The River of Sorrow for Bihar

The forces of nature are insurmountable.Flood, cyclones, earthquakes etc claims hundreds of thousands of lives each year. Its a grim reminder to the human race that nature still has its say in balancing the life and death ratio on this planet.

The recent Bihar floods are a gruesome reminder of the above fact. As mentioned above, these flood could be easily considered to be the wrath of mother nature but there are underlying facts people are still unaware of. It is yet another failure on the already infamous govt of the state of Bihar. With over a hundred lives lost, millions rendered homeless and property damage running into hundreds of crores, these floods could very easily be one of the most devastating floods in the history of India. According to a popular news channel, the figures stand at 695 fatalities, over 20 million (2 crore) people spread over 9,336 villages in 20 districts affected.

The Kosi river, the overflowing of which caused these floods , originates in the Himalayas and is a part of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Meghna riverine system, which carries within its fold a population of 1.3 billion people spread across five countries. Given the crystalline nature of the rock and its young morphology, it carries in its path large quantities of silt and other matter which are not alluvial and of infertile nature. This silt is deposited in the plains of Bihar. The trouble is further compounded by the steep gradient from which the river emerges and enters the Bihar plains. Its large deposits of silt and gradient force the river to meander along unpredictable paths thus earning for itself the name of 'river of sorrow'. The first credible attempt to tame the river began in 1956 after the massive floods of 1954 with an eastern and a western embankment of 105 and 106 km respectively of which about 32 km of the eastern embankment is in Nepal. These embankments were completed in 1959. The barrage at Birpur to regulate water flow was finished in 1964.

The barrage which was supposed to be repaired from time to time by the state government has not been repaired for the past 15 years. The same wasn’t reported by the Bihar govt to the concerned autorities.Had it not been for the weak barrage, this colossal damage to life and property could have easily been averted.Despite the budget allocation for this project being in excess of the required amount,the required safety measure weren’t taken. Even the allocation for the Flood relief wasn’t properly utilized.

The government needs to make miraculous efforts for bringing things under control in Bihar or any state for that matter. All the departments right from the meteorological dept to the disaster management departments need to be on alert all the time.Prior warnings of floods, hurricanes or cyclones need to be delivered to the concerned people through the appropriate channels. This time its a flood , the next time could be any other disaster which would lead to another holocaust.

It is time that the Govt bodies realize that forces of nature are unbeatable and have ways in place to at least avert those calamities that can be seen away without a life being lost.

Terrorism - India's Unending war

The recent Ahemdabad and the Bangalore blasts are gruesome reminders of the nearly "eternal" problem of terrorism that continues to haunt India. Time and again the terrorist outfit groups have either sneaked into our country from the neighbouring countries or have operated within our country to conduct such attacks. Various attacks, the major ones being the attack on Parliament, the attack on Mumbai local trains, the '93 Mumbai blasts etc. are the ones that have taken away innumerable lives and left India in a state of dismay. The entire world condemned the blast. All promised to get together and fight terrorism but looks like those efforts were just made on paper. To date, at least 607 people have been killed in terror strikes in India since 2001.

Hailing from a relatively small city like Jodhpur, I had this feeling of security that cities like Jodhpur, Jaipur, Ajmer etc were the least likely targets of terrorist activities. But the Jaipur and Ajmer blasts were real wake-up calls. It made me realize that nothing really escapes the wrath of these terrorists or extremists as they are called. Other than the recent blasts, various attempts including bombing a flyover in Chennai, 21 unexploded bombs in Surat, a couple of unexploded bombs in Bangalore etc. are also efforts of the terrorist outfit to further the chaos and tensions in the country.

In such situations, its like a habit for us to start cursing our Intelligence agencies for loopholes and security breeches that happen. The ripple effect of such attacks usually includes firing of some top Intelligence officials, a few suspension orders and inquiries into who was the culprit from the intelligence departments whose lapse led to the blasts. What we do not realize is that there are things which are beyond our control. Though very hard to face, but with whatever little resources and support our intelligence agencies have , they have achieved quite a feat till now thwarting many other attacks which could otherwise have been deadly and would have led to the loss of a countless no. of lives.

Even the so called "Best" in the game, the hugely popular FBI and the CIA in the US and the Scotland Yard in UK have failed in attempts to counter these forces. The biggest terror attack on the WTC i.e. the 9/11 attacks, in the heart of New York, 4-5 planes being high-jacked at once indicate that the Global power is after all just another country with failed intelligence. Even the Scotland Yard in UK has failed to trace the terrorists behind the dastardly act of bombing of the London Tube.

