past, done enough to protect the rights of those who are standing at the end of the line, those who are vulnerable, weak, fragile, historically sidelined and come from the lowest strata of the society?
If it hasn’t then it needs to. Because the judiciary as an institution survives only on the symbolic value of the image that it has created for itself. Its extraordinarily rich history of the most landmark judgments in the past has forced foreign courts to cite them and set them as a precedent in their respective jurisdictions. If this rich history of the court was to be attacked, it will have long-term impacts which will be irreversible.
The apex court needs to counter the narrative that it is an executive court by listing matters of urgent public interest before Benches without delay and impartially. It needs to add more judges to the Bar by making the process of appointments to the higher judiciary more transparent, accountable and representative.
The judiciary needs to fix the narrative that offence will not be taken personally, and dissent will be appreciated as a form of deliberative democracy. Unless the judiciary adopts these as its guiding principles, it will fail in its most important duty and thereafter lose its credibility. Both of which are a nightmare for the country today.
(The writer is with the National Law University, Visakhapatnam)
Mukesh Ambani promises rollout by 2021 but India lacks the infrastructure even if spectrum is allocated
Reliance Industries Limited chairman Mukesh Ambani has consistently defied the slump of the pandemic-induced economy to make rich gains. First, he got a host of investors on to his Jio telecommunications platform. Then he bought out India’s largest home-grown retail chain, Future Group. And now he has promised the rollout of 5G technology in India by the second half of 2021, with indigenous technology. While this sounded futuristic and bright at the Indian Mobile Congress, which he was addressing, the question is even with policy enablers in place, this is a tough ask. Most experts and even Jio’s rivals, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, argue that even if the spectrum is allocated, India lacks the infrastructure to implement 5G efficaciously. Besides, the economics would not sit easy as the services would be high priced. How will Reliance resolve affordability, which is its hallmark, with a premium service, is still not clear. Which is why most operators are planning a phased rollout, testing the response and their own serviceable efficiencies. A seamless ecosystem requires a uniform depth of connectivity across the country.
Jio apparently has a home-grown, end-to-end 5G solution ready for deployment. But questions arise on whether it has done extensive field trials considering that most companies have had to content themselves with lab trials. This technology needs a massive network infrastructure that is not patchy and is fool-proof. While Reliance may be ready to deploy, does it have the guaranteed network to run its services on? We must remember that our technology will be measured against some of the most competitive names in the business, some of whom have exclusive patents on 5G. Reliance, of course, is working with American chipmaker Qualcomm and is fairly confident of its edge in the high stakes game, claiming that Jio users will be able to browse the internet at up to 1Gbps speeds. For India, 5G, with faster data speeds and enhanced digital experiences across a host of connected devices, like smartphones, laptops, augmented and virtual reality products and internet of things (IoT) solutions, would revolutionise fields like telemedicine and healthcare, of utmost significance in a post-pandemic world. And while we may want to join the select club of the US, South Korea, Australia, Switzerland and Germany sooner, we cannot shortchange viability.
As the party wins big in Rajasthan local body polls, the Gehlot-Pilot war has clearly hurt Congress
Now even local body elections have become significant, each verdict a litmus test of the ruling BJP’s consolidation of power, each victory in an Opposition-ruled State a vote of no-confidence in the alternative, each mandate in its favour dissolving the boundaries between a local and national issue. So just as the BJP made a statement by making deep inroads in the Hyderabad municipal elections, challenging the myth that it could not pry open that city’s predominantly Islamic culture, it has seized the political discourse in Rajasthan. Upstaging the ruling Congress, the BJP seemed all set to muscle its way back into the panchayat samiti and zila parishad elections held in the State’s 21 districts. At last count, in the panchayat samitis, the BJP won 1,836 seats against the Congress’ 1,718. In the zila parishad, the BJP got 323 seats while Congress won 246. Besieged as it is by the farmers’ protests, the victory was more than sweet for the BJP which claimed that it was an endorsement of the Modi Government’s grassroots governance, including the farm laws, and that the Congress had failed to address local issues, too busy as it was with leadership rows. Though this heightened rhetoric is for popular consumption, the fact of the matter is the BJP has been working hard to rebuild its support in a State that it had lost. And considering its attempts at using Operation Lotus to topple the Ashok Gehlot Government and encash the Chief Minister’s rift with his one-time deputy Sachin Pilot somewhat misfired, it got back to working the grassroots. Having marginalised the outgoing Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, the State BJP chief Satish Poonia and Leader of Opposition, Gulab Chand Kataria, the last a provocative proponent of Hindutva and schooled in RSS’ style of constituency management, have ensured the party’s recovery. But the bigger political takeaway is that they could not do so earlier, simply because Pilot had held on to the Congress organisational matrix during the bypolls to some local bodies in 2019, soon after the mammoth Lok Sabha verdict in favour of Modi. Clearly, the erosion of Pilot’s power and his ongoing rift with Gehlot have finally cost the Congress its primacy in Rajasthan.
