NOW NUCLEAR POWER PLANT THROUGH SUPREME COURT JUDGEMENT

The government of India, a government sans governance and the ruling polity has always been objecting to the judicial activism of the Indian courts in all matters relating to governance and felt that it was intruding into the government domain even though it was absolutely necessary in the light of total inaction by the government in all matters of public interest and welfare. It was most surprising to see the apex court proclaiming that fear of nuclear disaster has no basis. It should be appreciated that science and technology is as bankrupt as it was fifty years back and tries to fix up the faults as are thrown up by accidents and occurrings from time to time. The safety teams are playing around with collation of statistical data of functioning of a multitude of components, mechanical behaviour and failure of structures and the materials and trying to overcome these through redundancy and reliability.

All these exercises were carried out before commissioning power plants at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima but as providence will have it some new unknown factors came into being and these catastrophic accidents occurred. Let us all understand that nuclear energy safety has been a false promise and will continue to be the same for all times to come. Humanity has suffered heavily because of ironic claims of 100% safety but we in India seem to be none the wiser from the experiences of others. These ominous words contained in the judgement "Nobody on this earth can predict what would happen in future and to a larger extent we have to leave it to the destiny" should not be taken lightly as the stakes are not the same as that of an automobile accident. The decisions must be weighed in the light of the quantum of risks of catastrophic accidents in nuclear power plants. 

There has got to be something horrendous in nuclear power play. We must try to analyse why even the so called masters of nuclear power technology are themselves shying away from this energy. No new plant has come up on the soil of USA since 1980. Germany and Japan have decided to phase out all nuclear energy. So much so even the French have decided to go in for reductions in their dependence on nuclear energy.

While nobody can deny the requirements of energy for the sunny future of the masses of India as brought out in a report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which highlights that to sustain rapid global economic growth, it is necessary to double the supply of energy and tripling supply of electricity by 2050. Further, it is stated billions of poor people need energy and other life-saving and job-creating technologies.” But today we have better alternates available to realise our aims. It will be criminal to bank upon a technology which is in an obsolescence phase because of thorns attached to it and not in sync with the vision and aspirations of 21st century. India does not need nuclear power for its energy security. Let us hope that wisdom prevails on Indian rulers and polity.

INDIA CALLING OR CRYING: COALGATE INVESTIGATIONS FOR PROTECTING NATIONAL I...: India has witnessed a host of scams during the rule of the present government. It is a pity that no investigation seems to be reaching the...

CORRUPTION BLOWING AWAY INDIAN DREAM OF GETTING PROSPEROUS

21st century belongs to Asia , the oft repeated words of Indian prime minister along with a host of other assessors and analysts of world economy and on paper India is perhaps the strongest contender. This global opportunity because of a combination of  factors like favourable demography, cheap labour, abundant human resource of all skills and levels and above all perhaps the right time for an impending change in global economic order because of slowing down of developed economies, depletion of their resources and gross overspending on social welfare measures.

The Indian nation and polity understands this fully but the polity chooses  to ignore comfortably the first and foremost condition of corruption mitigation and good governance for such revolutions to occur in the history of a nation. Not even a single day passes without the surfacing of a new scam or reports of large scale corruption by mighty and powerful of the nation. The apathy of the government is reflected in the fact that hardly anyone gets punished or money gained through illegal and dubious means recovered. On the contrary the whole polity divides itself into two teams, one vouching for that nothing has gone wrong and that the powerful are not involved while the other raises the rhetoric of  asking for the head of individual name involved. The mudslinging and rhetoric created goes on with complete understanding that the gains and losses must be confined only to the aim of getting votes. It is always ensured that no personal or financial harm should come to any individual.

