RULES OF THE GAME

    I have for some time been convinced that Moses( of Old Testament fame) was THE original bureaucrat. The anecdotal evidence is pretty convincing. He offered to his peoples the Promised Land-and then made them wander around in the desert for forty years. If this is not classic bureaucratic strategem, then what is? There's more. He was adept at beating around the bush( till one of them caught fire and he called it an act of God!). He was wont to deliver sermons from raised areas which no one understood. And here's the clinching one--he framed the first set of Conduct Rules, which subsequently came to be known as the Ten Commandments. And a fine set of rules they are too, except perhaps for that one about not coveting thy neighbour's wife which contradicts a subsequent sub-rule which exhorts one to love thy neighbour, and we all know that the later rule supersedes the earlier one. There's also a slight problem with the one that says thou shalt not kill, considering that Mr. Netanyahu is doing precisely that at almost the exact spot near Mount Sinaii where Moses announced his Conduct Rules. But we can hardly blame the Old Bureaucrat with events occurring after his retirement, can we?

    The same exoneration cannot, however, be allowed to his successors-no, not the state of Israel, but the IAS. Now, an IAS officer is at his best when he is drafting all manner of rules-if they are incomprehensible he is happy, and if they are unimplementable then he is overjoyed to an almost orgasmic level. Id like to share a few I've had the good fortune to encounter during my career.

    Have you wondered why govt. servants, especially the more senior ones, are so short sighted? Its the rules, stupid! In the early eighties I was posted as a Joint Secretary in the Finance department at Shimla. Part of my duties involved approving claims for medical reimbursement. In those days contact lenses were deemed to be a cosmetic procedure and not a medical one: their expenses were not reimburseable, not even if your retinas were shredded to pieces! One day I received a claim from a High Court judge who had had contact lenses fixed, the better to see his litigants in the manner of the wolf in the fable about Red Riding Hood, perhaps. I promptly rejected the claim and took the file to the Finance Secretary. The FS looked at me with a cunning grin and said: " Approve it!".  I was aghast, just as Moses must have been when he saw the Israelites worshipping the golden calf. " But the rules, sir..." I blurted. And then the FS explained.

    " Avay," he told me patiently, " you must understand the rules which govern rules. The most important rule in government is the rule of precedents. A precedent, once set, is sacrosanct, notwithstanding all other rules. Once you allow something for one person you cannot deny it to others. So let this judge have his bloody contact lenses-after all, how can a lowly FS refuse a mighty High Court judge? And hereinafter all of us can also have contact lenses!" And that's how contact lenses are now reimburseable. We now have more IAS officers adorned with the lenses than starlets in Bollywood.

     Rule number two. In 2007, after years of subsisting on bread and water I finally built myself a cottage in Mashobra, intending to spend my dotage talking to the birds and bees, refreshing my knowledge of their activities. I applied for a gas connection from the HP Civil Supplies Corporation for the new house. It was refused on the grounds that two connections could not be given in the same name, and since I already had one in my (official) house in Shimla the rules did not permit one for Mashobra. Since the MD of the Corporation was my neighbour I pestered him till he came up with a solution: he informed me that he had checked his rules again and would be able to sanction a second connection if my wife gave an affidavit stating that she intended to divorce me and was living separately from me in Mashobra! The connection would obviously me in my wife's name. I was completely stumped. Firstly, we in the government cannot go around swearing affidavits with the same gay abandon that our MPs and MLAs do at election time. Secondly, I had no intention of separating from my wife, having hung on to her for dear life for thirty years. Thirdly, once she started living separately who knew what might happen? I'm told on good authority by IAS officers who go on central deputation leaving their wives behind that the latter very soon start enjoying their separate life and encourage them to stay on in Delhi till retirement! Since they have all the perks of being an IAS officer's wife, they don't really need the officer himself given his penchant for sleeping with files instead of them. Fourthly, Mashobra has a lot of retired defence services officers who spend all their time looking for lost golf balls and single women. No indeed, this was not a good idea at all, I told my wife. She asked for two days to consider the suggestion! Finally, of course, she agreed with me. She confided in me later that she was tempted by the idea but decided against it because then who'd make the bed tea in the morning, or take the dog for a walk?! So finally we didn't use that particular rule after all: instead I went and bought a cylinder and regulator on the black market in Lower Bazaar next day.

    I am convinced that most IAS officers have very high levels of schadenfreude, not just testosterone, and love nothing better than to see the proletariat squirm; nothing else can explain this last rule I'm about to share with you. One of the consequences of having a large government is that you also have a large number of pensioners who refuse to kick the bucket.( Why should they when they get almost as much as pension as they received as salaries; moreover, for govt. pensioners( as opposed to those from the private sector) the lack of any work after retirement is not traumatic at all since they never did any work when in service in the first place). Pension rules stipulate that every July a pensioner is required to submit a "life certificate" attesting to the fact that he is still alive( being brain dead is no disqualification for a govt. pensioner, on the assumption that most of them were in this condition in any case while in service). This life certificate can be attested by any gazetted officer or by the Bank manager of the bank where the pensioner has an account. The system worked very well till a few years ago when some bright Finance Secretary in Shimla decided that the attestation would have to be done by a Patwari instead! Bank managers, it was decreed, could not be trusted with a life certificate, though they could with hundreds of crores of our moneys.

    Now, a Patwari in the mountainous regions of Himachal is a mythical figure. Though there are reported to be about 700 of them, they are more difficult to spot than the snow leopard, of whom there are barely a dozen; its easier to track down a man-eater than to locate a Patwari. But rules are rules, and so now the mountain slopes are crawling with pensioners looking for their Patwaris, usually in vain. Some have taken to camping in caves hoping to way lay him one day, others organise havans hoping to be blessed with his presence, still  others seek out astrologers to predict the Patwari's movements. I learn that some pensioners have asked their children in the US to procure some drones which can be used to sight the Patwari from the air and then drop the life certificates for him to sign. But the astute Finance Secretary, I'm told, is a happy man: outgo of pensions has declined sharply, the mortality among pensioners has gone up to satisfying levels what with all the exertion now required of them, and the budget deficit is coming under control. I'm now thinking of starting a joint venture with my Patwari- for a fee( to be shared with the Patwari, naturally) - for providing this service to other pensioners. It will essentially be an out-sourcing service and should fit in very well with NDA-II's economic policies. And all pensioners shall live( or die, which is more likely) happily ever after, proving the wisdom of  William Ellery Channing who said: " The office of government is not to confer happiness but to give men opportunity to work out happiness for themselves."