If anything, the results will once again foreground the conflict that never really went away but was just papered over by the Congress high command. Part of the reason why the Central leadership, while respectful of Pilot’s commitment, was worried about Gehlot was because the latter had convinced it of his overarching hold on the State unit and connect with the grassroots. These current results have definitely dented that aura of invincibility and shown that under-using Pilot has hurt the party badly. Gehlot had probably sensed the tide in BJP’s favour given his latest remarks that the saffron party was trying another topple game and had, therefore, argued for his indispensability in a crucial heartland State. The fact of the matter is he didn’t want to give up his fiefdom amid murmurs that he would be given a Central role in the Congress following the death of senior leader Ahmed Patel, a move that would even help the high command argue for a transition of power to Pilot. That he is reluctant about giving up is further obvious from his supporters’ comments that local body polls weren’t indicative of a larger sentiment and that Pilot had not cooperated. The Pilot camp, on the other hand, argued that the BJP gained at the expense of Gehlot’s stubbornness and refusal to change templates. The larger question is how long will Pilot hold on, roaming in the wilderness? Ever since he revolted openly, and the high command pacified him by setting up a coordination committee to settle differences, nothing has been done to his satisfaction, except deploying him as a campaigner for the Madhya Pradesh bypolls. The committee, too, has not got down to deciding the specifics of reconciliation or demarcation of powers between the two. If anything the anxieties continue to fester. There was some talk of a Cabinet reshuffle to accommodate Pilot’s supporters but an egoistic Gehlot has been delaying it. With this on the backburner, any hope of the Pradesh Congress Committee being overhauled to ensure equal representation of both camps has also diminished. Gehlot may have had the majority of the party legislators on his side to hold off the predatory instincts of the BJP, which guaranteed him continuity as a Chief Minister. But what if he loses the numbers that matter, the seats in an election? Pilot did gift the Congress the 2018 Assembly results, despite Gehlot’s stock being at an all-time low, by crafting the right moves. He has lived down his entitlements and education, moved to Rajasthan, picked up dialects and worked the ground assiduously. He is conscious of his caste endowments, the Gujjar votebank. But while that is a traditional strength, he has played it down and focussed instead on strengthening administration and the organisation. Although not allowed to operate autonomously in governance, Pilot strengthened the party base while ignoring the Lok Sabha elections which Gehlot wanted to use to shore up his strengths. We know how that turned out to be, a complete blank. If the Congress doesn’t want Rajasthan to slip out of its grasp, then it better solve its internecine wars. Given the BJP’s rhetoric and its swift conversion rate, it would be in a commanding position by the time of the next Assembly elections. In fact, the local body polls are just a test run for that. Pretence won’t help the Congress any longer, action will.
Rajinikanth is a refreshing entrant and if he uses the BJP’s matrix to convince people that spirituality and religiosity can be an easy fit, then the TN battle just got interesting
Thursday, December 3, 2020, will remain etched in Tamil Nadu’s political history for decades to come. Around noon that day, reigning superstar of Tamil films, Rajinikanth, declared that he would contest all the 234 seats in the forthcoming Assembly election with his “spiritual” political party to be launched in early 2021. Significant because it took Rajinikanth three years to finalise and announce his political debut since the day he announced his intention to join the political bandwagon on December 31, 2017. And just when everybody had given up on him, he set the cat among the pigeons.
The film star was accompanied by his Man Friday Tamilaruvi Manian, a former chief of Tamil Nadu Congress Committee, who is also a well-known Gandhian, and Arjunamurthy, a hitherto unknown entity in Tamil Nadu politics.
This unsettled the binary between the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) as also the fringe groups that gravitate towards one or the other. And as Thalaiva said confidently, “It is now or never. We are going to change everything associated with Tamil Nadu and change them for good. If I win, it will be the victory of the people. If I lose, it will be their loss,” the polls certainly won’t be a predictable run anymore. The announcement by Rajinikanth had the same impact as that of October 1972 when the then matinee idol, M G Ramachandran, who was expelled from the DMK by the then Chief Minister, M Karunanidhi, declared the formation of the AIADMK. The political outfit launched by MGR was a refreshing experience for the voters, who were caught between the devil (DMK) and the deep sea (Congress). Politics was not the same in Tamil Nadu since then.
Rajinikanth has no political experience to speak about but he has a good image as a human being. Though many film personalities had launched political parties in the State after MGR, (Sarath Kumar, Sivaji Ganeshan, Vijayakanth, Kamal Haasan, to name a few) none of them could make any kind of impact among the voters till date. But there are reasons to believe that Rajinikanth is here to stay, provided his health remains stable.
The first reason is Tamilians are spiritual people and could, therefore, resonate with Rajinikanth’s humanism. Dravidian political parties, to be specific the DMK, had assured the voters of a casteless, rationalist and atheist Tamil society. Instead Tamil Nadu has become a caste-ridden society, where everything runs on the identity tags of caste, community, even sub-castes. The ground realities associated with the DMK and its offshoots are none too pleasant either. M Karunanidhi, who remained the DMK’s supreme leader for almost five decades, had been described by the Justice Ranjit Singh Sarkaria Commission (appointed by the Indira Gandhi-led Government) as the “father of scientific corruption.” And he made the DMK a family-run enterprise. The rationalist DMK may be the only political outfit in the country, which has an in-house bishop to spit venom against Hindus (Bishop Sargunam, the DMK’s official spiritual guide).