The nation, citizenry and the common man is suffering because of corruption, bribe and black money generation and is well aware of the massive magnitude of these problems. But strangely, the total polity of the country makes an all out effort to undermine the extent, so much so that it is taken to be a minor aberration in the total financial activity of the nation. The most recent case of involvement of a relative of a minister involved in a bribe for the promotion of a railway officer is a typical eye opener to the extent this malaise is eating into the national wealth and hampering India's dream and chance of becoming world leaders. This particular officer's total earnings of the last ten years will not amount to the princely sum of Rs. 90 lakhs, the amount paid as the bribe. This throws open two basic questions. Firstly, the amounts that are being earned through dubious means in this country and secondly the scope of earning much bigger amounts with the likely promotion.

This is as far as the colossus bribe is rampant in Indian government and is a minuscule sample of what has come to light. There is another angle to this which is all the more shameful and deleterious to the growth of nation. The minister in question says that he has no business dealings with this relative as if corruption is a business and he wants the country to believe that all corrupt people have scripted business partnerships with their relatives, cronies and stooges for bribe and corruption money. The officer who paid the bribe was an idiot who paid the bribe without ascertaining that it will produce the desired result by reaching the person concerned.

The country is getting ruined in this game and corruption is blowing away Indian dream of getting prosperous. Corruption has given two separate and distinct methodologies for the functioning of executive and the legal process. Executive thrives on the motto of  'How not to do a thing instead of how to do it' and the legal process thrives on 'How to save a guilty rather than how to nail him' and this is such a win win situation for the persons who are mired in corruption. They not only eat, drink and sleep corruption, they breed corruption too. If such are the nationalists of this country, the persons working under oaths, persons subject to some semblance of controls and accountability, imagine the state of persons who are under no oath and are accountable to no agency.

WHAT AILS INDIA?

The whole world recognises the potential of India to become a global economic superpower in the next few decades 

• in the light of availability of global opportunities arising out of the problems being faced by today's economic giants because of 

1. Unsuitable demography
2. Improper mix of human resource
3. Extremely high wage structure not in sync with the commercial aspects of all industrial activity.
4. Over spending on social security and welfare schemes
5. Need to replace current nearly obsolescent technologies with newer revolutionary technologies in the fields of energy security, logistics and transport incurring huge replacement costs. 
6. And above all, depletion of conventional natural resource reserves which have been the strength of twentieth century industrial revolution.

India is most favorably placed as far the demography, human resource and wage structure are concerned. The other irritants can be taken care of with a judicious proportioning of expenditure on welfare schemes and industrial productivity. But strangely enough no big results are either forth coming or appear to be forthcoming in future. Aptly one is forced into asking, ' What ails India' and it is not very hard to find out the answer to this. The following come to one's mind if you try to dwell on this subject.

• Lack of Vision and far sight: In the history of independent India, the vision and far sight were seen only during two periods, firstly during Nehru's times in the fifties and sixties of the last century covering the first three five year plans and  secondly during the time of Vajpai. After Nehru's era India went into a period of what has been described as a plan holiday by several analysts and a similar condition has perhaps developed during the last ten years also. During these periods the Indian leaders have only concentrated on hollow promises, vote catching gimmicks and rhetoric and worst still all government decisions seem to be motivated by politics and corrupt governance. The decisions on two main pillars of any booming economy i.e. the energy security and natural resource management neither show any vision nor any concern for the poor citizenry of this country. When the whole world seems to be moving towards renewable energy sources for ultimate, ever lasting, and relatively inexpensive energy security, India is lagging behind and is perhaps is being guided by national and international cartels of industry, nations and even scientific and technological power centres. Indian geographical and habitation scenario is perhaps most suited to Energy security with solar and wind energy but is perhaps not being pursued because these energy sources are not owned by any cartel or any power centre or any lobby. Water resource management has suffered because of this lack of vision, so much so that a country bestowed with abundant water from perennial rivers, a lot of rainfall is in the danger of a water crisis with ground water tables moving deeper and deeper. On one hand every year floods cause huge loss to agriculture and property while on the other millions suffer because of famines occur as a result of severe drought in many parts of the country.
• The lack of governance is the other major ailment that is pulling down India. In fact Indian government is a government sans governance. One is astonished to hear from the government that India neither has proper laws to fight crime, bribery, corruption etc. nor has the requisite infrastructure for quick disposal of law cases.The government seems to be a mere informer to the nation and takes pride in that. Who will find solution to these ailments is not known? Day in day out the country is made to understand that no individual or leader alone can fight these maladies and that the people have to become honest and responsible. If that happens by any miracle will the country need these rulers to waste national kitty on them, a vast majority out of them are   goons and buffoons who are ruling/ruining India. A reminder to the ruling class of the country