THE NAZIS ARE IN GAZA

    It is a cruel irony of history that the Jewish government in Israel is doing to the Muslim residents of Gaza exactly what the Nazis did to them 70 years ago. In his epic of civil resistance against a barbarous oppressor, MILA-18, Leon Uris exhaustively documents how the Jews of Warsaw were herded into a ghetto by the Nazis, denied the basics of human existence, treated and exterminated like rats: more than 50% of the original residents of MILA-18( the name the Germans gave to this tiny ghetto) had died by the end of the siege. But the Jews rose against the Germans in an uprising of such heroic proportions that reading the book even today makes one's spine tingle. And they triumphed!

   Is anyone in Israel, or their sympathizers in America and the western world, reading this book today? Do they have a feeling of deja vu? They should, because history is repeating itself, not as farce but as another tragedy. Has the time come for Israel to pay back in blood and maimed corpses the injustices heaped on the Jews for centuries? Of course, they are products of the Old Testament, but should they take this treatise so literally- " an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth"? Has Mr. Netanyahu learnt nothing from 70 years of blood soaked history and millions of deaths? Or will he, like another Old Testament figure from Gaza, in his suicidal anger, use his undoubted strength to bring down the whole edifice in an act of mutually assured destruction? At least the protagonist from the Bible had an excuse: he was blind. Mr. Netanyahu is not-but he still cannot see.

   Let us cut through Israel's pathetic smoke screen: this is not a war it is "fighting" in Gaza. A war is between two reasonably matched opponents: what we have here is the world's fifth mightiest  army shelling and bombarding from sea, air and land 3 million civilian residents imprisoned in a 250 sq.km. area from which they are not even allowed to escape. This is pure and simple genocide, the massacre of a peoples based on their religious identity. The Israelis have butchered 1875 Palestinians so far, of whom 974% are civilians according to impartial observers; 400 hundred are children. Kill the mites so there will be fewer lice later, as one American had said in the context of their own genocide against the "redskins". 9065 have been injured, a large number of them maimed for life. One thousand of them are children. Israel has not even spared the UN- 11 of their officials have been killed. 450000 people have been displaced-40% of the population of Gaza. 275000 of them have taken shelter in 93 UN schools which are also being regularly bombed and shelled. Every international law, every canon of humanitarian obligation has been violated by Israel. Even the United Nations-its Secretary General, its Deputy Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs, its High Commissioner for Refugees- has condemned Israel, even calling its action a war crime that must have accountability. Israel, however, remains brazenly defiant, saying it is defending itself against Hamas.

    Yes, Israel has every right -even a responsibility to its citizens- to defend itself, against Hamas or any other similar group. But even the limits of defense have to be respected, and the use of force has to be proportionate to the provocation, and carefully targeted. There has to be a distinction between military and civilian targets, between combatant and non combatant. Israel will concede none of this.

   Hamas has no artillery, no tanks, no planes, no warships, no missiles; just some rockets of unproven efficacy and power. Though hundreds of these have been fired into Israel( according to the Israelis) they have so far resulted in only three civilian deaths, of whom one is a foreigner! In retaliation the Israelis have slaughtered almost two thousand Palestinians in three weeks! How can this degree of force be justified? They have bombed and shelled dozens of schools, hospitals and UN shelters, claiming they harboured terrorists. These claims have been denied by the UN and international observers. In fact the UN has stated on record that they have repeatedly given the Israelis the GPS coordinates of all their schools and shelters-and yet they have been repeatedly targetted.

     This raises another pertinent question which is being asked now: even if these places had some terrorists or arms, is it permissible to target them when you know that hundreds of women and children are taking shelter there? Does "collateral damage" have no limits? Should the collateral damage not be proportionate to the potential harm that the terrorist can cause? The casualty figures speak for themselves. Furthermore, which international law gives Israel the right to invade Gaza with its troops, or shell its territory, just because some terrorists are located there? " Hot pursuit" across international borders is not sanctioned by law: if this were permissible, then Cuba would have had the right to fire into the USA in 1961 when the CIA was training and equipping Cuban exiles to invade Cuba to topple its govt. ( that attempt, we all know, ended in the Bay of Pigs fiasco).                                                                                                                                     Then again, Israel has completely obliterated the line between defense and aggression: it has occupied thousands of square kilometers of Palestinian lands, including Gaza, claiming it needs to do so in order to secure its safety!This is the behaviour of a rogue state, rabid in its arrogance, contemptuous of all international norms and opinion. By this logic India should have occupied huge swathes of Pakistan and erstwhile East Pakistan- we have had the opportunity to do so in the past- but as a responsible state we have always observed international covenants and boundaries, no matter what the success of the moment yielded, and have withdrawn to our own borders. By insisting on continuing to occupy Gaza and other Palestinian territory, Mr. Netanyahu is ensuring that there will never be a solution to this dispute.

   He is able to do so only because of the unstinted support he gets from the USA which, having unsettled the whole middle-east with its myopic and avaricious policies, sees Israel as its proxy in the region. If there is one country which could force Israel to rethink its blundering strategies it is the USA. But the latter is a comrade in arms of Israel , an unscrupulous practitioner of the same policies. The USA has always interpreted laws and facts to suit its own interests and has never been guided by what is legal, humanitarian or internationally accepted. It has a long history of doing exactly what Israel is doing today, invading the territories of other sovereign nations and using force to bolster its own interests, not that of the peoples of the country invaded or attacked. It is a long list of infamy and I shall mention just a few: annexation of Hawaii( 1893), occupation of Guam( 1898 and continuing), forcible occupation of the Dominican Republic for eight years(1916-1924), CIA's complete involvement in crushing the people's HUK rebellion( 1948-54) in the Phillipines, overthrow of the democratic govt. in Iran in order to install the Shah as dictator( 1953), the Bay of Pigs operation against Cuba by the CIA( 1961), the CIA organised coup in Iraq in 1963 that killed its President and brought the B'aath party and a man called Saddam Hussain to power, the CIA engineered coup by the Army in Indonesia in 1965 that killed millions, the sustained bombing of civilians in Cambodia between 1969-1975 that led to millions of deaths and the emergence of the brutal Khmer Rouge, the invasion of Panama in 1989, the unending interventions in the middle-east that have left it a volatile cauldron of fundamentalism, terrorism and instability- Lebanon( 1982-84),Libya( 1906),Iran( 1987-88),Iraq( 199-1991), Kuwait( 1991), Afghanistan( 2001 and continuing), Yemen( 2009), Libya( 2011), Syria( 2008).

         Wherever the USA has intervened militarily, rarely has it been in defence of democracy, humanitarian values or for the welfare of the local populations: it has almost always been either to prop up dictators or undemocratic regimes in furtherance of its own strategic interests. And when it has exited it has inevitably left behind a bigger mess than when it entered.

