Seven billion people, seven billion terrorists

The author condemns the act of spying on nations by the NSA(National Security Agency) in the name of security. The documents leaked by Edward Snowden show that almost all ally countries of U.S and other big names in the world, including the not so big names i.e the whole population of certain areas have been under a secret lens of NSA. And the spy game has a long time dimension. Personal phone calls of German Chancellor Angela Merkel have been followed for over a decade. Though she was ridiculed of not taking a stance against NSA until she realised that she herself was under the monitor. With millions of phone calls and e-mails been monitored, Spain and France are also big-time victims. Officials of EU countries too had their phone bugged by them for a long time.
Where are they searching for criminals, when they can find them right in the mirror. Not only the security services but the telecommunications corporates and internet giants like Google, Microsoft, Facebook etc. are also guilty, as they provided data which they are not supposed to.
GCHQ (British Government Communications Headquarters) are now finding ways to keep their ways out of courts, because they know they'll be deep into legal challenges over the clauses of Human Rights Act.
There had been one other whistleblower named Peter Wright, an ex-MI5 officer, who published his memoirs to take a revenge to his unsettled dispute over his pension with his former employers.
Though a review of NSA activities report to be submitted to Barack Obama is due on Nov. 11, we see a little to come positive as only a part of the content would me made available to Congress for the report and the panel includes largely of former security officials.
What's needed is to ask them that do they have the right to peek into our personal calls and e-mails and still wander off easily? Do they have the right to overrun our rights? And foremost what is the limit of a nation's security agency, does it exceed the borders and our personal domains? The author calls the NSA a modern-day-cyber-Taliban, which we all shall totally agree to.

Al-Qaeda's corridor through Syria

In this article the concern revolve around the present war-stricken situation of Syria and Iraq, due to the ever-growing hold of Al-Qaeda there; as well as Syria becoming a ground for al-Shams and ISIS leaving behind the Free Syrian Army. 

The author starts to explain the current situation by citing the example of ISIS attacks on Iraq checkpoints along Highway 11 and another unsuccessful attack to take hold of Highway 12. In the attack on Highway 12, the ISIS had a plain usual but threatening strategy of using gunmen, suicide bombers and other weapons. 

ISIS has been reigning the country which has an already stabbed body, and trying to take it over by any means. And its missions have been successful, like its Expunging Filth operation of expelling Free Syrian Army units from northern Syria. According to the International Crisis Group, ISIS is the most powerful group in northern and eastern Syria. What ISIS benefits from, is the peaceful relations between other Islamist groups.

The recent mission led by ISIS to free 500 prisoners from Iraq's Abu Ghraib jail by using car bombs, suicide bombers, and gunmen was a hit and turned these prisoners into Al-Qaeda's fighters, definitely a calculated profit. The money coming from foreign fighters and the already warriors of Syria have been ISIS's greatest advantage. 

Despite all this happening in Syria and borders, Saudi Arabia would maintain its stance and won't allow ISIS overthrow its government. But, the change of destiny of Syria, of not being attacked by U.S has definitely disappointed Iraq. History as well as present has been bloody there, and no one sees anything better coming in near future. 

A blot on progressive societies

The author terms death penalty as a blot on our progressive societies which still haunts the most important and basic right of humans in several places around the world- Right to Live. According to the statistics, 150 of the 193 member-states of United Nations have abolished the death penalty. The stance of countries being abolitionist (in favour of abolition of death penalty), retentionists (against abolition of death penalty) or de-facto abolitionists (which have not abolished death penalty by law, but in fact do not practice it ) is widely varied throughout the globe.

Countries in South and Central america were the first ones to enter the list of abolitionists. Still large variation in can be seen among United States on their stance on the subject. Most of the Caribbean countries have not seen a case of death penalty since many years. Europe, with an exception of Belarus, is totally abolitionist. On the other hand, the statistics are high on Asia, with China, Iran, Korea, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam on the top of the list. There has also been a shift in the voting in U.N General Assembly towards abolishing death penalty, as countries realise the soul importance of right to life.

