India Steps Up Efforts To Build Border Infrastructure

Ministerial group headed by finance minister on developing North-East is expected to meet soon

By Utpal Bhaskar

New Delhi, Aug 28 : Prodded into action by recent Chinese incursions into the North-East, New Delhi is stepping up efforts to develop infrastructure in a region it has traditionally ignored—and about time too, said a strategic analyst.

The committee of secretaries (CoS), which until six months ago had not met since November 2011, has met twice since. And in July, the government created a ministerial group headed by finance minister P. Chidambaram on developing the North-East. It, too, is expected to meet soon.

India and China faced off for 21 days in April over an incursion by Chinese troops into Indian territory. The two countries are yet to resolve a long-standing border dispute.

“After a long hiatus, there has been a spate of meetings of the CoS and issues are being taken,” said a government official requesting anonymity. The secretaries in CoS include those from the departments of telecom, railways, defence, home, power, water resources, finance and the Planning Commission.
Another government official familiar with the plans to expedite the creation of critical infrastructure in the region said, “While the CoS didn’t meet in the last two years since November 2011, it met on 26 February 2013 and 26 July 2013. This shows our sense of urgency given our concerns with our neighbour.”

Former naval officer C. Uday Bhaskar, a fellow at New Delhi-based Society for Policy Studies, responded: “We have seen this pattern of episodic interest, whenever there have been exigencies. The ability of the collective Indian state to act in a sustained and collective manner is dwindling. The system has become an octopus with its many tentacles.”

Some of the important projects planned for the region include the 670km East-West corridor, connecting state capitals with a broad gauge railway network, developing air transportation infrastructure such as a greenfield airport in Itanagar, and inland waterway development.
The development of infrastructure in the North-East is also key to the nation’s so-called Look East policy—a focus on South-East Asia.

“If India has to integrate with the Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a 10-nation grouping), it is critical to develop infrastructure in the North-East. An effective Look East policy can only work in the backdrop of effective connectivity,” Bhaskar said.

Increasing connectivity in the region and linking it with Myanmar will help India access South-East Asian markets.

China claims 90,000 sq. km of Indian territory in Arunachal Pradesh and occupies around 38,000 sq. km in Jammu and Kashmir that India claims. And under a China-Pakistan boundary agreement signed in March 1963, Pakistan illegally ceded 5,180 sq. km of Indian territory in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to China.

India and China have also sparred over hydropower projects in Arunachal Pradesh, the state that borders China and has the highest potential for hydropower generation in India. With China planning to divert water from rivers that flow into the Brahmaputra to the arid zones of Xinjiang and Gansu, India is worried about the slow pace of work on hydropower projects awarded in Arunachal Pradesh.

Any delay in executing hydropower projects in the region, particularly on rivers originating in China, will affect India’s strategy of establishing prior-use claim. Under international law, a country’s right over natural resources it shares with other nations becomes stronger if it is already putting them to use.

The ministries of water resources and power have already expressed their reservations over Beijing’s ambitious water diversion scheme, into which it is pouring $62 billion (around Rs.4 trillion today). China is building a number of projects on rivers upstream of the Brahmaputra.

New Delhi has decided to fast-track environmental clearances for hydropower projects in Arunachal Pradesh. But projects totalling 13,522 megawatts (MW) in this strategically important state are awaiting environmental clearance, even though they have been given the go-ahead by the Central Electricity Authority, the country’s apex power sector planning body.

The forest advisory committee has rejected forest land diversion plans for the 3,000MW Dibang multi-purpose project in Arunachal Pradesh and forest clearance to the 1,500MW Tipaimukh hydroelectric project in Manipur.

Arunachal To Host Bird Festival

By Pullock Dutta

A bird at Eaglenest wildlife sanctuary.

Jorhat, Aug 29 : Arunachal Pradesh will host its first bird festival in the first week of February next year at Eaglenest wildlife sanctuary in West Kameng district.

The sanctuary, whose lowest point is 500 metres and the highest over 3,500 meters, has a mind-boggling variety of birds and the festival aims to showcase this diversity.

It is at Eaglenest, in the Eastern Himalayas, that a new species of bird, Bugun Liocichla, was discovered in 2006. Only seven pairs of the species were found in the sanctuary. Bugun Liocichla is a close relative of another rare Liocichla species, found only in a few mountains of central China. Liocichla are members of the bird family, babblers.