      Therefore, to expect the USA to rein in Israel is an opium dream. In fact, just last week the USA has approved financial assistance of another $225 million for Israel for purchase of mortars, grenades and other weapons! President Obama always votes with his money. And this blatant defiance of world opinion is in the face of the strongest criticism of Israel yet from the UN and the mild mannered Mr. Ban Ki Moon. At the special meeting of the UN General Assembly on 6th August EVERY UN Divisional head was unsparing in his or her condemnation of Israel. Mr. Moon described Israel's behaviour as " outrageous, unacceptable and unjustified", adding that it must be subject to " accountability and justice". The head of UNRA emphasised that the occupation of Palestinian lands by Israel and " the illegal blockade of Gaza must end". The UN's Human Rights chief, Ms. Pillai told the delegates in no uncertain terms that " Israeli actions amount to war crimes" and that " life in Gaza has become unsustainable".

    A 72 hour " humanitarian" cease fire is holding as I write this, and negotiations have begun in Cairo. I see little hope for a lasting peace in the region unless Israel lifts the wholly illegal blockade of Gaza. It has already refused to do so and instead wants the Gaza strip to be " demilitarized" ! In other words it is okay for Israel to arm itself to the teeth but its neighbours cannot be permitted to do so!

   In just three weeks Israel has forever destroyed the international goodwill and respect it had built up over the decades as a resilient disciplined, industrious nation. It is now the face of a reinvented Nazism, an oppressor of the weak and helpless. But if Mr. Netanyahu can spare the time from choosing other helpless targets to bomb he should go back to the Old Testament and read another inspiring story- the one about David and Goliath............

    

THE UPSC DEBATE-- MERITOCRACY HAS NO PLACE FOR A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD

     Mr. Modi had promised us a strong and decisive government and it is heartening to observe that he is living up to the promise. He is redeeming his pledge in a number of areas but in this article one would like to deal with the wholly unnecessary " controversy" about the CSAT paper in the UPSC's exam for the Civil Services. The Govt. has shown a rare resolve( in the face of the usual populist demands in Parliament and agitations on the streets of Delhi) in refusing to either dilute the standard of this paper or to postpone the exam itself. ( This has not yet been officially announced but the statements of both, the Home Minister and the MOS[Personnel], indicate this quite clearly.) 

    Till just the other day it took just a few hundred lumpens on the roads for the govt. to develop policy diarrhoea and succumb to pressures, notwithstanding adverse effects on the public good. The present govt's stand, therefore, must be welcomed by all right thinking persons. Arnab Goswami rarely gets things right but he nailed it the other night when he observed ( actually, Arnab doesn't " observe" he " decrees") that our politicians, having already divided this country on caste and religious lines, are now seeking to create another fault line- that of language.

   The demand to abolish the English language component in the CSAT paper on the ground that it discriminates against non-English knowing students is thoroughly misconceived and is like demanding that maths be removed from the IIT entrance exams and biology from the Medical Entrance Test because it discriminates against students from the Humanities streams! It betrays gross ignorance not only of the requirements of the job in an All-India or Central service, but also a failure to grasp the nature of the flow of global information, the increasing need to engage internationally in all sectors of govt. activity, and the fact that English is the only idiom that binds this country linguistically ( other than YO YO HONEY SINGH, that is). It also disregards the fact that English is the second most widely understood language in India, after Hindi. But these are matters that have been, and will continue to be, debated by experts as long as the likes of Mr. Dina Nath Batra and his ilk continue to stalk this mortal coil, and I have no wish to dwell on them.

   The issue I would like to address here is that last argument of all losers- that they have to be given a "level playing field". Every political party( even the BJP, unfortunately, which is why Mr. Modi must be given even more credit for his stand) swears by it because it is the politically correct stance to have in a country whose educational standards are below those of even Srilanka and Bangladesh. But the truth must be stated and this beating around the bush must stop.

   The cruel fact is that there can never be a level playing field in any exam that is merit-based, nor should there be. The purpose of such exams- and the CSAT is just one of them- is to select the most meritorious candidate with reference to the job profile; the purpose is not to give representation to regions or religions or various  IQ levels. This becomes even more pertinent when the exam seeks to select the highest level of administrators for the country, in an era when the challenges to governance are most acute and intractable. Enough damage has already been done to this structure by all kinds of reservations and this should not be compounded  by further lowering the standards of the examination under the guise of a "level playing field."

   There is no such thing as a level playing field when it comes to competitive exams where one candidate can qualify only at the cost of another. The huge disparities in educational standards across states, income categories and individual abilities ensures this. The candidate from Delhi will always have an edge over the one from Jhumri Tillaya. The student from St. Stephen's College, Delhi will always be better placed than the one from Govt. College, Tehri Garwahl. The aspirant from a rich family who can afford multiple tuitions and coaching classes will have a better chance at cracking the exam than his counterpart from a rural area where there is a power cut for eight hours everyday and where the teacher is usually absent. The student with an IQ of 130 is more likely to succeed than the one with an IQ of 90.These are inevitable realities. To force a level playing field on this reality would mean reducing the standards to conform to the lowest denominator which would be an unmitigated disaster.

   At the end of the day the only real leveller is the individual ability to educate oneself, the hard work that is put in and the fire in the belly. Only this can explain why, in the CBSE Board exams, Govt. schools out-perform the elite private schools year after year; why more and more candidates from Tier 2 and 3 towns are making it to the IITs and Civil Services in greater numbers every year. My late father-in-law was educated in a govt. school in Ballia( perhaps the most backward district in UP then, and now) untouched by even a syllable of the English language, but made it to the first batch of the IAS. He taught himself English, and was still making notes on the language and the literature when he passed on in 1972! It is this kind of dedication and desire to improve oneself constantly that makes the field level and ensures success, not the degradation of standards that the current lot of agitators are demanding. In fact, these people, by clashing with the police and torching public property, have made it evident that they are not the kind of human material the civil services need. The Delhi police should identify these trouble makers, prepare their list and ensure that( in the unlikely circumstance of their clearing the exams) they are weeded out during the verification of their antecedents.

   There are no level playing fields in life. Perhaps there may be one in the after-life, but I doubt even that.

DELHI--THE CITY OF HONEY BADGERS

    I retired from the government in 2010 after having rendered 35 years of dubious service to the public, and settled down in a cottage in the midst of thick forests near Mashobra, about twenty kilometers from Shimla. This area being even colder than Shimla I had no T shirts, so when I had to suddenly move to a different kind of jungle called New Delhi I was( what would today be described as) sartorially challenged. My younger son gifted me a T shirt: it had a picture of an intense looking honey badger on the chest with the caption in bold letters: DON'T GIVE A SHIT!

   Now, honey badgers belong to the raccoon family and are about the same size. They are utterly fearless and have been known to make even leopards back off: they will eat anything and can consume twenty five percent of their body weight at one sitting; no sensible animal will tangle with a honey badger, at least not a second time! Therefore the caption on the T shirt was spot on- the honey badger doesn't give a shit about anyone or anything. In short, it has an ATTITUDE.