The DMK’s proposed casteless society never took off. Karunanidhi opted for the easy way out by designating all caste-based Hindu groups into Backward, Most Backward and Other Backward Communities. Disgusted with this degeneration, C Subramaniam, who was honoured with Bharat Ratna for making India self-sufficient in agricultural production through the Green Revolution, wrote: “I belong to the dominant community, Kongu Vellalar, with the caste appellation of Gounder. Kongu represents the region historically known as Kongunadu, consisting of the districts of Coimbatore and Salem and a part of Tiruchirappalli. The Kongu Vellalars own the real wealth, land and cattle and thus dominate the rest of the community. In independent India, our community is classified as a backward community.”
This is not an isolated case. The DMK ensured its dominant position among all castes by designating/classifying them as either backward, OBC or MBC. The paradox is that dominant communities like Thevar (to which late AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa’s aide Sasikala belongs), Vanniyar (Ramadoss), Mukkulathur, Mudaliyaar, Naicker , Maravar (the ruling clan of Ramanathapuram) enjoy the status of backward communities and are beneficiaries of reservation in educational institutions and Government service. This is a big fraud perpetrated on the population of Tamil Nadu by the Dravidian outfits, according to Prof R Vaidyanathan, retired professor of finance at IIM Bangalore, whose work, Caste As Social Capital, is proof of how the rationalist Dravidian entity turned Tamil Nadu into a caste-ridden society.
Rajinikanth is entering this wild and unknown turf with his spiritual politics, which the DMK and its associates are wary about. To understand what spiritual politics is, one should listen to Tamilaruvi Manian, who speaks about the role played by the legendary Kamaraj in making Tamil Nadu a transparent, humane and humble State. “Tamil Nadu was allocated 10 sugar factories during the tenure of Kamaraj as Chief Minister. It was the Japanese government which offered technical and financial aid to set up these factories. When the deal was finalised, the then industries minister, R Venkitaraman, went to Kamaraj and said that the Japanese consortium had given Rs 1 crore as commission for setting up the plants. Each plant was set up at a cost of Rs 1 crore and what was offered to the Chief Minister as commission was 10 per cent of the total investment. Kamaraj asked Venkitaraman how much it would cost to set up one sugar factory to which the latter replied, ‘Rs 1 crore.’ The Chief Minister asked Venkitaraman to tell the Japanese to set up one more factory so that Tamil Nadu could get 11 sugar factories. This was recounted by N Kalyanasundaram, a close aide of Kamaraj for decades.” Kolahala Srenivasan, political commentator, describes this as embodying the spiritual politics of Rajinikanth.
Even before the star’s announcement, leaders of fringe parties claimed that he would not be able to make an impact. “He will not be able to act independently. The BJP wants to enter the State through him. He will be another face of the BJP and will act that way,” said Thol Thirumavalavan, VCK leader. Questions are being asked about his prospective alliance partners. “But these things can wait and let Rajinikanth himself take a call on this. The issue is that Tamil Nadu politics has undergone a major shift with his decision,” said S Gurumurthy, editor Tughlaq, and long time friend of the actor.
The truth is that both the DMK and the Congress are upset over the development and it is reflected in the words of state Congress president K S Alagiri: “There is no point in commenting on his decision since it is not going to benefit the people.” The Congress leader’s words were echoed by CPI(M)’s K Balakrishnan. “The kind of politics he is advocating will not cut ice with people,” he said.
Till December 3, 2020, there was a perception that the DMK would have a cakewalk over its rivals. But experts feel that what Rajinikanth has told the electorate, that instead of focussing on who the winner of the 2021 Assembly election will be, they should give importance to who should not win the election, is significant. The message is clearly to change the status quo and make a moral choice.
The Vetrivel yatra undertaken by the BJP, which concluded at the Thiruchendur Lord Muruga Temple on Monday, went unnoticed by the media. But it showed that Hindutva has found some takers. DMK chief M K Stalin worsened matters tactically when he said “Sanatana Dharma” was more dangerous to India than the threats from China and Pakistan. The BJP would, therefore, find Rajinikanth’s “spiritual” tag attractive to latch on to.
Interestingly, Tamil Nadu’s fortunes were decided not by chaste Tamils but by the Kerala-born MGR, the Mysore-born Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi whose mother tongue was Telugu. Even the self-styled protector of Tamil culture, Vayyapuri Gopalasamy, popularly known as Vaiko, is a Telugu Naidu. So there is nothing surprising in the Maharashtrian-born Rajinikanth claiming legitimacy.
