Abhinav, Kanishkar and other saplings

Abhinav, Kanishkar, Sneha and Chichanya are saplings named after the children who planted them  in J P Nagar,  a Mysore neighbourhood.  A name gives a tree  individual identity ; a bond with neighbourhood residents ; and, hopefully,  a better chance of being looked after.  Abhinav and Kanishkar were planted by their namesakes who gave up  their game of street cricket for the evening on the say-so of  their neighbour  Ravishankar Patil.  Ravi,  an Air Force officer  on home leave, has a green agenda for the mohalla where he grew up in Mysore.

Abhi and Kanish are helped by Ravi’s mother in  planting. As her son,  Sqd.Ldr.  Patil put it,  the saplings will grow with the school boys ; and stay on the same street, as their namesakes,  Abhinav, now in Class III, and Kanishkar, 6th Class, graduate and move on in life.  According to his father, K P  Patil, the  saplings  Ravi planted as schoolboy are now nicely grown trees in Bhadravati, Shimoga district. When the Patils moved to J P Nagar in 2003,  they planted outside their house a couple of honge , representing their college-going daughter and son.  Smitha, now an IT professional is married and has moved to Bangalore. Son Ravishankar, an Air Force squadron leader, is based in Bareilly.

Sqd. Ldr. Patil retains his passion for tree-planting. When on home leave in Mysore  he  collects children in his neighbourhood to help him further his green agenda. Saplings for stree-planting are home-grown by Ravi’s mother, Lalitha, in their backyard. The honge on their house front provides seed. Lalitha reuses empty Nandini milk packets by filling them with manure mixed soil. Seeds sown in Nandini packets are  nursed into saplings, three to four months old. Apart from giving them away to other households, Lalitha prepares ready-to-plant saplings for her squadron leader son who comes home on leave every eight to ten months.

Sqd. Ldr. Patil would like to see his entire street covered with saplings before leaving Mysore on July 10. His regret:  many of the saplings he planted during his last Mysore visit in August have perished during street-widening by the local authorities.  Those who wish to wish him better luck this time could e-mail  rsppatil@gmail.com

The Bhopal heat-and-light show

Panel discussions on TV channels turn out to be  heat-and-light shows ,  ‘full of sound and fury signifying nothing’.  The  TimesNow show on Bhopal gas leak saga  last evening generated much heat, hardly any  light, and some disagreeable name-calling .  We had former CBI director Joginder Singh calling his  former colleague B R Lall  ‘ a lier’ ;  the later accusing his erstwhile boss of  foot-dragging .  Mr Lal held that  his communication to CBI director  seeking permission to prosecute important individuals  in some cases (he cites some) evoked negative response.  Mr Singh cried foul, saying, ‘don’t believe whatever he says , he’s a lier’. Mr Lall  pressed on with his charge , saying he held  copies of the d/o letters he wrote and he was prepared to send them on to Mr Singh.

Mr Lall’s credentials for inclusion in the TV show was his earlier disclosure that ,  as former CBI joint-director,  he had been privy to a communication from the external affairs ministry asking  CBI not to proceed with the case for extradition of former Union Carbide chairman Warren Anderson from the US.   In a different context  Mr Joginder Singh admitted , what we had suspected all along,  that CBI was not an independent agency.

A question I haven’t heard being addressed in any talk show relates to the refusal of Union Carbide to disclose the antidote to Methyl isocyanate (MIC),  the killer gas. Doctors in Bhopal, clueless and left to their own devices, administered drugs for cyanide poisoning, as gas  victims poured in at Hamidia Hospital ,  only to die  by the hundreds. Question : 1)  Does legal provision protecting trade and industrial secrets outweigh the need to share information, so essential to save lives of innocent gas victims ?  2) Isn’t Union Carbide liable to the charge of willful  disregard for human life ;  shouldn’t it  be penalised for witholding, nay,  refusing to divulge to doctors  MIC chemical code that could have saved  lives in thousands ?