   Thirty five years in government had made one cautious and conservative in expression: bureaucrats never call a shit a shit, we leave that to the armed forces. Therefore, I was a bit non-plussed with the T shirt's assertive caption and, hoping that the courage to wear it would devolve in the fullness of time, I locked it away along with my Aam Aadmi cap and the faded photo of myself as the seventh dwarf in a rendition of Snowwhite and the Seven Dwarfs we had put up in nursery school many decades ago. You get the drift: all three were meaningful objects, but required a certain boldness, a nonchalance, a sangfroid to be able to exhibit in public, which I lacked.

   However, you can lock away a honey badger T shirt ( or an Aam Aadmi cap) but you can't forget it. So the longer I stayed in Delhi the more it weighed on my mind. There was a niggling feeling at the back of my  medulla oblongata that I was missing something, that there was some message embedded in the badger's attitude, a De Vinci type of code, if you will. Try as I might my mind, weakened by years of perusing the gibberish contained in government files, couldn't grasp it. And then one day, standing outside the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, I had my Eureka moment. All around me the pavements were swarming with families of patients going about their daily chores- cooking, washing, defecating, breast-feeding-while waiting for their turn in this Mecca of medical salvation. There was no other accommodation available for these people who had come from all over India.The nearby bus shelters and under-passes were also full of them. The temperature was at least 40 degrees. Nobody gave this miserable flotsam of humanity a second glance. Around them the BMWs and Audis, the red beaconed VIP cars whizzed past, their occupants- both corporate and governmental- planning how to make India a superpower; a huge swathe of area had been cleared of all traffic and people because Mr. Amar Singh had arrived to be lodged( naturally) in one of the VIP wards ( his kidneys having given up after years of his wheeling and dealing), the hawkers plied their trade, the policemen and parking attendants went about their extortion openly, the luckier patients who had been able to see an AIIMS doctor(  a mythological creature like Bigfoot or the Yeti for most of those on the pavements) lining up in hordes at the dozens of medical shops selling what the hospital should have been providing, or perhaps what the hospital HAD provided! No one even glanced at the mass of forgotten humanity on the pavements.

   In that instant the code was cracked! NOBODY GAVE A SHIT. The average Delhi-ite was a honey badger!

  Start from the top of the ordurous heap that is Delhi and you will see what I mean. The politician is so comfortably cocooned in his LOOTyen's Delhi that he doesn't give a shit how people survive outside it. How, for example, can we legitimately expect Mrs. Shiela Dikshit to give a shit( no pun intended) about power cuts in Trilokpuri, for example, when her own mansion is cooled by 31 air-conditioners and 15 coolers at govt. expense( a recent report in the Hindustan Times)?

   The bureaucrat doesn't give a shit about anything because he gets priority in school admissions, hospitals, rail reservations; subsidised housing and transport, membership of the Delhi Golf Club; and can drink himself silly on subsidised booze at Gymkhana.

  The captains of industry don't give a shit because they live on Aurangzeb Road in houses financed by loans from banks( read you and I) which are subsequently written off as non-performing assets ( don't miss the distinctly sexual connotation here- and you thought that bankers don't have a sense of humour?!), spend most of their waking hours rubbing shoulders and exchanging notes( pun intended) with the commissars of government, and take their annual vacations in Davos.

   And so it is down the food chain. The police don't give a shit because they have turned the rule of accountability on its head: having acquired their postings by dint of loyal service to politicians or by spreading the shekels among their superiors, the latter are now accountable to THEM! Likewise the municipal employees. Others - lawyers, doctors, autorickshaw wallahs, transport employees-have such a pernicious and all-pervasive nuisance value- that they don't have to give a shit about anyone, be it the courts,the government or the general public. No one gives a damn about the environment- not the Forest Department which sees its primary role as giving permissions for felling of thousands of trees every year, not the PWD whose sole mission is to destroy the Ridge as soon as possible, not the DDA or Jal Board which cannot distinguish between a river and a sewer line, not the builders pumping millions of litres of under groundwater without any approvals.

  The alpha male of these badgers, however, has to be the Delhi motorist. His aggression, single minded objective of running over anything in his path, refusal to give way to ambulances and fire engines, propensity to shoot other motorists, contempt for rules and traffic policemen-all indicate that this sub species is still evolving and may one day take over the whole city.

  At the bottom of the food chain are the people who GET all the shit: the humble, ordinary folks going about their daily chore of just surviving in this jungle. But sometimes, say once in two or three years when they are pushed to the wall, they revolt and attack in true badger style. On such rare occasions they too don't give a shit- burning buses and police vehicles,facing water cannons,clashing with police, shutting down large parts of this dung heap. The latest such incident was in December 2012.

   And so Delhi is now the most polluted city in the world. Of all Indian cities it has the highest number of cases of sexual molestation, rape and car thefts. Twelve hundred people die in road accidents every year. Sixty percent of its population lives in slums( which the govt. has abolished by calling them instead JJ clusters or unauthorised colonies). It has lost 25% of its green lungs-the Ridge- in the last fifteen years to construction, mining and encroachment by the same Davos types mentioned earlier. The Yamuna is, scientifically speaking, no longer a river but a drain- only 5% of its total length lies in Delhi but this city contributes to 80% of its pollution: when the river leaves Delhi it is organically dead.

   It is scientifically proved that species evolve to suit- and better confront-their external environment. That is exactly what the honey badgers of Delhi are doing. Delhi's environment has been continuously changing for the last thousand years or so- don't forget that today's Delhi is the seventh city on this site. From being the centre of Mughal culture, British imperialism and old world gentility it has now become some kind of smorgasbord of the worst qualities of its neighbouring states, the arrogance of power, the corrupting influence of money, and the unruliness of millions of migrants who have no stakes in the city. You just can't afford to give a shit here.

  Next month, to commemorate the completion of three years of my stay here, I propose to take out that honey badger T-shirt and proudly don it ( the AAM AADMI cap will have to wait a bit longer). I've earned the privilege of being a honey badger. 

    

BUDGET 2014--- SHORT-CHANGING THE ENVIRONMENT

    In my last blog post on 26.6.2014 titled MODI AND THE ENVIRONMENT: GREEN VISION OR GREY AREA, I had expressed my misgivings about the new government's attitude to the environment. This apprehension unfortunately has been justified by its two recent decisions since then: the clearance accorded to the Renuka Dam in Himachal and the announcement that the MOEF proposes to relax the provisions of the Forest Rights Act to do away with the required consent of the Panchayats for some types of projects. Mr. Jaitely's budget yesterday further reinforces the government's antipathy to the environment. The following provisions in the budget, and the equally significant gaps in it, can lead to no other conclusion.