A bird race for birdwatchers will also be held during the festival. Prizes will be awarded to those with the highest tally of birds and the most special birds sighted.

“We are expecting a large number of tourists, including foreigners, during the festival,” divisional forest officer, Shergaon forest division, Rupa, Millo Tasser, told The Telegraph today.

Eaglenest, which covers an area of 217 square km, derives its name from the Red Eagle Division of the army, which was posted in the area in the 1950s. The sanctuary is home to at least 450 species of birds including babblers, herons, black storks, ducks, hawks, eagles, kites, vultures, falcons, pheasants, jungle fowl, quails, woodpeckers, warblers and cormorants.

The sanctuary has the distinction of having three tragopan species. It is also home to at least 165 species of butterflies and 15 species of mammals, including the endangered red panda, Royal Bengal tiger, Asiatic black bear and capped langur.

Tasser said the main aim of the festival was to raise awareness about Eaglenest.

“Although a large number of tourists visit Eaglenest every year, the sanctuary has not yet received the required attention. We hope the festival will help showcase its diversity of birds at the international forum,” Tasser said.

The festival will be held jointly by the tourism and the forest department, with co-operation from Bugun Welfare Society, an NGO involved in eco-tourism at Eaglenest.

Its members are from the Bugun community, who live on the fringes of the sanctuary.

Indi Glow, chairman of the society said a photography competition with entries of bird pictures taken at Eaglenest and painting and essay competitions among school children have also been planned during the festival.

“We are expecting the bird festival to become an annual feature in Eaglenest’s calendar,” Glow said.

Rural Entrepreneurship For Northeast India

By Shreya Dalela

North East India, the seven sisters, the sunrise states have since a long time been unable to keep pace with development happening in rest of the country. Somehow, even with the government allocating huge amounts of funds every year for its development in infrastructure and other facilities necessary for its progress, the benefits have been minimal. The insurgency and distrust between communities has been a big reason for this. After looking at all the problems that currently plague North East India, one may get a hopeless picture about it which is not the actual scenario.

North East India is endowed with vast number of resources which if put into use judiciously by encouraging micro level rural entrepreneurship and integrating it with local as well as international market can provide employment to all and also guarantee better living conditions. In spite of better literacy rate than rest of the country, the unemployment is high. If the skilled manpower is organized into rural enterprises, the true scope of North East can be realized. Only better living conditions and proper education can help communities leave behind their old notions and embrace development. There is a need for proper education and awareness about the opportunities that surround them among the local people and motivated youth can help solve this problem by being the facilitators of knowledge.

There is no dearth of opportunities when it comes to setting up rural enterprise in North-East. There are huge species of ornamental fishes and scope for expansion of floriculture, rubber plantations, mushroom cultivation and handloom industries. Not only that, North-East India has a huge capacity of hydro-electricity projects which if tapped, can be used to satisfy one third of India's power requirement. The vast amount of coal, petroleum and natural gas reserves also exist in the region. Almost all states share border with other countries providing scope for trade through land.

The communities need to be taught about organizing themselves into an enterprise, about the latest technical knowledge and skills needed for that particular industry, provided with regular and monitored funding and then linked to the local and international market. Government has taken up numerous initiatives to encourage rural entrepreneurship but the progress has been slow due to many factors and one of them being lack of proper guidance and support. Insurgency and infrastructural problems have also added to the problem. There's a need for a proper sustainable model that can solve some of the existing problems and promise development for all. This model is what the participating team of NIT Silchar for Manthan 2013 is working for.

"After spending around four years in North-East, I feel connected to this place and would feel extremely good if I can help in solving some of its problems. It's a wonderful place with limitless scope of growth and educated people. We just need a working model in place that uses the strengths of this place to overcome the limitations and result in overall development and that's what our team is working on", said Nitish Rajpurohit, one of the team members.

Decline in Citrus Orchards in Northeast India

Nagpur, Aug 29 : Despite a sharp rise in area and production of citrus in northeastern hill (NEH) region in seven years (2005-12), there has been huge decline in citrus orchards in this region due to climate change and weather vagaries. The NEH region includes Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura.

