My Blogs : Nuclear Issues ; Radiation Protection Issues ; My Voice

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Friday, July 18, 2008

Dirty politics - India

The political parties in India are engaged in hand-to-hand combat and using all unethical means to garner the support of MPs for the crucial trust vote in New Delhi. Betting community is busy. MPs are offered bribes in tens of crore rupees, offered ministerial posts, and anything they ask for! Six MP convicts who were jailed for serious charges are also being wooed by political parties! For a BJP MP who is bedridden and in pain, a special plane is sent to bring him to Delhi for the trust vote. Splinter political groups are demanding plum posts, positions and favours to their own people in the government departments. One party is demanding removal of Union Finance Minister, Minister for Petroleum and recall of some IFS officers, to vote for the existing government. Mayawati (UP Chief Minister) is offered nothing less than the Prime Ministerial post! Mayawati is the one who gave religious color to the nuclear deal! Suddenly she said the deal is "anti-muslim". Muslims were surprised as to why the deal is anti-muslim.

Indo-US Nuclear deal is forgotten for a while. Rightly, Left parties are being held responsible for the political mess India is in today.

Under such pathetic situations, whether it is really worth supporting any government at the centre? What sort of governance one can expect from such a bunch of people – called Members of Parliament?

Thursday, July 17, 2008

India’s Energy Security

According to the India government’s spokesman, 24 of the 35 nuclear power plants under construction in the world are in Asia. India has 6 nuclear plants under construction. Right now, India gets less than 3% of its electricity from nuclear. It is stressed that the Indo-US civil nuclear deal is necessary for guaranteeing India’s energy security. But, how?

As per the latest projections up to 2030 given in International Energy Outlook published by Energy Information Agency (EIA) of US Department of Energy, Nuclear power will contribute barely 5% of India’s total installed capacity of 398,000MW in 2030

The Indo-US civil nuclear cooperation and opening of the atomic energy to the private sector is going to change this scenario a bit. The estimate of 20,000 MW nuclear by 2017 would still constitute only 6.7% of the country’s total installed capacity. The EIS projections suggest that coal still remains the primary fuel for power accounting for over 43% in 2030. Fastest growth is projected for gas-based plants, providing one-third of the total capacity. The demand for the gas is estimated to be 114 billion cubic meter, of which sizable quantity of the natural gas would need to be imported. May be from Iran? India government should ensure that the nuclear deal with America should not affect the India-Iran relationship.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Un-authorized colleges?

The All India Council of Technical Education recently published list 32 institutions in the Mumbai city that run unauthorized courses on it’s website (www.dte.org.in) as a warning to discontinue the courses or face action! This information was given in response to a Public Interest Litigation filed in 2005. These institutes are duping gullible students, offering them seats for a large amount of money.

Can somebody say what happens now to the students who unknowingly paid large amount of money and joined these institutes? will the degree awarded by these institutions be recognized? There are some names of so-called reputed institutes in the list. Who is regulating these educational institutes or coaching classes which are so expensive? Can the Education Ministry come forward and give convincing replies to these questions?

Monday, July 7, 2008

Hungry millions to feed

There will be millions of hungry people around the world during the very near-foreseeable future. Reasons quoted are: the surging demand for quality food from the millions of prosperous, “bulging” middle class in India and China; increasing food prices and non-affordability of poor to buy the food items; discontinued export of food grains from these countries; us of farmlands for growing raw materials for bio-fuels in western and European countries; drop in food crop yields due to global warming and loss/wastage of food grains due to climate change disasters all over the world.

The immediate measures by governmental and other responsible agencies are required to boost food security particularly in poor nations. The agriculture sector should be bolstered with government and public investment to increase production of food crops, bio-fuel production should not be permitted in farm lands and finally, the public distribution system should be cleansed of corruption and upgraded so that the poor section of population is able to get the full benefit of the government subsidy.