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.