The area under various citrus crops has increased from 71.8 thousand hectares (TH) in 2005-06 to 139.86 TH and the average production in region in the same period increased from 289.1 thousand tons (TT) to 737.08 TT. Yet there has been little increase in productivity during these years as the productivity increased from 4 tons per hectare (t/h) to 5.27t/h.

"Northeast is the primary source of citrus biodiversity in the country. Yet due to climate change the productivity levels are the country's lowest here. Climate change and natures vagaries have led to a severe decline in citrus orchards in region. There is a strong need to conserve all the 23 species of region," said SV Ngachan, scientist, NEH Indian Council of Agricultural Research at Umiam in Meghalaya.

He was in the city recently for the National Citrus Meet hosted by the National Research Centre for Citrus. Ngachan said that research was needed especially to protect and improve the Khasi mandarin of the region.

Talking about constraints and strategies, Ngachan pointed out that acidic soil, high humidity, and climate change are environmental constraints. But non-availability of quality planting material, farmer's mindset which does not allow them to use pesticides and adopting modern technology has added to the decline in productivity.

Production of elite disease-free planting material, development of new citrus-based integrated farming systems, sequential replanting of senile orchards through participatory approach and rejuvenation of dying orchards could prove to be good for the region.

In addition, Ngachan said that setting up processing units with pre-planned marketing strategies and proper extension can reverse the scene.

A Photographer's Take On Miley Cyrus

The marketing of Miley

By Lucas Jackson

Does anyone remember what happened during the MTV Video Music Awards in 2012? How about 2011? I would wager that the last thing you remember from any MTV video related anything would be when Kanye West walked up and snagged the microphone away from poor Taylor Swift in 2009.

Guess what, someone was counting on that this year. I haven’t a clue who, it might be MTV or Robin Thicke or most likely Miley Cyrus but someone was counting on creating one of these exciting “moments” for people to talk about the next day and boy did they hit the ball out of the park. I cover a fair amount of live music. I am not a concert photographer and I don’t go to every music festival but I cover enough to know when I see a performer putting on a good show. Lady Gaga almost always does it, she has the theatrics down.

A lot of groups who use large stage set-ups know that the show itself can be as important as the music but it would appear that the world is yet to catch up to the genius that is Miley Cyrus.

Sure it was risque but take a look at Robin Thicke’s original video from the song, Miley Cyrus’ video for her song, and finally Robin Thicke’s video for his new song that was just published and ask yourself if all of this isn’t just clever marketing?

I was in the room with my long lens waiting for something to happen and although Gaga’s performance was artistic and interesting due to the deeper meaning (starting with a blank canvas and moving through several iterations until she was standing before the audience in shells) it was not something that made for a ‘signature’ moment.

Miley provided that. As soon as I saw it I shipped the disk containing the image back to my editors in order to get that out because it was a signature moment designed to titillate and cause buzz. It was obvious, and it worked.

The VMAs are awards for the music videos that the network doesn’t even play anymore so they have to make them interesting and the mission was accomplished. I was glad that it happened early in the show so that the pictures could make it to print. There is a certain glee in knowing that you have clear and sharp photographs of the evening’s signature moment but to think that it was any more than a marketing ploy for all involved is playing right into the evil genius of the whole thing.

How Gin And Tonic Saved The British Empire

By Kal Raustiala

This stuff really is medicine.
Photo by Brian Jones/iStockphoto/Thinkstock

The gin and tonic is having a moment. From Spain—where gin and tonics are practically the national drink—to our summer shores, the venerable G-and-T is everywhere. House-made tonic is on the menu in restaurants from coast to coast, and in many fine bars gin and tonics come in dozens of varieties, with special tonics and fruit garnishes matched to distinctive artisanal gins.

Of course, a lot of classic cocktails are enjoying a resurgence—part Mad Men, part the boom in distinctive small-batch spirits, and part the waning fad of faux speakeasies with handcrafted bitters and bartenders in arm garters chipping away at blocks of ice.

But the gin and tonic is different. For one, it requires no unusual ingredients, and it’s very simple to make. More interestingly, the gin and tonic has a storied history that places it at the heart of the largest empire the world has ever known. Indeed, it is not too much of a stretch to say that the gin and tonic was as essential a weapon for the British Empire as the Gatling gun. No less an authority on imperial power than Winston Churchill once declared, “The gin and tonic has saved more Englishmen’s lives, and minds, than all the doctors in the Empire.”

