Fukushima's failure, India's nuclear policy and some lessons

To be trite, words are inadequate to describe the trio of disastrous events which have hit Japan recently - from earthquake, to tsunami, to potential nuclear meltdown. While the first two disasters are acts of nature, the third revives the historic trauma of the original detonations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at a time when the idea of a nuclear energy renaissance had been gaining international popularity. Japan occupies a crucial role in these plans as a manufacturer, investor, and even moral arbitrator related to nuclear technology.

Domestically, nuclear power makes up 13.6 per cent of Japan’s total energy supply and a substantial portion of its electricity production.  Globally, the destruction of the nuclear plants in Fukushima will have international consequences for future nuclear power installations. Europe, India and the United States have all been in the process of shifting more of their future energy needs to nuclear power. How might Fukushima alter that shift? What will be the short-term energy ramifications of such a shift? What might be the more long-term geopolitical consequences?

There was a 1999 critical nuclear accident at a small experimental reactor in Tokaimura, Japan.  Breaches in existing safety standards caused the accident, damage (resulting in two fatalities) was limited, and it did not grab the imagination of the international public. In contrast to Tokaimura, the present extensive nuclear accident in Japan is dramatic and symbolic; already other countries that use nuclear power are looking into the safety of their own reactors. But change is reactor construction and safety may well not be the most dramatic shift in nuclear energy politics. There will be ripple effects.

Even Europe is rethinking its reliance on nuclear power.  In Germany, nuclear energy has been a contentious issue for decades - nearly 70 per cent of Germans opposed nuclear power even before Fukushima. Henrik Paultiz, of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, believes that “the accident in Japan could lead to a major rethink in Europe. And not before its time. Governments have not been transparent enough about the safety levels of the nuclear power sector.”

If some European countries who have been relying for some of their energy needs on nuclear power for decades are reconsidering nuclear energy in response to Fukushima, the US is in an even more politically charged position. Following the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979, nuclear energy became deeply unpopular. Yet support for nuclear energy has experienced resurgence and is one of the few issues which has support from both Democrats and Republicans. However, Fukushima is causing all to pause in their enthusiasm. Senator Joseph Lieberman captured the new ambivalence around nuclear energy: “I think it calls on us here in the U.S., not to stop building nuclear power plants but to put the brakes on right now until we understand the ramifications of what’s happened in Japan.”  

In India, the reaction to Fukushima has focused more on safety of domestic facilities rather than doubts about the safety of nuclear energy itself. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has ordered the Nuclear Power Corporation of India to review its safety systems and security designs. The Government of India is also considering additional environmental safeguards to ensure safety of future nuclear reactors. Even before Fukushima, there have been growing protests of the “not in my backyard” variety related to the construction of Jaitapur reactor in Maharastra. Fukushima could well intensify these protests to the point of halting construction.

In the short-term, Fukushima will make nuclear power plant construction at the very least a much more difficult proposition in many places in the world.

Lydia Walker in ipcs.org. More Here

India's Foreign policy and Malayali Interests

National Security adviser S.S. Menon was in Tehran on March 8, the eve of the Persian New Year. Attempted flattery went awry as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s office let Mr Menon’s view be known that the President’s predictions of global economic and political developments were prescient.

The national security adviser’s Tehran sojourn was perhaps based on the following assumptions:

• a convergence in concerns about post-US Afghanistan; 
• Iranian worry over Gulf Cooperation Council-Saudi Arabia and the Iran stand-off over Bahrain’s street uprising by the majority Shia population; 
• and the Indian United Nations Security Council membership till 2011-12. Such reasoning subsumed that Iranian national imperatives have remained static over the last decade. 

In fact, as Iran’s external environments evolved so did its polity and tactics. Mr Ahmadinejad, a hardliner, replaced the urbane Mr Khatami. The Vilayet-e-Faqih model created by Imam Khomeini was conditioned on the Supreme Leader balancing the interests of the clergy, the Revolutionary Guards and their off-spring, the Baseej and the Bazaar, or the business class.

The 2009 election has upset this balance.
China has replaced India and Japan as investor in oil and gas and technology sources. Iran has worked out a modus vivendi with the Taliban as the US is a common foe. The US is perceived as a retreating power, no longer a military threat. President Hosni Mubarak’s exit was followed by two Iranian naval vessels transiting the Suez Canal, a first in decades. Even the Taliban may want to reduce their dependence on Pakistan. Sa’di, the 13th century poetic voice of Shiraz, has this advice on revenge:
Wait rather till fortune blunts his claws
Then pluck out his brains amidst friends’ applause.

The Arab world is in turmoil, which can lead to a renaissance or chaos. India’s Gulf policy stands outsourced to sectional Malayali interests. Its West Asia policy is in induced sleep. Iran is leafing through its Sa’di poems. The Manmohan Singh government, with its mono-thematic focus on the India-US civil nuclear deal in UPA-I and Pakistan in UPA-II, needs new advisers and a wider spectrum foreign policy. The only Arabist secretary at headquarters in the ministry of external affairs deals with Europe. Otherwise its fate shall be of the partridge in the Persian poet Hafiz’s couplet:
O gracefully walking partridge whither goest thou? 
Stop Be not deceived because the ‘devious cat’ has said its prayers

K C Singh in The Asian Age. More Here.

Some shocking photos of Japan Tsunami and some after thoughts

 

These are some of the breathtaking photos of mind boggling damages inflicted by the deadly earthquake and tsunami which stuck Japan last week. They are available Here 

The Japanese are most disciplined people on the earth. Look at the third photograph. It depicts a traffic jam. Even in traffic jam the vehicles stand one after another. 