There is enough space in Tamil Nadu politics for a charismatic leader after the deaths of Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa. The 2014 Lok Sabha poll saw the NDA poll more than 19 per cent votes in the State, dominated till then by the DMK and the AIADMK, though it failed to consolidate in 2019 as the DMK swept the results. But Rajinikanth is a refreshing experience and if he uses that and the BJP’s organisational matrix, or can convince people that spirituality and religiosity would be an easy fit, then the Tamil Nadu battle just got interesting.
(The author is a senior journalist, The Pioneer)
Taking advantage of the lull in operations, the East Central Railways fast-tracked projects where suspension of traffic for long periods was needed
In order to carry out urgent works, repairs and modifications to the existing railway infrastructure in the country, suspension of all train movement in a given section is inescapable. This cessation of all activities is called a “traffic block” in railway parlance. Over the years it had become hard, if not impossible, to order a “traffic block” on account of the exponential growth of the Indian Railways, where over 16,000 trains originating everyday run on the vast network of 67,000 km.
However, the Covid-19 pandemic, which has adversely impacted the nation’s economy over the last nine months, resulted in the number of trains originating daily from all over the nation, dropping to less than half. Due to this, a “traffic block” could now be ordered at the drop of a hat. Taking advantage of the lull in operations, the East Central Railways (ECR) fast-tracked nearly a dozen projects where suspension of rail traffic for long periods of time was involved. These projects had been dragging on for years as train operations were being routinely accorded top priority and stopping all train movement for them was simply out of the question, unless it was for a safety-related task.
However, due to the Coronavirus, upgrading the 390-km long Jhajha to Deen Dayal Upadhyaya (DDU), the erstwhile Mughalsarai station route, to run trains at 130 kmph instead of the earlier 110 kmph became possible since long “traffic blocks,” extending up to six hours, could be ordered. This involved extensive replacing of existing rails with those of higher Ultimate Tensile Strength (UTS). Hence, Plasser Quick Relaying System (PQRS) machines that could lay down 230 m-long welded rail panels in one go were deployed for the completion of the task.
The Jhajha-DDU section, though an alternative to the Asansol-Dhanbad-Gaya-DDU route, had suffered neglect for decades. But having gained adequate traffic over the last decade or so, it was now ripe for an upgrade. No less than six stations that had the antiquated system of hand-lever cabins with semaphore signals were replaced by electronic interlocking and coloured-light signals. Similarly, electronic-interlocking was commissioned at the Kiul-Lakhisarai section and an Intermediate Block Hut (IBH) was provided at the Sachivalay Halt, Block Hut C, Hathidah, Bhalui and Chaura. This upgrade had a salutary effect on the speed of trains, and the time to cover the Jhajha-DDU stretch was now cut by almost half an hour.
Route Relay Interlocking (RRI) is the gold standard for train operations, where hundreds of train-routing points and signals in major yards can be operated from a Central Cabin. Long-pending projects for Patna (Rs 30 crore), Danapur (Rs 52 crore) and Kiul-Lakhisarai (Rs 21 crore) were taken up and completed. This was a very difficult, if not impossible, task to finish in the pre-Coronavirus era of busy rail traffic.
Another work from the vast basket of projects of the ECR that had been in a limbo for a number of years, too, got sped up. This was a bridge over the River Kosi, that would bring prosperity to the remote region of north Bihar. The old bridge, built in 1887, between Nirmali and Saraigarh (district Supaul) in north Bihar (along the Nepal border) had been destroyed in an earthquake in 1934, snapping rail connectivity to this region. The foundation stone for a new bridge had been laid by Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2002 and the project was in the final stages of completion, waiting for rail approaches from the Nimarli and Saraigarh ends. This project, costing Rs 323 crore, picked up momentum with resources now available due to the pandemic, and the 1.9-km long railway line, along with the mega-bridge over Kosi, was completed at a final cost of Rs 620 crore. It was dedicated to the nation by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in September.
Connectivity between south and the equally, if not more, prosperous north Bihar has always been an issue. Constructed at a cost of Rs 2,800 crore four years ago, a rail-cum-road bridge over the Ganga provides a vital connection between Munger and Katihar, bypassing the congested Barauni Junction route for movement from south to north Bihar and beyond, to Bengal and Assam.
It was indeed a red-letter day for the Indian Railways when the more than 3-km-long bridge over the Son River was converted from double to triple track, with advance signalling features, thanks to less than half the level of rail traffic now moving due to the pandemic. A major upgrade for the Grand Chord route (Dhanbad-DDU), it also involved RRI work at the Dehri-on-Son and Sonnagar stations of the DDU division. Expected to make a significant impact on the throughput of coal trains, it is slated to hike the potential for supplying coal to power plants by 20-25 per cent, meeting the burgeoning demand of electricity for the Indian economy.