Now, the still retentionist countries, must realise that death penalty is not a punishment but a consequence of not being able to deal with the crimes. It is the most immoral and also an irreversible punishment, which does not do justice to the laws of nature.

A pound of flesh to feed the poor

The Doha Development Round at WTO(World Trade Organisation) has been on the table since a decade, with no forthcoming results. The West demands developing countries like India, Brazil and China to remove the import barriers and allow more access to their markets; whereas developing countries demand the West including US and EU to remove the large subsidies they provide to their rich farmers. But neither bargain has been fruitful. Now, is the time when US can win on both sides because UPA is ready to bargain on any terms to have its Food Security Act get working before the upcoming elections.

Mr. Jayant Dasgupta, India's permanent representative to the WTO in Geneva, states that this bargain has nothing in it for the developing countries. Still, to ensure that their election campaigns go wild by the Food Security Act and India commits under the WTO AoA(Agreement on Agriculture), UPA is definitely laid down. This has many concerns coming up, of which the primary would be that the deal is unequal on the balance, and another important factor would be that it will affect the diplomatic relations with other developing countries having the same demands.

WTO has a limit set on the amount of support countries can provide  for an agricultural product under AMS(Aggregate Measurement of Support). But the AMS rule is obsolete as the 'external reference price', an important factor in deciding the amount of support, is based on 1986-88 levels when the world food prices were low. Any alternative solution can be found only when these prices are updated to the current global prices. Also, UPA has to look far beyond the elections, towards what's good for the nation.

Digging up the dirt

In the article the author discusses about the neglegence of impacts on environment by the upcoming development projects in India. EIA(Environmental Impact Assessment) in compliance with EC(Environment Clearance) conditions and EMP(Environmental Managment Plans) is responsible to look after our ecology and assess the impacts of development projects on every aspect of environment such as lakes, rivers, flaura, fauna, forsts, irrigation etc. , hence provide a clearance to the project on the basis of its report. Public hearing is a mandatory part of EIA process and also an important one as it helps improve the transparency and involvement of local community in the system. Though for their effectiveness, public hearings must be held on the project site, most of them are held in district or taluka headquarters.

Mining in Goa has sparked many questions, of which the most vital is whether our projects are anywhere near to environmentally sustainable development. Justice Shah's report throws a light on how this neglected assessment of long-term impacts on ecology has given wings to such projects. This EIA-EC-EMP system of ours, though a very strategised one, isn't being fruitful to the environment due to its poor implementation. What need to be taken in concern must be the long-term or rather cumulative impacts of such negligence to really know what goes and what comes of a so-called development project. Though the EIA should have done it before the mining started, thankfully atleast after the Justice Shah's report the mining in Goa was suspended in June 2012.

Author suggests that it's time EIA-EC-EMP take a look in the mirror and revitalise its social objectives with more transparency and social partcipation implemented in future.

India's invisible population

As the title aptly signifies, the author talks about the uncountable or say 'uncounted' people in the slums of India. JNNURM(Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission) and RAY(Rajiv Awas Yojana) have been given this large resoponsibility, together with large sums of money to bring some ease in access to basic needs for these slum-dwellers. But different studies and research show that these schemes have been undoubtedly inefficient, esp. in Chennai, a city known for good. The main reason highlighted has been the lack of recognition of all slums by the government, a pre-requisite, stated by the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Act of 1971,  for any aid under the schemes. Initially 1202 slums were recognised in Chennai and later 17 more were added, but since 1985 not a single new slum has been added in the list, though in actual the slum-dwellers are adding up indefinitely. 

For those slums fortunate enough to be recognised by the government, the Board has been working on constructing large-scale settlements in the outskirts of cities, instead of improving these people's access to basic amenities. The biggest setback this development sees is that it will cost around $1 billion to build these resettlement housing for all, together with the fact that it will take atleast 40 years to build those large numbers. 