Good Economics and Good Governance is Ideal
Bad Economics and Good Governance is A Compromise
Good Economics and Bad Governance is Undesirable
Bad Economics and Bad/Corrupt Governance is A Disaster

• The irony of Indian situation is that India has embraced the last of the above four options with utter disregard to the quantum of doles, freebies, subsidies and administrative expenditure an economy can sustain. As if that were not enough every action of government with regard to natural resources like minerals, water, spectrum, land etc. is meant to be to the detriment of the nation and benefit of polity, powerful bureaucrats, industrialists and their stooges and cronies. So much so that India has  ignominiously earned for itself the epithet of A land of scams.

INDIA'S ENERGY SECURITY : RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES

It was heartening to note that Indian government has finally seen  the reality of clean green energy and this was emphasized by none other than the Indian premier. While speaking at the fourth clean energy ministerial Indian Prime Minister pitches for subsidy to energize clean energy in the context of his opinion on the cost aspects of  power from new renewable energy sources in comparison to conventional fuel based energy sources. His assertions derive strength from the feed back from his experts which he has faithfully echoed . But as the head of the government of one billion plus and a visionary trying to catapult Indian march to prosperity he must understand that all scientific and technology experts also resist change just as any normal human being and additionally they tend to defend their expertise and technology for their own benefit and the benefit of their large following of scientists and technologists. Additionally he should have drawn his own conclusions in the light of the fact that so many global leaders and visionaries have embraced the renewable energy sources in a big way for ultimate energy security of their respective countries.

India is uniquely placed in this quest of energy security as it doesn't have to think that earlier investments will go down the drain as it has barely started its march towards this goal and our yearly addition requirements are much more than the replacement requirements of the developed world. Energy security through renewables is the only way ahead if India has to keep its date with the the great Indian dream of becoming world leaders.

India must think big and India must think with vision and far sight. Let India not follow the beaten path of energy requirement fulfillment as it came to mankind with the advancements of science, technology and material development. India must jump and skip some of the technologies to arrive at the ultimate goal of energy security. Gone are the days when big was beautiful and economic in Energy sector. Solar and wind power have the potential of revolutionizing this concept with their suitability and cost effectiveness in standalone, micro, mini and large grids. In the light of the fact that solar and wind are comparable if not cheaper when an all inclusive cost comparison including transmission /distribution losses and costs, logistics of raw materials, plant and grid maintenance and costs for reducing pollution and fighting global warming is made for cost to the consumer. Solar and wind power and are the only viable answers to the requirement of Energy Security not only for India but for almost all nations on our globe.

INDIA CALLING OR CRYING: INDIAN DEMOCRACY ON THE EDGE: There is hardly a day when India doesn't see a new scam getting unearthed and the irony of the nation is that it is always the rulers, powerful bureaucrats, relatives, cronies and touts of those close to power corridors who are the beneficiaries in all these shameful acts and the loot going on in our so called great nation, a nation claimed to be on the verge of becoming a global economic superpower in the next decade by these impudent  leaders who are devoid of any concern for the nation and its common man. The common man is continually seeking an answer to the following basic questions.

• Why is it that my condition is getting worse with each passing day?
• What am I getting in lieu of all the direct and indirect taxes paid by me?
• Why is it that all those who get connected with politics in the name of service to the people and nation are getting richer day by day and are enjoying perks and facilities which are grossly disproportionate to the level of prosperity or poverty of the nation?
• And above all  why am I being denied even the basic necessities of existence even after sixty five years of the so called planned economy of India?