(The writer is a former member, Railway Board)
Jet Airways’ new owners hope that ‘Jet 2.0’ can take wing in summer. They are being very optimistic
Ever since the Resolution Professional (RP) appointed by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) recently decided that the Murari Jalan and Kalrock consortium will take over the assets of the moribund Jet Airways, there has been intense speculation of what the airline’s version 2.0 will look like and what model it will follow. In an email sent out by their public relations agency yesterday, the new owners of Jet outlined some of their ambitions for the future. But it was far from a clear plan of how the airline will acquire either the slots they need to operate, given that rival airlines have gobbled them up since these are not “owned” by any airline, or where Jet Airways will acquire new aircraft to operate new flights. Besides, civil aviation is certainly not the most promising sector in a pandemic-hit world and a new player certainly cannot get adventurous in a slump. The statement thus reads more like a wishlist more than anything else.
Sure, Jet Airways has undeniable brand equity among flyers but in a price-sensitive market, they care more about prices and schedules. Besides, it will not be easy to replicate the old Jet Airways’ standards of service given that several of Jet’s older employees have found new jobs elsewhere. Also, while Jet Airways did own some aircraft, they have not been flown for over a year and the cost of bringing them up to safe flying conditions is considerable. The plans outlined by the new ownership have no details about the additional funding that the owners will bring in to not just revitalise aircraft but acquire new planes and the costs of restarting an operation. A line in a statement said that the owners looked at starting a new airline but decided against it, so they are essentially starting a new airline with an old brand. How much is that brand worth is a debatable point because when Jet Airways crashed and burned, it also lost several of its high-value customers. To assume things will be alright quickly by the summer might be expecting too much and makes one wonder if the owners really know what they are doing.
The self-starter farmers’ protest has snowballed into a national movement, one that has made the Govt uncomfortable
If Union Home Minister Amit Shah has stepped in to solve the farmers’ protest over the new Acts enacted by his Government, it shows that he has sensed the runaway consequences of a localised dissent turning into a national movement. And that’s because this agitation, quite unlike the demonstrations over the citizenship law or the students’ protests, cannot be attributed to liberal advocacy, ideological conflict or the Opposition’s conspiracy, but is coming from the sons of the soil. And they have decided to speak for themselves without taking the help of either politicians, rights activists or celebrities, drawing traction with their quiet dignity and right to live with it. They have demanded their equity in the new order, not as a constituency or votebank, but as conscious citizens. In that sense, they embody the deeper undercurrent of a revolt against the authoritarian dispensation of the day that expects its people to yield to the weight of majoritarianism. The farmers have shown that heft isn’t always about numbers. In fact, the subliminal resentment now has vented itself and become a voice that doesn’t need endorsement. On the contrary, politicians, sportsmen, civil society, celebrities are latching on to them than the other way round, when the cause needs to rent them. True, the farm laws attempt structural reforms to liberalise the agriculture market but they do not factor in the farmers’ well-being and comfort or hand-hold them to a new regime where they have a level-playing field. They have, therefore, become the ignored voice of the common man at the mercy of the State’s imposition. That’s why the farmers have resurrected Guru Gobind Singh’s Pagri Sambhal Jatta Lehar movement. For the Sikh guru made it a symbol of honour, the right of every honest man to live a life of dignity and declassified it as a right of the elite. Peasants, who rose against the British Raj, used the pagri to band together dissolving their identity based on religion or caste. That’s why though the Government has been trying to box the protesters in as belonging to Punjab and button-holing it as a State problem, the farmers are reminding us that this is not a problem of Sikh farmers, redefining the pagri as worthy of any one of them who fights for their rights. It is this universalising of agenda, with some farmers’ unions now drawing attention to other causes, like the incarceration of students, activists and teachers, that has made their activism credible enough to be taken seriously by the establishment. Particularly when it is spreading in State after State and farmers’ lobbies, through NRI pressure groups, have been successful in getting legislators in the US, UK and Canada involved and defend their right to protest.
Their integrity and commitment have been strong enough to draw in other trade unions, be it of transporters, traders, taxis, banks, railways, even lawyers, basically working class people who almost always turn out to vote. This coalescence is stronger than any of Shah’s intention to break up the unions. This is a political capital too difficult to ignore. One that has forced all parties, particularly those in the Opposition, to ignore their hypocrisy and stand with farmers. Which is why Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself called Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) patron Parkash Singh Badal on his birthday, more to assuage concerns, considering that the latter had returned the Padma Vibhushan, demanding rollback of the farm Acts. In fact, with Punjab Assembly elections in 2022, the SAD couldn’t risk its image with farmers. So it walked out of its alliance with the BJP and withdrew its Minister for Food Processing, Harsimrat Kaur Badal. Punjab Chief Minister and Congress leader Amarinder Singh went a step further, amending the Central law and bringing in fresh Bills in the Assembly, guaranteeing existing rights of farmers. This seems odd considering the Congress, which has itself been reformist on the agriculture sector and favoured some of the measures in the farm Acts, has done a U-turn. It even advocated dismantling the State Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) Acts in its 2019 manifesto. And despite promising loan waivers in States ruled by it, it has failed to provide even limited relief. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which initially had a hands-off attitude to the farmers’ stir, is now supporting it primarily because it is still ambitious about making inroads into Punjab. Hence AAP leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal made it a point to visit agitators at the State’s borders. This despite the farmers refusing AAP support for community kitchens and shelters. Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, whose State wouldn’t be much affected by the new laws, has now sided with the unions, given that Assembly elections are months away and the issue has turned out to be even bigger than those on the citizenship law or students, which were limited to their constituencies and hadn’t galloped with such frenzy. Clearly, the Opposition has once again been reactive rather than being proactive. By being disunited on the farmers’ issue, they failed to either block the Ordinance on farm reforms or muster enough numerical strength to outshout the ruling party in the Rajya Sabha, force a debate and discussion in the House or at least make sure that the legislation was scrutinised by parliamentary committees. And till the farmers landed in Delhi, none of them had planned a cohesive national campaign on their rights. Now that the issue has become a veritable tinderbox, they have no choice but to look concerned. That actually makes them look even more unconcerned. In the end, the Government has to give a price guarantee of sorts as the Minimum Support Price (MSP) has itself become unremunerative given rising input costs. Farmers are but naturally wary of any contracted price in the open market that could push them further down the trough they are in. They are not entirely unreasonable or against market economics. If only the Government had acted with reason than haste.