Thereby, a far better and more-viable strategy suggested by the author is to wake 'Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Act' to its duties, so that they work for the needs of these people and utilise the funds given to them in a 'more constructive ways' rather than in 'constructing more housings'.

No covering up this mess

The recent attempts to so-called development in the territory of Delhi, India's national capital, by cementing the channels of drains/nallahs and covering them up, will seem as a bad choice when we'll look at its consequences in future. The author discusses its consequences and other viable options in the article. True it is, that the nallahs have given a hard time to the residents nearby, but covering and concretising them is not an eco-friendly option. The various problems it'll cause will be- Debris and solid waste will be difficult to remove, groundwater will not be replenished, gases will become more toxic and smellier due to lack of oxygen and wildlife residing in the shrubs and trees on nallah banks will lose their habitat.

Most of the present-day nallahs were once clean lakes and rivers which provided for drinking water, irrigated the crops and absorbed overflow of rainwater. Due to ever expanding cities serving somewhat unlimited population for which even land seems to be scarce, these rivers are now an end to drains making them noxious nallahs. 

It is not that the municipal plans have overlooked the issue, but that they have always been inefficient. After the Independence, the plan was always to keep these nallahs as beautiful lakes and rivers but the inefficiency in handling the sewage of such a large population caused these 'nallahs to become nallahs'. A recent audit tells that the Delhi Jal Board only treats 54% of the total sewage produced each day. Though several water treatment plants with good treating capacity have been installed in various areas, they work to their minimal efficiency, plant near Ghitorni and Rohini being the worst.

The most astonishing part is that, while we are concretising are cities and nallahs, rest of the world has woken up and realised its mistake of covering and cementising sewages. London, Seoul and Philadelphia have recently uncovered their lost rivers cum nallahs and turned them into sources of entertainment and examples of natural urban green channels. Though its always the time to act on the issue, its time we stop the wrong act.

The many roads to Kabul

China works out its long-term goals early and works on them continuously. The author reflects his views on the need of similar relationship between India and Afghanistan, as between China and Afghanistan.
First instance of the Pak-Afghan relations was when Pakistan proposed a deal to Afghanistan to extract and market the Afghan mineral wealth worth around $1 trillion. But, due to some reasons the good-looking deal was cancelled. India and China need to talk about the overlapping of interests of nations including Pakistan and Afghanistan as well. The American scholar Dupree once noted that  the Chinese supported the Afghan Mujahideen during the Afghan Jehad against the Soviet presence in Afghanistan. In this Afgan Jehad, all CIA, ISI, General Directorate of Saudi Arabia as well as Chinese were involved. In 1990's Afghanistan began to shelter and support the Central Asian Islamist groups and other groups like Uighur Group.
China turned to Pakistan for help in expelling Uighur militants from Afghanistan but to no results. China's relations with Pakistan, Pakistan's relation with Taliban and Taliban's support of Uighur groups complicate these relations too much. By the time this nexus of confusion breaks, China continues to try expel Uighur groups and alongside develop Xinjiang as an industrial base and trading point.

Rich harvest in the name of charity

In this article the author shows his concern towards the new law passed, which enables land pooling, which is more or less about the profits rather than the claimed development. In a report by McKinsey Global Institute it was stated that for India to catch up their pace of developed countries, it must expand its metro cities at least by three times. So, this report instigated the need of urban-industrial corridors linking our metros for the development. the first of these corridors link Delhi and Mumbai by a 1500 km long and 300 km wide zone. Though a severely dry zone, it is expected that one-third of the total population will move into this corridor. Regardless of high risks of water scarcity, Cabinet has cleared a $90 billion dollar budget for the corridor.