   In a shocking hatchet job the Finance Minister has actually REDUCED the size of the annual budget of the Ministry of Environment and Forests by Rs. 400 crores to Rs.2256 crores, a cut of about 15% on the previous year's provision. I find this totally baffling when the world over governments are beginning to realise that investment in the environment is actually a sound economic strategy. Compare this, incidentally, with the 133% increase in the budget of the Urban Development Ministry, from Rs.7548 crores to Rs. 17628 crores ( which includes Rs. 7060 crore for 100 new smart cities). How "smart" will these cities be if, like Delhi, they have to devastate neighbouring states for their water supply; if, like Kanpur, they pour billions of litres of sewage and chemicals into the Ganga; if, like Calcutta, they obliterate precious wetlands for their expansion? There is an urgent need to strengthen the MOEF to deal with the inevitable expansion of urbanisation and industrialisation, but the government has instead weakened it.

   During his election campaign and even after assuming office Mr. Modi has spoken about establishing a Council of Himalayan States to evolve a more specific planning model for them so that their environmental concerns could be addressed. Preservation of the environment of these states is vital for the northern plains of India for they provide the water, the carbon sink, the biodiversity, the climate modulation without which north India would revert to the planet of the apes. So Mr. Modi's announcement was certainly no charity for the Himalayan states. But the Finance Minister made no mention of this Council in his budget.

   States like Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand particularly are on the verge of ecological disaster with hundreds of dams coming up or proposed, rivers without waters, forests being submerged, lakhs being displaced. There are any number of reports documenting all this. These projects need an urgent review by the Centre since the states themselves are so mesmerised by the lucre, both on and off the table, that they cannot be expected to take rational decisions. Typical examples are the Lower Subhansiri HEP in Arunachal Pradesh and the Renuka Dam in Himachal against which local populations have been agitating for years. Is Mr. Modi afraid that the setting up of a Council could jeopardize these projects? In that case he should learn from other countries which have found the vision to realise that the environment is a more worthy cause than the ego: Chile has recently rejected a proposed network of five dams in Patagonia, the Hidroaysen HEP which would have cost eight billion dollars, because of its environmental impacts; in the Congo the govt., responding to ecological concerns, has forced SOCO, an oil giant, to drop exploration in the Virunga National Park because it is the habitat of 200 endangered mountain gorillas-yes, just 200! Can we , an aspiring superpower, not even show the environmental sensitivity of a Congo, for God's sake?

   Climate Change is happening even as we speak, and the delayed monsoon is another proof of it, if indeed any more proof was needed. We need to urgently set up a body of experts   to assess its impacts, their timelines and intensity and to prepare short term and long term strategies to mitigate the effects. This is a massive exercise as it will cut across many sectors- agriculture, forestry, water resources, health, animal husbandry, and will have to plan for consequences such as displacement and migration of populations, shifting cropping patterns, water scarcity, food security, even cross (state)border tensions. One would have expected Mr. Jaitley to have responded with some urgency to this issue but he has provided only Rs. 100 crore for an Adaptation Fund for Climate Change, even less than that provided for a certain statue! This is only a lip service and cannot even begin to tackle the problem.

  Isn't it high time, Mr. Jaitley, that we started moving towards a regime for capping carbon emissions and putting a cost on such emissions? Mr. Modi is an unapologetic admirer of the Chinese model of growth, and there are certainly elements of it which should be emulated. One of them-which seems to have escaped Mr. Modi's attention-is the realisation that, GDP notwithstanding, carbon emissions have to be reduced in the interest of its own citizens.( Incidentally, this realisation dawned when the air in Beijing was generally acknowledged to be the most polluted in the world; today Delhi has surpassed Beijing to claim this dubious distinction). China has now embraced reforms to clean up its air and environment in a major way- it will spend $ 275 billion over the next five years to do so. It   has plans to cap its carbon emissions at 4 billion tce by 2015; it has set up a carbon trading scheme in seven cities and plans to roll it out nationally by 2021, along with carbon budgets for every province. China has learnt its lesson the hard way; we have the opportunity to learn from it and avoid some of the pitfalls, saving both time and money in the process. Sadly, this budget does not hold out any hope for this because there is not even a mention of any intent in this direction. 

    One would have welcomed a few more environment related policy inputs in the budget: strengthening of the Environment Protection Act and the Wildlife Protection Act to provide for easier prosecution  and even harsher imprisonment for willful defaulters, notifying the Western Ghats as an ESA( Ecologically Sensitive Area) on the basis of the Kasturirangan report( a decision held up since 2012 because of lobbying by mining interests), a subsidy support for electric/ hybrid cars, a greater thrust on wind energy, specific state-wise targets for generation of power from renewable sources.

   This is not a budget which is sensitive to the natural environment.

MR. MODI AND THE ENVIRONMENT-- A GREEN VISION OR A GREY AREA ?

    The most disappointing and worrying aspect of the recent elections, for me, has been the almost complete absence of any debate or discussion on the natural environment. Some parties, the BJP included, did make weak proforma noises about it in their manifestos but there was no mention of it in their campaigning. Mr. Modi did take up the issue of cleaning  the Ganga but I suspect this had more to do with extracting some politico-religious mileage out of his Hindu voters, and with show-casing his Sabarmati success by comparison. In any case "cleaning" the Ganga as a step to protect the environment is as meaningful as a  a face lift is to ensuring immortality. It is a cosmetic red-herring. The environment was not an issue in the elections, sadly.

   I say " sadly" because environmental disaster is staring us in the face and yet all we can talk about are GDP, Growth, Employment, FDI-none of which is sustainable, by the way, without a sound, long-term, adequately funded programme to protect and preserve our environment. Consider just a few of the documented, unimpeachable environment related realities that confront India today:

* Pollution levels in our cities have surpassed even China: 13 of the world's 20 most polluted cities are in India. 50% of 290 Indian cities that were monitored have critical levels of air pollution. Outdoor pollution alone caused 6.20 lakh deaths in 2012.

* 76 of 150 major rivers in India are heavily polluted. The Yamuna in Delhi- the sanctum sanctorum of India's policy making deities- is no longer a river- its an open sewer. The water in three fourths of our rivers is not fit for drinking.

* Most of India is water stressed, and ground water levels have dropped drastically to unsustainable levels thanks to illogical cropping choices, reckless and unregulated pumping from aquifers on the back of free electricity. 21 MILLION borewells have been drilled in the last 50 years- one borewell for every 60 Indians! Naturally, 30% of these wells in western India have gone dry. In Punjab too thousands of hectares of once fertile cropland, their underground water tables completely depleted, have turned alkaline and have been abandoned.