Immediately after this tragedy I received SMSs from many friends known and unknown describing the devastation caused by the tsunami as divine punishment. It said that Japan is the first to ban Hijab (It is not true). It also said that Japanese were against Islam (It is also not true.). And there were some similar absurd generalisations. In a nutshell the SMSs tried to say that Japanese DESERVE it. Similar sentiments were rampant among Americans too. PZ Myers, better known in the science blogging world as Pharyngula has compiled several Facebook messages of people saying that the Japan earthquake was due to revenge of Pearl Harbour.

I could not understand the thinking behind such SMSs. This world is Dar-ul-Amal ie a place for action. This is not Darul Jaza or Saza ie a place where judgement is delivered.

What happened in Japan is very tragic. It is not divine retribution. Calamity or Prosperity; Tragedy or Gaiety; Adversity or Felicity everything are tests for us. We are in examination hall. What we get is just a question paper. It may be in the form of blessings. It may be in the form of calamities. How do we cope with them is the REAL TEST. 

The Prophet of Islam has said : "The believer is in such a strange state. When calamity strikes him, he observes patience and gains reward from God. And when prosperity engulfs him, he shows gratitude and gains reward from God. It is indeed wonderful" In modern parlance this could be said as Win-Win situation. 

So we cannot declare anybody as pious or vicious on the basis of prosperity or calamity. A man may live perpetual poverty and misery, yet, he may be the best in the eyes of God. A man may live with all the comforts and good things in life, yet, he may be the worst in the eyes of God. 

We see so many tyrants, mass-murderers and wicked people roaming free. That does not mean that God is pleased with them. Similarly we see so many good, noble and pious people suffering all types of tragedies. That does not mean that God is angry with them.

Let us not make hasty conclusions about others. In our haste we tend to forget ourselves. It may lead us to far greater calamity than the thousands tsunamis put together. 

May God save us from such calamities. Aameen

Nobody could condemn Dubai like that

The only way to make sense of Dubai is to never forget that it isn’t real. It’s a fable, a fairy tale, like The Arabian Nights. More correctly, it’s a cautionary tale. Dubai is the story of the three wishes, where, as every kid knows, with the third wish you demand three more wishes. And as every genie knows, more wishes lead to more greed, more misery, more bad credit, and much, much, much more bad taste. Dubai is Las Vegas without the showgirls, the gambling, or Elvis. Dubai is a financial Disneyland without the fun. It’s a holiday resort with the worst climate in the world. It boils. It’s humid. And the constant wind is full of sand. The first thing you see when you arrive is the airport, with its echoing marble halls. It’s big enough to be the hub of a continent. Dubai suffers from gigantism—a national inferiority complex that has to make everything bigger and biggest. This includes their financial crisis.

Outside, in the sodden heat, you pass hundreds and hundreds of regimented palm trees and you wonder who waters them and what with. The skyline, in the dusty haze, looks like the cover of a dystopian science-fiction novella. Clusters of skyscrapers lurch out at the gray desert accompanied by their moribund cranes, propped up with scaffolding, swagged in plastic sheeting. Dubai thought it was going to grow up to be the Arab Singapore—a commercial, banking, and insurance service port on the Gulf with hospitality and footballers’ time-shares, an oasis of R&R for the less well endowed. But it hasn’t quite worked out. The vertical streets of offices are empty. A derelict skyscraper looks exactly the same as one that’s teeming with commerce. They huddle around the current tallest building in the world—a monument to small-nation penis envy. This pylon erected with the Viagra of credit is now a big, naked exclamation of Dubai’s fiscal embarrassment. It was going to be called Burj Dubai, but as Dubai was unable to make their payments, they were forced to go to their Gulf neighbor, head towel in hand, to get a loan. So now it’s called Burj Khalifa, after Abu Dhabi’s ruler, who coughed up $10 billion to its over-extended neighbor.

Dubai has been built very fast. The plan was money. The architect was money. The designer was money and the builder was money. And if you ever wondered what money would look like if it were left to its own devices, it’s Dubai.

Dubai is the parable of what money makes when it has no purpose but its own multiplication and grandeur. When the culture that holds it is too frail to contain it. Dubai is a place that doesn’t just know the price of everything and the value of nothing but makes everything worthless. The answer to everything in Dubai is money. In the darkness of the hot night, the motorways roar with Ferraris and Porsches and Lamborghinis; the fat boys are befuddled and stupefied by sports cars they race around on nowhere roads, going nowhere. Taxi drivers of their ambitionless, all-consuming entitlement. Shortchanged by being given everything. Cursed with money.

A A Gill in Vanity Fair. More Here.

I am a Muslim and I am not a terrorist

The case against me is nothing but a warning to the entire media, not to attempt to challenge the state. If you dare to do it, they will use draconian laws against you. If you belong to the minority community, they will also profile you. It is very difficult to prove that you are not a terrorist. It is equally difficult to prove that you are not a Maoist in our life and times.

In this era of paid news, I believe, it is important to speak for those who live on the margins, who are not able to pay.

I have always tried to give visibility to those who are invisible. This award espouses my efforts and gives me support and assurance in my way ahead.

K K Shahina in The Hoot. More Here. and Here and Here 

and the award winning report Here

The Media Foundation has chosen Shahina KK  as the winner of the Chameli Devi Award for an outstanding woman journalist. In her acceptance speech she spoke of her attempt to establish that the police conspired to forge a case against Abdul Naser Madani after the Bangalore blasts. ``I have always tried to espouse the cause of those who live on the margin and who cannot have their say,’’ she said.

She was awarded for work done while with Tehelka. She is now with Open magazine.