Despite the advent of modern technology and guiding systems, naval aviation remains among the riskiest services
Soldiering is extremely risky business, even without the escalation to a full-fledged war. The unpredictable vagaries of nature, machines, circumstances and the operating turf combine to test the warrior at each step – it is from that fount of perennial uncertainty that the military families silently invoke, “We wait. We hope. We pray. Until you’re home again.” The truism of the daily dangers that beset a warrior’s life manifested in the tragic incident of Indian Navy’s MiG-29K, which went down over the Arabian Sea. While one of the pilots was immediately rescued, the other, instructor Commander Nishant Singh, had remained untraceable. Tragically and finally, the family, squadron and the other loved ones of Commander Nishant Singh were joined in their prayers by a grateful nation, in the poignant moment of necessary “closure”, as the news of a body believed to be his was recovered from high seas after 11 days of relentless search.
In an ode to the timeless spirit of “I will never leave a comrade behind,” which underpins the sacred ethos of all warriors, the Indian Navy launched intensive search operations, deploying nine warships, 14 aircraft and fast interceptor craft.
Even among the comity of warriors, the naval aviators are cut from a brazenly different cloth, as they earn their swaggering-flyer mystique owing to the inherent dangers and glory that accompany their professional calling. These very few men and women manage the additional complexity of landing their machines on a moving aircraft carrier deck by snagging the “tailhook” to arresting high-tensile wires, after having approached the deck at exactly the right angle. Then the pilot counterintuitively pushes the engines to full power, in order to stop. All strategising and coordination has to happen in a matter of seconds. The complexities, the adrenaline rush and the dangers are simply unmatched.
Despite the advent of modern technology and guiding systems, naval aviation remains among the riskiest services. The soul of a true naval aviator is forged amid that trying loneliness of flying over the endless azure of daytime or the haunting darkness of the open ocean at night – either way tempering mind into steel so that when that split second critical decision is required, it is done to perfection. These rare warriors need to combine the multiple dimensions of sea, air and land, simultaneously.
Conversely the extreme pressures of job also lead to unique personalities that typify naval aviators. Ironically, it was Nishant who had jumped into popular imagination with a now-famous letter written to his senior, seeking permission to “bite the bullet (get married).” Nishant had asked tongue-in-cheek, “I regret to be dropping this bomb on you at such a short notice, but as you would agree, I intend to drop a nuclear one on myself and I realise that just like all the split second decisions we take up in the air in the heat of combat, I cannot afford to allow myself the luxury to re-evaluate my decision,” he wrote and had serendipitously added, “I promise to never repeat such a performance in air or teach it to my trainee pilots.” His Commanding Officer, another naval aviator, had matched Nishant’s good-humoured (albeit, private communication) with, “But all the good things have to finally come to an end” and recorded his acquiescence with jest, “welcome to hell!” Certainly, no one had imagined or ever assumed the “end” to imply death. Beyond the obvious camaraderie and the classic flamboyance and élan of naval aviators, there is also the human side of warriors who cherish nothing more than home and family, above all. Very often, owing to ignorance or sheer lack of concern, the citizenry forgets the dangers that are inherent, routine and unimaginable on land, air and sea, in the course of maintaining the sovereignty of the nation, which could lead to the payment of the “ultimate price” in the discharge of military duties.
It was to its home base at INS Hansa, Goa, that the all-weather, carrier-based, multi-role fighter aircraft, i.e. MiG-29K, was flying back from the aircraft carrier, INS Vikramaditya. Part of the Indian Navy’s famed “Black Panther” squadron, this has been the third accident involving the MiG-29K fighter in the last one year, albeit, this entailed the trainer two-seater variant. Last November, a trainer crashed in Goa after engine failure due to a bird hit. Both pilots ejected safely. In February, a MiG-29K on a routine training sortie crashed off Goa due to technical glitch. The pilot ejected safely and was recovered. Of course, the aircraft has reported glitches in the past and in other countries though the Navy has rectified the engine. Hopefully, going forward, operational deficiencies will be looked at much more keenly before acquisitions.