What was the source of the gin and tonic’s great power? As is sometimes said of tequila, the gin and tonic is not just a drink; it’s a drug.

The story begins with the jewel of the British Empire: India. British India comprised both more and less than modern-day India. More, in that it included large parts of what are today Pakistan and Bangladesh. Less, in that much of India under the British Raj was quasi-independent, in so-called princely states that were nominally sovereign but largely under England’s thumb. India was so important to the empire that in 1876 Queen Victoria added the moniker “Empress of India” to her title. Her successors continued that practice right up till 1948, under George VI (he of The King’s Speech fame).

Controlling India, in short, was central to the British Empire and to Britain’s sense of itself as the world’s leading power. What allowed Britain, a small island far off in the northern reaches of Europe, to rule over the vast semi-continent of India for so long is a subject of some debate. But in Jared Diamond’s famous words, Europe’s military superiority was built on a mix of “guns, germs, and steel.”

Guns and steel clearly favored powers like Britain. These innovations allowed Britain (and other European countries) to deploy weapons such as machine guns at a time when many societies around the world still used swords and spears. But germs were more equivocal. Malaria in particular was a virulent killer of colonized and colonizer alike. While malaria has a long history in Europe, it began to be eradicated in the 19^th century, and even earlier it was never as deadly as it was in tropical locations. So as Europeans established colonies in the tropics, they faced a serious and often mortal threat from the mosquito-borne disease. Soldiers and civilian officials alike succumbed to it.

In the 17^th century, the Spanish had discovered that indigenous peoples in what is now Peru used a kind of bark to address various “fevers.” Stripped from the cinchona tree, the bark seemed to work well for malaria. The “Jesuit’s bark,” as it was known, quickly became a favored treatment for malaria in Europe. (Before the discovery of the cinchona tree, European malaria remedies included throwing the patient head-first into a bush in the hope he would get out quickly enough to leave his fever behind.)

Eventually it became clear that cinchona bark could be used not only to treat malaria, but also to prevent it. The bark—and its active ingredient, quinine powder—was a powerful medicine. But it was also a powerful new weapon in the European quest to conquer and rule distant lands.

Quinine powder quickly became critical to the health of the empire. By the 1840s British citizens and soldiers in India were using 700 tons of cinchona bark annually for their protective doses of quinine. Quinine powder kept the troops alive, allowed officials to survive in low-lying and wet regions of India, and ultimately permitted a stable (though surprisingly small) British population to prosper in Britain’s tropical colonies. Quinine was so bitter, though, that British officials stationed in India and other tropical posts took to mixing the powder with soda and sugar. “Tonic water,” of a sort, was born.

Still, tonic water was basically a home brew until an enterprising Brit named Erasmus Bond introduced the first commercial tonic water in 1858—perhaps not coincidentally, the very same year the British government ousted the East India Co. and took over direct control of India, following the so-called Sepoy Mutiny, a violent rebellion and counterattack.

Bond’s new tonic was soon followed by Schweppes’ introduction, in 1870, of “Indian Quinine Tonic,” a product specifically aimed at the growing market of overseas British who, every day, had to take a preventative dose of quinine. Schweppes and other commercial tonics proliferated both in the colonies and, eventually, back in Britain itself.

Gin, which in earlier days had been associated with vice and social decay among the lower classes in Britain—take a look at William Hogarth’s famous print Gin Lane for a taste—was by the 19^th century making its long march toward respectability. It was only natural that at some point during this time an enterprising colonial official combined his (or her) daily dose of protective quinine tonic with a shot (or two) of gin. Rather than knock back a bitter glass of tonic in the morning, why not enjoy it in the afternoon with a healthy gin ration?

The gin and tonic was born—and the cool, crisp concoction could, as Churchill observed, start saving all those English lives.

And American lives. Quinine proved as critical to the battle over the Pacific in the second world war as it had to the struggle over India. As Amy Stewart notes in her new book, The Drunken Botanist, Japan seized Java, the home of huge cinchona plantations, from the Dutch in 1942, cutting off nearly all of the Allied supply of quinine. The last American plane to fly out of the Philippines before it fell to the Japanese carried some 4 million quinine seeds. Unfortunately, the effort was largely in vain: The trees grew too slowly to provide sufficient quinine to the Allied war effort.