Land pooling is a project to increase the density of metro areas. This happens by assembling small farmer plots and urbanise this whole lot. As compensation the public authorities keep 15-30% of assembled land parcel and the rest of the land is fully urbanised and is returned to the owner farmers with new title lots.

Slum lands are auctioned to the largest builders in the city. In the mean time while the project goes on, the slum dwellers will be rehabilitated in distant transit camps. The builder will build three kinds of blocks of the whole land. First being the flats for the private clients, second the shopping malls and third the densely packed multi-storey blocks to accommodate slum inhabitants. This way the slum-dwellers also benefit and the builders too.  But in an attempt of urban development the Ministry is harvesting riches for the big players and builders. And in attempt of finding a business solution here, the Ministry is forgetting its purpose of sustainable development and is turning away from the issue of future water demands.

In search of the ordinary woman

The author tries to search for the correct definition of an ordinary woman and truly convinces the readers of the need to find a definition. When its always either the laws or our common sense that decide on how things happen, for the space for women and dignity to the character of a common woman, too require some changes. Often many people have related women as 'sexual objects', which are incapable of maintaining order and discipline. Though the words 'sexual objects' do not come directly often, several examples show that they come inevitably in this world of biased common-sense do come along. Lady Hale, the only woman in U.K Supreme Court, tells that the judgements can vary widely depending on the judges attitude towards women and feminism. Urvashi Butalia, author of Other Side of the Silence, explains how not only poverty but common sense and memory turn out to be gender-biased. In the report by Justice Verma, it is highlighted that the need to upgrade the mental and social view of men as well as women on the gender-equality as a whole is inevitable. Then, comes the example of a sexual harassment case of Madras High Court, in which the offender was left free as there seemed no reason for the offender to sexually assault somebody. And so on, digging into past can bring up numerous examples, where one will find questioning himself that what is an ordinary woman.
Section 498A deals with the punishments in case of cruelty by husband or his relative towards a woman. The law states that cruelty is when there is danger to life or limb, i.e an extreme case. Well, how does a woman proves her case, when these cruelties occur within the four walls of a house. Then how is it said that it was with her consent. Unless she kicks, scratches, tears apart, or as of recent saying calls her rapers as 'brothers' and shout out loud to 'leave her alone', will it be a rape with consent?
Till where she has to bear and till when she has to prove that she is not a woman who wants to extract money, take revenge, shatter a home, or have sex with anyone. No more can she bear it, we need to stop, and plead for her dignity and praise for her womanhood and above all make this society a respected and safe place for her. She is, so the world is! 

Commandeering change

Like every time, once again the elections are curiously awaited, for a dream to change India, for a chance to choose someone better. What we have as options are UPA and BJP.
While there was a time between 1996-98 when we had four different Prime Ministers, and now is a time which has seen only two Prime Ministers in last 15 years. Where once stability was highly demanded, now we are dissatisfied with the kind of stability we have faced, a far too extreme stability of 10 years. So, the change demanded by the common man is not of the party or the leader, it is of the the system as a whole. And our urge to see this change, lets us being fooled by the modern marketing and campaigning strategies of these parties and leaders.
First, the author discusses our first option- Mr. Modi from BJP. Though he surely represents a change, but he has yet to convince that he will bring the change. The big miscalculated assumption of BJP that the Lok Sabha elections will be held in Nov, 13 may bring unplanned consequences to its early Modi fire. Due to Modi entering the arena too early, his once pure and nice character is being questioned as 'feku'. Although he hasn't claimed to bring about dramatic changes, still he convinces to bring forward the existing plans in better fruitful ways.
Next, discussion comes along the ways of Congress and Rahul Gandhi. Congress has been ruling the nation for 10 years, with a mediocre performance. What Rahul Gandhi needs to do is to show us the difference between the 2004-14 UPA and the upcoming Congress. Though he started bad, by going against the 'criminal' ordinance, everybody waits to get answer to what he is capable of in future.
Here we stand again hand-in-hand waiting for a change, led by the chosen. The change we need is though more or less the same, still we have different questions in our minds.