But while the armed forces will never forget its own in Commander Nishant Singh, it will persevere whatever the odds, as they do not know of any other way, except to fight the odds, everyday. The flyers have a unique tradition of honouring their fallen pilots with flying in a “missing man formation.” Last year, the Indian Air Force Chief himself led a group of MiG-21s to give a symbolically moving aerial salute through the “missing man formation” to honour the valour and supreme sacrifices of its pilots at Kargil.
The pain of not knowing the fate and hoping-against-hope that the family of Commander Nishant Singh had to endure for all of 11 days is of indescribable magnitude but it ends now. The author too had a family elder, Lt Bikram Singh Rathore of 6 Kumaon, who took the “last stand” in the fierce Battle of Walong in 1962. At 22, the lionheart had fought till last man, last bullet. The noble warrior had stoutly refused to surrender or retreat, and towards the same action Time magazine famously noted, “At Walong, Indian troops lacked everything. The only thing they did not lack was guts.” Lt Bikram Singh Rathore was last seen dragged away by the Chinese, never to be afforded a “closure” for the family as the official status is “missing, believed killed.” Such are the ways of the profession of arms that seldom does a warrior outlive a couple of chances, yet the soldiers will always back their instincts and take calculated chances to fight another day. “I’ve got you back” is a reassurance they convey each other but for now, the nation mourns its naval aviator, Commander Nishant Singh, who will remain symbolically the “missing man” for his family, squadron and the nation.
(The author is former Lt Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands & Puducherry)
Before climate change delivers the fatal blow, India must respond with effective counter-measures to protect lives and livelihoods
As India experiences a colder than usual winter, public opinion is firmly set on the premise that the Coronavirus-driven lockdown reduced pollution levels, thereby resulting in a season that’s more spirited than the previous ones. However, nothing could be further from the truth. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has already sounded an alert to the effect that the winter of 2020-21 will be colder than usual due to the La Nina conditions prevailing in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. La Nina is the cooling phase of the El Nino southern oscillation cycle in the equatorial Pacific Ocean as opposed to the warming El Nino phase. As if confirming the IMD’s predictions, Delhi has already witnessed its coldest November in 71 years. But miseries brought on by the cold may be the least of our concerns compared to the economic impact that lies in wait for India in the wake of these erratic temperature changes.
The IMD predicts an uneven distribution of minimum and maximum temperature levels in various parts of India, which could lead to a higher variance between night and day temperatures. This, in turn, would impact farming in the Rabi season. Especially the wheat crop which is the main cereal that is grown in northern and central India.
Other crops that stand to be impacted are soy and corn. In south India, a major cash crop, coffee, which is extremely sensitive to temperature variations, is expected to suffer unduly thanks to these weather-related anomalies. These developments on the agricultural front can wreak havoc in the form of sudden spike in food prices and cause unexpected financial turbulence for the farming community that is already facing multiple difficulties.
The economy would eventually suffer the ripple effects of the agrarian crisis, the adverse impact of climate change, coupled with setbacks on account of COVID-19.
The latest Mckinsey Global Institute (MGI) report has presented unsettling facts that point towards dwindling economic prosperity due to the havoc unleashed by climate change. The report states that there is a risk of $200 billion to India’s GDP by 2030 due to a sharp reduction in outdoor working hours triggered by the increase in ambient temperatures. What are currently considered as unsafe outdoor temperatures to work in will increase by a whopping 15 per cent by 2030, directly impacting productivity and eventually the per capita income of the nation. This is because outdoor work has immense relevance for the economy. As of 2017, it contributed to nearly 50 per cent of the GDP. It drives 30 per cent of the GDP growth and ensures employment for nearly 75 per cent of the labour force or nearly 380 million people in India. Hence, climate change-driven spike in temperatures can put up to 2.5 to 4.5 per cent of the GDP at risk.
In fact, it is estimated by the MGI report that nearly 160 to 200 million people bear a clear five per cent possibility of being exposed to lethal or fatal heatwaves as early as 2030. As temperatures rise, so do the costs of air conditioning. It is estimated that by 2030, a massive $110 billion would be required as capital costs for improving the air conditioning infrastructure. Urgent remedial measures are needed to avert much of the problems before 2030. Although some situations have surpassed the stage of remedy, all is not lost yet. The authorities must have concerted plans in place that are able to mitigate the forthcoming threats. Gradually shifting of outdoor working hours coupled with movement of capital and labour out of the designated high temperature hotspots will go a long way in reducing the adverse economic impact that is being predicted.
Moreover, all the current ongoing infrastructure and developmental projects must have a critical component of climate change adaptation consideration built into them. This sensitivity will reduce the carbon footprint of these projects and will in turn help avert extreme outcomes in the form of spiraling heat output signatures.