The problem is that the sophisticated effort and planning that goes into these attacks is very difficult to beat. For Example, the terrorists on the planes that collided with the WTC were trained in US Flight schools itself. These terrorist groups notice the security setup for quite sometime and accordingly form their Modus Operandi. We might be really enticed into thinking right now that why were there loopholes in security which allowed the terrorists to make their strategies .But then we have to think practically.It is very difficult to maintain tight vigilance and security all the time at all places. Even the common people, that includes me and you, start complaining for a large no. of security checks at airports, metro and railway stations. It is non practical to put all your security forces for one purpose ignoring the rest of the internal security issues.

Concluding this, I would maintain a neutral stance towards our security agencies. Yes, there needs to be a change in the approach to counter terrorism. There are things which require the attention of the Defense department. At the same time lets not take away from them the credit for foiling various attacks and incidents which could have taken away one our own. Let’s not play blame games and let them dig into the issues without feeling that they lack support and trust of their own people which would eventually affect the way they work.

India and the Digital Divide

Amidst all the hue and cry over slowing down of the global economy and all the hullaboo over the crashing stock markets, the tumbling share prices, the hugely talked about sub prime crisis, we forget that section of the society that is least affected with the all these changes in the global markets. This section of people in our society which we refer to as BPL or below poverty line are the people to which these huge and complex terms mean nothing more than a few letters put together with no meaning whatsoever. The governments have come and gone with their promises of making poverty free India a reality but they have failed to do so in pursuit achieving their petty desires and rather left India in a state of corruption.

Even after more than 50 years of Independence India still has the world's largest number of poor people in a single country .Of its nearly 1 billion inhabitants, an estimated 260.3 million are below the poverty line, of which 193.2 million are in the rural areas and 67.1 million are in urban areas. More than 75% of poor people reside in villages. Poverty level is not uniform across India. The poverty level is below 10% in states like Delhi, Goa, and Punjab etc whereas it is below 50% in Bihar (43) and Orissa (47). It is between 30-40% in Northeastern states of Assam, Tripura, and Mehgalaya and in states of Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.

One issues that has raised serious concerns is the digital divide that is further increasing the gap between the have and the have not’s. Possibly the only visible demerit of the technological advancement i.e. the digital divide is spreading its roots deep into our economy.

The extent to which the current Telecom companies have penetrated into our rural areas by providing cheap handsets and connectivity is commendable but still we're still very far from the dream of achieving even 50 percent of what connectivity exists in the developed world. Our Tele-density i.e. no. of people connected via a telephone or cellphone stands at 20.52 per hundred people as compared to the 70-80 in the developed world. An observation that has been made is that for every 1 percent increase in Tele-density, the GDP growth rate goes up 0.6 percent. So we can safely conclude that how important is Tele-density for the growth and prosperity of our nation and hence for the people living below the poverty line.

Another important issue is the access to the most humongous source of information that mankind has seen i.e. the Internet. India has close to 60,000,000 internet users today. The number may appear huge but the catch is that its just 5.2 percent of the total Indian population. This figure stands as high as 84% in the developed world. International Data

Corporation estimates that approximately 160 exabytes (160 followed by 18 zeros!!!) of digital information was created, captured, and replicated worldwide in 2006.But if it doesnt reach the person who can use it to climb up a few rungs closer to success and to a life without poverty, then there exists no meaning for that information.

These figures point at the massive gap which looks almost insurmountable. Only the people with basic necessities in place have the time and resources to buy a computer to access internet or visit a cybercafe for that matter. For people struggling to get just two meals a day, it’s just another word. So we can infer that this digital gap is actually making the rich richer and the poor poorer.

The only way we can try to bridge this gap is to see that the knowledge and the technology trickles down to those who need it the most. It is ours as well as the Government's responsibility to see that the technological evolution of the country can be used for the benefit of people who want to learn but are denied the opportunity because of their current abysmal status. The government needs to focus on providing computer literacy across the country to each child so that after an initial exposure he/she can build up on what he has already learnt and craft a good future for himself.

Bill gates once said "If you are born poor, it’s not your fault. But if you die poor, then you yourself are to blame". I wish for a future where the same would be true in the Indian context.