The gin and tonic, of course, was not enough to keep the British Empire alive either. Churchill, and many other British leaders, fervently believed that imperialism was essential if Britain was to remain a truly great power. But the strength and appeal of independence and self-determination was overwhelming, and India could no longer be held down by a small coterie of foreign officials, even with their quinine-based cocktails. By 1947 India—and Pakistan—were independent nations. Kenya, Jamaica, Malaya, and other tropical colonies soon followed.

Today, “empire” is a dirty word. But the gin and tonic lives on. The drink went from a bitter medicinal tipple in tropical outposts to a mainstay of British clubs and bars by the first world war. In postwar America, the gin and tonic became synonymous with WASP summer retreats and country club lounges. Then, in the ’70s and ’80s, gin was almost forgotten as first classic cocktails went out of fashion and then vodka began to explode in popularity. Now the gin and tonic is back, especially at the very high end, where artisanal gins from Brooklyn, San Francisco, and all parts in between can be mixed with special tonics like Fever-Tree (get it?) or Fentimans.

But the gin and tonic certainly did the British Empire a lot of good. So as you mix your next one, remember the curious history of the drink—or is it a drug?—in your hand.

Naga Villages Pledge To Save Migratory Amur Falcons

People of three villages of Nagaland have made a pledge to protect and conserve the migratory Amur falcons.

Experts say are usually hunted on a large scale by villagers for the birds' meat.

Village Council Members (VCM) of Pangti, Asshaa and Sungro of Wokha district signed an agreement with two NGOs to assist Nagaland forest department to stop the wide-scale hunt of the birds. The Amur falcons came to light last year, a release issued by the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) said in Guwahati on Wednesday, August 28.

Besides the WTI, the other NGO was Wokha-based Natural Nagas, who signed the Memorandum of Understanding earlier this week.

Thousands of these birds were hunted annually for their meat in the district as they crossed the region en route to Africa from Siberia.

Hunters used fishing nets to trap the birds when they come to roost during late evenings or while leaving early in the morning, the release said.

The three villages have pledged to save the migratory raptor in Doyang Reservoir, its largest roosting site in the country, and a resolution was passed by the villages to penalise offenders upto Rs 5000 from this year.

The MoU pledged to generate awareness to engage locals in formulating watch squads to help protect the birds.

It was also agreed to formulate laws and guidelines in accordance with the VCMs to prohibit hunting and poaching of Amur falcons and help mitigate human-wildlife conflicts.

"Following a report on the hunting of Amur Falcons by Conservation India, a Rapid Action Project was initiated by WTI and Natural Nagas to spread awareness on the plight of the species among the local communities," said Natural Nagas spokesperson Steve Odyuo.

Rupee Sinks to 68 Against Dollar

The partially convertible rupee was trading at a record low of 67.40/45 per dollar.

Mumbai, Aug 28 : Continuing its free-fall, the rupee on Wednesday breached the 68-mark against the dollar on strong demand for the US currency amid rising concerns over fiscal burden after the passage of the food bill.

The rupee also dragged the BSE sensex down by over 400 points in early trade, following persistent selling by funds.

The sensex was trading at 17,539.28 points at 10.25am.

Stocks of banking, oil and gas, PSUs, realty, FMCG, auto and capital goods sectors were major losers, dragging down the benchmark sensex.

Brokers said sustained selling by funds and other participants triggered by sliding rupee which breached 68 to a dollar and a weakening trend on the other Asian bourses, tracking overnight losses on the US market as the West stepped up preparations for a military strike on Syria, mainly dampened the trading sentiment here.

The wide-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty was also down almost 100 points.
At the Interbank Foreign Exchange (Forex) market, the local currency opened lower at 67.06 a dollar from its previous close of 66.24 and breached 67-mark to trade at a fresh low of 67.42, down by 118 paise, or almost 1.8 per cent.

It later breached the 68 mark.

Forex dealers said besides strong month-end demand for the American currency from importers, concerns related to subsidy burden after the passage of Food Security Bill and capital outflows mainly weighed on the domestic currency.

Further, rising crude prices in the global market also put pressure on the rupee, they said.

The rupee had recorded a steep fall of 194 paise, or 3.02 per cent to close at record low of 66.24 against the dollar in the previous session.