* We are firmly in the maws of climate change and the jaws are slowly closing. Our coastal regions are facing the near certainty of submergence and the displacement of tens of millions: the sea level has risen by 17 cms. in the past century and the rate is accelerating. Global temperatures have been rising by 0.05 celsius every decade since 1998 and and are projected to rise by 4.0 degree celsius by the turn of this century. Every study done so far postulates that the hardest hit will be South Asia where food production could decline by as much as 36%. The connection between food security and climate change is becoming more and more evident.

* The Himalayan glaciers that are the source of water for 400 million people in our northern plains are shrinking and may disappear completely by 2050.

* Project related displacement of populations is on the rise- more than 50 million people have been displaced between 1950 and 2000 due to dams and other infrastructural projects.

* Forest area is declining rapidly and the clamour for more dams in the Himalayan states and mining in the western ghats can only hasten their decimation. In just one year alone, 2009, the area diverted for commercial projects was an astounding 87884 hectares, more than the area of Delhi! A recent report by John Vidal reveals that in the Indian Himalayas alone India proposes to construct 292 dams- one dam for every 32 kms. of river channel! And all this devastation shall contribute just 6% of our projected energy needs, something which could be easily provided by nuclear or solar power projects with no adverse impact on the environment, if only we could plan better.

* It has been estimated by the World Bank that environmental degradation costs the Indian economy about 5.7% of its GDP, or US$ 120,000,000,000, every year. Incidentally, this rate is higher than our growth rate! Surely that is an economic argument for preserving our environment, if economics is all that we can comprehend?

* A recent World Bank survey of environment quality in 178 countries ranked India at 155.

   And yet, over the last ten years we have allowed politicians, corporates and shrill TV anchors to hijack the debate and vilify the environment as the main impediment  to economic utopia. Environmental approvals, we are told, are responsible for stagnating coal production, power deficit, unemployment, lack of irrigation, inadequate infrastructure on our borders with China. This is a motivated falsehood by corporate India intended to scare the govt. into relaxing norms (and it did succeed to some extent, witness Mr. Moily clearing Rs. 120, 000 crores worth of proposals in his last 40 days in office, including mining in an elephant reserve and a road through a tiger sanctuary!). The actual facts tell a different story, notwithstanding Jairam Ramesh's " Go-No go" policy and the Jayanti tax. According to a report in the Hindustan Times of 5th June 2014, in the period after 2004-05 to date, 99% of projects that applied for environment clearance received it, and 94% of projects got approval for cutting forests. 181 coal mines were were given environmental clearance: their combined production capacity per annum is 583 million tonnes, more than the country's current production! In addition 267 thermal power plants and 188 steel plants were also given environmental approval. Any knowledgeable and concerned observer would consider these rates of approval far too high- and yet the environment is being made the scapegoat for failures that belong to other domains of governance.

    To cite just one instance of where the real failure lies: between 1993 and 2008 as many as 195 coal blocks were allotted but only 30 of them are in production. Between 2004 and 2008 a total of 160 coal blocks were allotted but only 2 are in production. Sticking with coal, it is constantly alleged that its production is suffering because  the reserves are located in forest areas whose diversion is not forthcoming. Nothing could be further from the truth. According to a report by Greenpeace based on the Ministry's own data coal reserves under forest areas are only 18.448 billion tonnes, whereas the total reserves in non-forest areas is 955.218 billion tonnes!

   Take the power deficit. Of the installed capacity of 153288 MW( thermal, gas and oil) as in September 2013, as much as 40000 MW was not being generated! This was not because coal or gas was not available but because of faulty linkages, inadequate transportation infrastructure, inability of bankrupt SEBs (State Electricity Boards) and Discoms to pay, and ageing transmission systems unable to carry the required load. Gujarat has offered to sell 2000 MW to other states but there are no takers, and yet just about every state has been facing daily power outages that last hours! How are delayed environmental approvals responsible for this mess?

   Similarly with water. The same corruption, avarice, bad planning, mis-directed subsidies and indolence is creating a bigger scarcity than actually exists and leading to fool-hardy schemes (like the Inter linking of rivers project) that can only further devastate the environment. Take the example of Delhi. Its daily demand for water is 1050 million gallons, the supply is about 800 million gallons. In order to redress this shortfall, therefore it is taking the route that all short-sighted politicians and corrupt administrators usually do- divert a whole river in Himachal (the Giri) and bring its waters to flush Delhi's toilets- an environmental nightmare. Why is this necessary at all? Delhi has a population of about 15 million at most- according to the standard WHO norms it requires a daily water supply of about 1800 million litres, or 500 million gallons. Its already getting 800 million-there is obviously a wastage, pilferage, call it what you will, of 300 million gallons per day. Why not fix that instead of further burdening the environment?

   The example of Delhi typifies what is wrong with the mindset of our planners, policy makers and administrators- instead of tackling and correcting inefficiencies on the demand and supply sides, we find it easier to exploit more and more of our natural assets, eliminating them one by one and further compounding the original problem.

   WILL MR. MODI CHANGE THIS MINDSET?

   I have grave misgivings on this account because the few signals that his government has sent out so far are not encouraging. Let's look at some of them:

* The importance Mr. Modi attaches to the environment can perhaps be gleaned from the fact that the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF) has been given only a part time Minister: Mr. Javadekar also has to handle Information and Broadcasting and Parliamentary Affairs. Given the tremendous challenges posed by global warming, climate change and the development-environment conflict, one would have expected a full-time Minister in charge of this portfolio.

* Both, Mr. Modi's earlier criticism of the MOEF and Mr. Javadekar's utterances post his taking over, seem to indicate that the current view is that the MOEF is a " road block for projects". While the latter's pledge to bring in transparency, accountability and time bound decision making is certainly to be welcomed after the malfeasance of the UPA govt., too much talk of " fast tracking" and " priority clearances" gives the impression that regulations will be weakened, and many categories exempted from environmental scrutiny. Reports suggest that a beginning in this regard has already been made by exempting defence projects in border areas from many levels of scrutiny and compliance.

* In a statement Mr. Javadekar said: " I will treat jungles as wealth generating heritage of the country without exploiting them." Even if we skip the obvious contradiction contained in the assertion that wealth can be generated from forests without exploiting them, we can distinctly see the Minister letting the cat out of the bag. He sees the forests as an asset from which " wealth" can be generated( presumably coal, iron ore, bauxite?). This is a telling admission that the environmental values of forests have a lower priority in the govt's scheme of things than their monetary value, and this cannot but worry all environmentalists.