Yet another aspect that needs urgent attention while in the pursuit of ensuring a safe climate for the future is the state of our energy supplies. The average hydel power plant dams that are currently operational in the country are decades old and the constant exposure to the elements, not to mention the ever-present interaction with water, is taking a toll on their structure. The future presents a scenario where rising temperature would mean more melting snows and glaciers, which in turn would increase the water load on these dams. An immediate assessment is required as to how these ageing concrete structures would hold up to this increased onslaught of water and still deliver. This is essential because the need for gradual decommissioning of the coal-fired power plants can no longer be a long-term strategy but is in fact a short-term urgent requirement if the erratic temperatures need to be reined in before 2030. Erratic temperatures are here to stay. But before they deliver the fatal blow, India has to respond decisively with effective counter-measures in order to protect lives and livelihoods.
(The writer is an environmental journalist)
In all probability, Rajinikanth is bound to have a secret or open understanding with the BJP as both need each other
Will the BJP be able to rope in Tamil superstar Rajinikanth, who has announced plans to launch his much-awaited political party in January 2021? The actor is a phenomenon and will be a major factor in the forthcoming Tamil Nadu Assembly polls, scheduled for April-May 2021. He has chosen this time to make his political debut because there is a huge vacuum in the State after the demise of two former Chief Ministers and political heavyweights, M Karunanidhi of the DMK in 2018 and J Jayalalithaa of the AIADMK in 2016.
“It is the need of the hour. If it is not done now, it will never be done. For this, I urge the people to stand by me. Together we will bring change,” the star-turned-politician tweeted this week. There has been speculation that he is inclined towards the BJP, though Rajinikanth has been rather coy about discussing his plans. The problem for the BJP is that if Rajnikanth’s party decides to go it alone and contest all 234 seats, it will eat into the BJP’s ally, the AIADMK’s vote share more than that of the DMK (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam). Rajinikanth’s entry comes at a time when the incumbent AIADMK-BJP alliance, the DMK-Congress-Left Front, and another superstar Kamal Haasan have already firmed up their alliance. With the BJP’s ambitious plans to expand in the South, is it possible for Rajinikanth to join the BJP-AIADMK combine? Have the elections become a game of arithmetic?
The megastar had been putting off entering politics since 1996, when the Congress first offered to make him its chief ministerial candidate to counter the then Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. Since then, the Congress as well as the BJP have been wooing him. “The time to rewrite Tamil Nadu’s destiny has come. There’s a great need for change... it’s now or never. Voted to power, we will change everything,” Rajinikanth promised this week. Failing repeatedly to gain a foothold in Tamil Nadu, the BJP had been trying to goad the actor into entering politics, but he had resisted the party’s overtures so far.
The BJP is handicapped, with no tall leaders at the State level, and would like to use him as its mascot. Being a megastar, he has the advantage of being a known face and has a huge fan following and clubs. He proposes to launch a spiritual party as opposed to the atheist Dravidian parties. It will be advantageous to the actor too, as the BJP is a disciplined party and has both manpower and money. The BJP would also help facilitate other things like registration of his new party and so on. So both think that they are natural allies.
Second, Rajinikanth does not have time to build a party before the polls. His fan clubs alone will not be enough. Though he had asked his followers to register their names on his website, you need teams for booth management and door-to-door campaigns and so on. The BJP has already loaned Arjun Murthy, head of the State BJP’s intellectual cell, as “chief coordinator” of the new party, indicating what is to come. While the BJP has welcomed his entry, Deputy Chief Minister and AIADMK coordinator O Panneerselvam has also hinted at a possible alliance with Rajinikanth’s party. Addressing a meeting in Theni this week, he said: “We welcome great film actor Rajnikanth’s decision to enter politics. In politics, anything can happen. If there is an opportunity, an alliance will be formed.”
Rajinikanth, too, has some challenges to face. First of all, the field in Tamil Nadu already has two strong Dravidian parties — the DMK and the AIADMK, who share a combined vote bank of 50 per cent. The other, smaller, but significant regional players such as the PMK (Paattali Makkal Katchi) and actor Vijayakanth’s DMDK (Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam) are in the line-up too. Second, the star has some health problems as he had undergone a kidney operation and might not be able to withstand a rigorous election campaign. Third, so far there is no clarity on whether his party will fight next year’s Assembly polls in Tamil Nadu independently or strike an electoral alliance. Fourth, in a caste-ridden State, forward castes, such as the Mudaliars, have divided their loyalty between the two Dravidian parties for long. As for the dominant castes, the Gounders have Chief Minister E Palanisamy of the AIADMK, the Thevars have O Panneerselvam, the Vanniyars have Dr Ramadoss and the Scheduled Castes have the VCK (Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi). Vijayakanth’s DMDK, the Vaiko-led MDMK (Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam), the two Left parties and actor-turned-politician Hassan’s Makkal Needhi Maiam share the caste groups. The minorities go with the DMK or the AIADMK. Parties such as the CPI (M), the CPI, the VCK and the MDMK are aligned with the DMK coalition.
In all probability, Rajinikanth is bound to have a secret or open understanding with the BJP as both need each other. The problem for the actor will be who to attack during the campaign, the Centre or the State Government? Many indications are that the star will lean towards the BJP.
(The writer is a senior journalist)
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