NOTA small matter, this

The author discusses what the new button on EVM (Electronic Voting Machine) called NOTA actually means. NOTA stands for 'none of the above' i.e if the voter does not wish his/her vote to be given to any of the candidates, he/she may choose NOTA.
The article tries to find where the government has lacked in bringing up the electoral reforms, quoting the first instance of the ECI's attempt, in 2001, to bring the amendment to the rule to provide the voters an option to reject all candidates. This would be equivalent to the unmarked ballot paper of the times before EVM. In 2004, the then Chief Election Commissioner, iterated the proposal to first time propose it as NOTA, which would have no effect on selection of the winner. When the matter came up in Supreme Court in 2009, the government understood the negative impact this reform could make, by allowing voters to reject all candidates and ask for re-election. And, 9 years after the first proposal of NOTA, the verdict has arrived, still awaiting its consequences.

What is the benefit of this button, atleast in the eyes of the Supreme Court judges? Some say it will cause an increase in number of voters. Some say it will make parties more responsible, thereby forcing them to select better candidates. And some simply quote the right to freedom, expression and liberty of the citizens; a reason for this verdict. Though a step towards better democracy, still a topic of debate if in future NOTA wins over all other candidates. This will ask for re-elections. Are we ready for that time?

The forgotten promise of 1949

The author brings to light the promise made by RSS(rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) back in 1949, and how it fails to stand by it. The promise was to never enter the playground of politics; but by backing up the BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate or should say by naming the BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate as Narendra Modi it has defied its own rules. The behind the scenes BJP-RSS relationship, has been very cleverly maintained by the Sangh's chief.
The Sangh's control-plan over BJP started in 2005, when Mr. Advani visited Pakistan and praised Mohammad Ali Jinnah, and thereby Sangh ordered that Mr. Advani be removed from the BJP's presidentship. Mr. Advani at the party's concluding session in September, 2005 publicly showed concerns about the total control of RSS over BJP's decisions. Seven years later RSS has yet again entered the arena of politics, this time giving a leader, Narendra Modi, a double promotion first to BJP's campaign committee chief and then to its Prime Ministerial candidate.
So, its time RSS defines its relations with BJP and respect a promise on which its existence is based. But why such a promise was ever made? It was in 1949 when Patel realised that the RSS's ways were violent and against the interests of the nation, and though RSS was not directly behind the assassination of Gandhi but its violent ways were definitely a contributing factor in it. Therefore a ban was set on RSS. Later on Sangh requested to remove the ban, to which Patel agreed on a pre-condition that RSS would never enter politics and would remain purely dedicated to cultural work.

Three deals that can change the world

The author tries to convince that India needs a strong stance at the Regional Comprehensive economic Partnership agreement (RCEP) to make its hold in the increasing trades and decreasing restrictions for it. The RCEP which is due to be concluded by 2015, is one of the three mega free trade agreements under action. The other two are 'Trans Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership(TTIP)', and 'Trans Pacific Partnership(TPP)' which have 28 EU members and U.S account for half of the world's GDP with 30% of world trade in goods and services; and six dialogue partners viz. Australia/India/China/Japan/Korea/New Zealand respectively.
These partnership focuses onto decrease the limitations on trading and remove the barriers if any to promote free trade among the partner countries. Though there is limited scope for any more liberalisation but still some industries like footwear, agriculture, textile, automobiles etc can be given more freedom in terms of market access to them.
The author shows his worries to whether these agreements would show any difference in near future, citing the example of the unclosed Doha Round of trade negotiations hanging in since 12 years. 2009 saw U.S enetering the game of trade in Asia, by making its hold on an existing agreement including four small members(Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore), a place where it was being left out.

India though ready for taking a stance at RCEP, but sill is concerned over its options at TPP and TTIP as it would limit its policy options and demand far more liberalisation than it can afford.