The answer is plain and simple. Till such time India has rulers whose aims and priorities are limited only to making merry at the expense of tax payer/common man, to suck the national exchequer and the vast reserves of national resources for their sole benefit, to fool the voter with their high sounding vote catching slogans and rhetoric and working with the single point agenda of getting power and remaining in power by all kind of dirty practices, nothing can change in this country. The selfish polity and bureaucracy of India has very eagerly imbibed the main postulates of British philosophy of governance of foreign lands, namely,

INDIAN BUDGET 2013 In CORRECT PERSPECTIVE

The budget 2013 has been announced. The treasury benches have gone gaga over the provisions contained in the budget with comments which appear to have been rehearsed over and over again much before the actual event. Similarly the opposition has also not lagged behind in going ahead with totally rehearsed  comments describing the whole effort as an exercise in futility. So far so good, both are going ahead with the 'religion (dharma ) of politics' and expecting them to imbibe 'religion of concern for the country and its hapless masses' is perhaps asking for a little too much as they are self centered, power hungry conceited individuals who will not even wink or sneeze until it promises them votes and subsequent power.

In the light of all this publicly recognition of high inflation rate, high current account and fiscal deficits by the polity as the major stumbling blocks in India's march to prosperity and the immediate need to address these persisting problems seem to be the only worth mentioning aspect of the budget. Why these have been allowed to grow to these menacing levels and what were the factors responsible for this is nobody's concern? However conceding the inefficacy of monetary measures on the part of Reserve Bank of India  alone in tackling high inflation has prompted the ruling polity to accept the need to improve the supply side of food articles and other goods. This along with measures to reduce oil subsidies, making Aadhar based payments for many of the social welfare schemes to check bogus beneficiaries and allied thefts is a welcome step towards addressing the ground realities of Indian economic health. Similarly allocations for skill improvement of blue collar workers, medical needs of the poor and announcements on Mumbai-Delhi, Mumbai-Bangalore and Bangalore-Chennai industrial corridors are some other noteworthy steps which will go a long way in Indian growth story. But has India recognized the fact that it has failed to deliver prosperity to its citizenry not because big ticket announcements were not made earlier but because of lack of governance/ governance deficit which has been plaguing the nation for the last few decades.In fact Indian government is a government sans governance and unless or until Indian governments manage to shrug off this tag, any effort from the budget or policy will go poorly rewarded. India's thrust on power failed to kick off because of scam in allocation of coal fields, impediments in augmenting the production of coal because of environmental concerns. Similarly building up of road infrastructure with a promised 20 Kilometers per day  finally ended up with 700 odd Kilometers in the first nine months of the current financial year because of land acquisition problems. These two along with innumerable other examples are perfect examples of governance deficit and lack of vision, foresight and far sight.
No two men can have the same set of priorities for achieving a given goal and the UPA II and the finance minister are entitled to their line of action. Similarly a politician must look into the political value of his actions particularly when the elections are due next year. So we cannot blame the finance minister of having concentrated on three pillars of Indian vote banks i.e. poor, women and youth till such time he has not given any extraneous doles to them. We must laud his efforts of doing all this in a constructive manner though in a  small manner along with seeing to to it that Indian rating in the eyes of foreign investors does not suffer.
However, one cannot help but wishing for the following big value additive programs for a speedy march to prosperity.

• Blueprint for bringing in a vast majority of workers into the lap of organised sector as fast as possible.
• River linking program with rural employment guarantee (NREGA) to mitigate the ruinous effects of floods, droughts etc., taking care of depleting water table and contributing to cheap transportation system based on waterways.
• Blue print for energy security based on a promise to have up to 90% from renewable energy sources in the coming decade and a half.
• Effective steps to fight and mitigate the menace of corruption and black money.
• A comprehensive road map for cutting down the three main subsidies i.e. food, fertilizers and petroleum linked up with per capita income growth.