*  The targeting of NGOs who are opposed to mining in forest areas, damming of river flows, nuclear power plants, large scale project related displacement of populations on the basis of a 16 page IB (Intelligence Bureau) report is not a good harbinger of things to come. NGOs are an essential component of civil society which has now become the fifth estate or pillar of democracy, and as important as the other four. They may be-and quite often are- wrong at times (I personally believe, for example, that the agitations against nuclear plants are short-sighted and ill-informed) but the right to protest against a govt. policy is part of the churning essential to a democracy and should not be curtailed for this reason alone. There are enough laws to regulate their funding and workings and the govt. should work within these laws to penalise violators, but merely opposing the govt. cannot by any means be a violation itself.

*  The sudden decision to permit an increase of 17 metres in the height of the Narmada dam, to 138 metres, is baffling and indicative of a hubris that does not bode well for the future. A decades long protest has been contemptuously spurned within a month of the new govt. taking office. True, the Supreme Court has allowed the height to be increased. But this is not a legal issue: it is a social and environmental concern involving lakhs of people, something which the Court is ill equipped to arbitrate on. One would have expected the new govt. to engage with those opposing the height increase and then take a decision.

*  Mr. Javadekar has shown the same alacrity in announcing that his govt. attaches the highest priority to the the inter-linking of river basins and will "take it forward." One only hopes that his govt. has not already made up its mind on this and that it is willing to look at all impacts of this gargantuan exercise. As Darryl D' Monte explains in his excellent article in the Hindustan Times of 19th June 2014, this would be the largest water development project in the world, linking 37 rivers through 12500 kms. of canals to provide 173 cubic billion meters of water from 3000 dams to irrigate 34 million hectares. Its cost in 2002 was estimated at Rupees 560,000 crores. It would displace as many millions as the Three Gorges project in China, whose catastrophic environmental impacts are beginning to be felt only now. Mr. Javadekar would do well to learn from the Chinese (and Russian) experience before committing himself to this venture. Rivers are not just water channels but eco-systems that sustain life along their lengths, recharging ground water, creating micro climates, occupying a niche devised by nature. Their diversion should not be seen as a mere engineering or technical problem: the social, political and environmental challenges posed need to be studied very carefully and with an open mind. Water sharing is a divisive subject and contains the potential for inter state and regional conflicts as the dispute between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka over sharing of Cauvery waters illustrates. There would be major ecological impacts for downstream states which would be suddenly deprived of these waters.

What, for example, would happen to the delta regions of Bangladesh and to the Sunderbans if all the " surplus" waters of the Ganga were to be diverted to the south? We object to China damming the Brahmaputra; why then should we expect Bangladesh to keep quiet when we take away its share of the Ganga waters? If Haryana cannot spare a few cusecs for Delhi, and Mr. Modi himself could not part with a few Gir lions for UP,  how can we expect UP to spare the Ganga waters for any other state? What will happen to the bio diversity of the Western Ghats if its west flowing rivers are forced to flow east to Tamil Nadu and Andhra? How will we rehabilitate the lakhs who would be displaced given our miserable track record in this area and given that even those displaced by the Bhakra Nangal and Narmada project are yet to be fully rehabilitated? There are tectonic environmental and social issues involved here and one hopes that Mr. Modi will take his time to study and evaluate them , and to hold wide consultations (including with the much reviled NGOs), before going ahead with this project. Recklessness should not be confused with decisiveness.

* Mr. Javadekar's silence is as eloquent as his spoken words. He has not said a word about the Kasturirangan report on the Western Ghats, about which Mr. Moily was doing summersaults till his last day in office. The Western Ghats are a treasure house of bio-diversity and one of the eight hottest " hot-spots" in the world. Parts of it have been declared as Natural Heritage Sites by UNESCO. Covering an area of 164,280 sq.kms across six states, their environmental value is incalculable- they shape the climate of peninsular India, 58 rivers originate from its forests supplying water to 250 million people in these states, its green cover sequesters ten million tonnes of carbon every year. But it is severely endangered and has shrunk by 25% over the past two decades. The Kasturirangan panel, set up by the MOEF itself, recommended last year that 37% of the area of the Ghats be declared as Ecologically Sensitive Areas (ESA) where no settlement or projects would be allowed.-this is indeed the bare minimum needed to protect the core values of the Ghats and much less than  the 64% proposed by the earlier Gadgil panel . But even this is being opposed by all the six states under pressure from the mining, timber and construction lobbies. Mr. Moily had put the panel's recommendations on hold. Why is Mr. Javadekar not removing the embargo placed by Mr. Moily on accepting the Kasturirangan panel's eminently sensible recommendations? Why this silence when every other decision of the UPA govt. has been brought under the scanner? We would have expected Mr. Javadekar to announce his govt's acceptance of  the Kasturirangan report before moving onto new initiatives. His silence is disconcerting.

    It is no secret that Mr. Modi is an admirer of the China model of development and is keen to replicate it in India (hopefully the less totalitarian parts of it!). He would do well, therefore, to study the initiatives adopted by China to tackle the environmental impacts of its growth trajectory. At one point China was losing 9% of its GDP to environmental and natural resource degradation, the WHO had estimated that air and water pollution had reduced life expectancy by as much as five and a half years, almost 10% of its farmland is contaminated with heavy metals, the water in one third of its rivers was not even fit for agriculture. But China has had the wisdom to realise that this model of growth was just not sustainable; it has had the courage to take a step back and initiate sincere reforms to mitigate the disastrous effects of its mad race for economic development. As reported in the Economist of 10th August 2013 it has , over the last two years, given more teeth to its environmental laws and provided for imprisonment for violators, officials are now assessed not just on financial performance but also on environmental parameters, the govt. has provided $ 275 billion for cleaning up the air over the next five years, it has targeted to generate 20% of its power from renewables by 2020 and spent $67 billion in 2012 on just developing wind and solar power. It has reduced carbon intensity (emissions per unit of GDP) by 20% in the last few years and plans to cut it by 45% by 2020. It is also contemplating to put an absolute cap on total energy consumed.

   The China model is an evolving one and the redressal mechanisms mentioned above are part of it. Mr. Modi is better positioned than China in this respect: he can learn vicariously from China's experience and not repeat the mistakes that China had made in its frantic gold rush. He does not have to further devastate our natural resources, he can immediately set in motion the redressal measures needed: if he shows the vision to do so he can still retrieve our environment. He needs to strengthen, not weaken, regulatory mechanisms for the environment; he needs to review all dam projects in the Himalayas; he needs to set up an expert council on climate change; he needs to seriously ponder over how much green cover we can afford to lose in the pursuit of GDP; he needs to draw the Obama red line around all Protected Areas; he needs to make environment protection laws more stringent and to send violators to jail; he needs to concentrate more on renewable energy. There is so much for him to do in this respect that even his 18 hour day may become a tight fit. But if anyone can do it Mr. Modi can.

  I have absolutely no doubt that Mr. Modi will be around for at least the next ten years. This is also the critical period when we can either preserve our environment or devastate it to the point of no return. In every other area of governance Mr. Modi has shown that he possesses the vision, integrity, leadership qualities, decision making ability, courage, connect with the people and self belief which alone can deliver a better  (in every sense) life to all Indians. It is now time for him to demonstrate these same qualities in the cause of preserving the country's natural wealth, ecology and environment.

  To be brutally honest the signals so far have not been encouraging.  

DEATH ON THE BEAS-MANY QUESTIONS, ONE COVER UP

    As more details emerge about the disaster at Thalout, and as the HP Govt. continues to obfuscate, one thing is becoming clearer by the day- this was no accident, this was manslaughter by a sovereign entity that has repeatedly ignored warnings about its reckless tampering with the environment. The Larji Project, directly responsible for this tragedy, was always a misconceived, ill-designed and environmentally harmful hydel project where malfeasance has reigned from the beginning. It has created a generating capacity of 126 MW at a cost of more than 1200 crores, which is at least 30% more than the standard cost. Generating efficiency of a run of the river hydel project is provided by the " head" created, or the " fall" of the water which provides the force to turn the turbines. The engineers of the HPSEB turned engineering logic on its head by using huge volumes of water instead to provide the force, pushing up all costs. It now appears that in order to reduce costs they have severely compromised on safety provisions and have failed to provide, or operationalise, the safety features that a project located in such a densely populated region, along a National Highway, demands.
   Notwithstanding the Himachal Chief Minister's clean chit to his officers,and the defence offered by the latter, there are many questions that need quick answers.
[1]  Why was it felt necessary to suddenly release 200 cusecs of water at 7.00 PM? HPSEB has said that they were asked by the northern grid authorities to back down on power generation as the system was overloaded. This is a ridiculous defence for many reasons. Firstly, at the time of the incident the whole of north India had been subjected to a prolonged heat wave with demand for power outstripping supply everywhere: there can be no question of the system not requiring power. Secondly, the period 7.00 PM to 10.00 PM is the peak period when the power demand spikes exponentially: this in fact is when hydel projects are specifically supposed to provide " peaking power" ( something thermal plants cannot do), not back down! Thirdly, why was only Larji ordered by the Grid Authority to back down?- it is my information that none of the other hydel projects in Himachal were asked to do so.
Something smells very bad here.
[2\   Who cleared the release of such huge volumes of water? It is inconceivable that this could have been done at the level of the Resident Engineer, the nominal scapegoat. Impounded water for a reservoir based project is its inventory- it is literally to be valued in rupees, for this is what will generate the electricity. Releasing it without sufficient reason is like an industrialist setting fire to his raw materials. So the decision had to have been taken at a higher level and we must be told the facts.
[3]   Even if generation was to be reduced on that evening( an argument I don't buy), was it necessary to release the waters? It needs to be investigated at what level the dam waters stood that evening and whether there was a cushion to retain the waters below the danger level. Since there have been no rains over the week before the tragedy and only snow melt was filling the reservoir, I have a feeling that there was perhaps no urgency to release the waters in such quantities.
[4]  Release of huge volumes of water suddenly is always fraught with downstream risks, and that is why dam managers always effect the discharge in a calibrated manner. The only exception is in the case of massive inflows posing a danger to the dam itself. Was that the case in this instance? If there was no such danger then why could the release not have been done in a gradual manner, providing a calibrated warning to those downstream?
[5]  All hydel projects in Himachal are by law required to maintain a constant discharge of 15% of mean flows from the dam, and to maintain an automated record of the same for inspection. In a report submitted to the HP High Court in 2010 I had categorically stated that NOT A SINGLE PROJECT IN THE STATE WAS COMPLYING WITH THIS REQUIREMENT. I am absolutely certain that the Larji project too was not compliant on this fateful day. TV videos and still photos by the students themselves of the site establish this. I have myself crossed this patch of the river many times and have always found the river course downstream of the dam bone dry. This factor/ omission assumes importance and relevance to the tragedy because had this discharge been maintained faithfully and continuously there would have been a natural partial depletion of the reservoir and there would have been no need to suddenly release 200 cusecs of
 water, with its disastrous consequences.
[6]  Was the water actually released to flush out the silt from the dam? If so, why are the project authorities concealing this fact? All dams regularly resort to this flushing, so why is Larji being coy about it? Is it because admitting it would then raise the question- why do it at night, almost surreptitiously? Which in turn would lend credence to the claims of the local villagers that the project personnel are in league with the illegal sand mafia, that the flushing is always done late in the evening so that the flushed out sand can be conveniently removed at night.
[7]  If there is an iota of truth in the above claim then the role of the Mining Department and the Mandi Forest Department also needs to be investigated. They could not have been unaware of this illegal nocturnal pursuit: even the TV grabs show well defined truck tyre tracks on the banks of the river at this site!
[8] Was there a warning system installed at all? If it existed was it activated on that evening? All evidence points to the contrary and I would rather believe the local villagers than the dam management or even the Chief Minister who has been misinformed. In fact all logs of that day should have been immediately seized by the administration to verify this point- by not doing so the govt. has by now given enough time to the project to tamper with, create and falsify the records. Moreover, the question is not only whether a couple of sirens were installed as a proforma measure in Thalout bazaar and other locations, but whether it was an effective system, whether signages were put up along the road and river banks, whether a schedule of release( of water) was prepared in advance and given wide publicity, whether this schedule was strictly adhered to.
   It is quite evident that the Larji project has not been following the prescribed safety and environmental protocols that its licence imposes on it, and that the practices it does follow are harmful and damaging to the environment and the residents of that area. It has not installed a " fish ladder" ( to enable migrating fish to move along and over the dam) as its environmental clearance mandates it do. I learn from a reliable source that the contractor who was awarded the job has been given the full payment but has absconded without completing the work! Quite evidently, as John Wayne might have said: " There do be plenty of money in them thar waters...!"
   It is imperative that the CONSENT TO OPERATE which the Larji project has been given should be immediately suspended by the HP Pollution Control Board for its prima facie violations of safety and environmental regulations.( This will be no loss to the country since by its own admission it has been asked by the Grid to reduce its generation!). Thereafter a judicial enquiry MUST be instituted as I have argued in my previous article. The rot runs deep not only in the Larji project but in all hydel projects in the state thanks to the laissez faire attitude adopted by ALL state govts in the past. All aspects of the affair, including the points raised above, need to be thoroughly investigated, and perhaps completely new protocols need to be drawn up. An enquiry by a Divisional Commissioner( which is what the govt has ordered) is not adequate. I personally know the Divisional Commissioner. He is a fine officer but his job is a non starter with the Chief Minister already giving a premature clean chit to his administration.
   This is the very least we can do for the twenty four young lives we have snuffed out in the name of development.