Bhopal: A look-back

Looking  back in time,  on what happened over 25 years ago,  you are  fuzzy on details,  but  clearer on the big picture on the Bhopal gas leak story.  I was then 45 , a newspaper reporter  looking at every happening  as a  story,  to be hyped, if need be ,  to claim a  Page One treatment.  Every  event ,  as a newsworthy  opportunity to prove myself . Wars,  floods, quakes, air crash or train smash  have  helped many to  advance their  reporting careers.  The calamitous Bhopal leak in 1984 was, in this sense,  a reporter’s dream story.  Anyone who was someone in the media managed to be in on the story.  They were known as  ‘parachute’  journalists. They dropped in for head office on  the scene to report the story ; and ended up stealing byline and front-page glory from the regular reporter.

That night :   Streets were  full of people moving by instinct, as far away from the Union Carbide factory on Chola Rd as they could. I could smell the gas, though we lived some 5 km away from the factory.  There was no public  announcement through loudspeakerin my part of the town,  no police patrolling . No one seemed in charge.

The morning after:  Hamidia Hospital  overflowed with the sick and the stumbling.  They were all over the hallway, on the driveway, and on the hospital  lawns.  Dr N P Mishra, a high-up in hospital,  said people started coming in with complaints of burning eyes, breathlessness and worse, shortly after midnight.  Doctors didn’t know how to cope .  The gas victims were treated for cyanide poisoning.  Dr Mishra sent out his staff in the middle of the night to drug stores in town,  as the hospital ran out the drug. Treatment did not work on the gas affected. Death toll mounted by the hour.

Union Carbide :  The factory executives made themselves scarce to the media.  Nor were they helpful to the medical authorities by way of  info. on how to deal with gas leak victims.  The company  had an in-house manual on the drill to be followed in case of gas leak within the factory. But they wouldn’t share it with the hospital , at least not in the initial hours when it was most needed.  As for the chemical code in manufacture of MIC, the lethal gas, it was an industrial secret that could not be divulged, even when it claimed lives in thousands.

The Government :  They seemed anxious to ‘facilitate’  the visit of  Union Carbide chairman Warren Anderson and two  other company high-ups to Bhopal in the wake of the gas leak. Police bandobast ensured they were kept ‘safely’  away from  the media that moved in packs during the first few days after the calamity.  Mr Anderson , presumably, on official advice, didn’t visit the factory.  Instead,  they were driven from the  airport to the company guest house.  A few hours later they were  escorted back to the airport and flown to Delhi in a state  govt. plane.

After Mr Anderson was safely airborne the govt. came up with a press statement saying,  1) Mr Anderson was charged with 304 IPC (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) , and Sections 304(A),  120(B),  278,  284,  426 and 429;  and  2) he was  released on a bond of Rs.25,000,  on the surety furnished by a company official.

As for his  ‘house-arrest’ in comfort at Union Carbide guest house, and his trip back on a state plane an official spokesman had this to say:  ‘Mr Anderson’s presence (in Bhopal) might provoke strong passions against him…and  (he was released on bond because) we do not consider his presence in the country desirable’.

A likely story.  And I reported this faithfully, in The Times of India.

Media :  Big newspapers ‘parchuted’  senior journalists to  Bhopal, making  local reporters  feel less important.  And every newspaper reporter  wanted to be in on the story.  And  many seniors in Delhi newspaper  offices,  even a couple of editors, filed news reports to foreign papers and news agencies. They are called ‘stringers’ -  they got paid in dollar terms, took pride in ‘stringing’ for Reuters, BBC or the London Telegraph ;  and they occasionally got a  chance to visit their  ‘home’  offices abroad.  Bhopal gas leak was a story  that interested newspapers  the world over.  Parachute reporters (flown in from Delhi) and stringers outnumbered the Bhopal-based reporters.

Mysore gets excluded

Available reports on recent Global Investors Meet in Bangalore do not show Mysore on the road map of  Karnataka’s industrial development.  The most-talked about place in this regard is Bellary, which is in for some heavy investment in steel.  Never mind the environmental concerns.  Anyway folks in Bellary are used to air pollution by way of red ash renting the air around extensive iron ore mines in the area.

Food-processing  is a cleaner sector,  greenwise.  And Haveri district is the preferred destination for a fair chunk of investment – Rs.100 crores – on a maize  starch  plant to be put up by the Gujarat Ambuja Exports.  Bijapur gets food park,   with accent on processing grape, citrus, banana and pomegranate.  Belgaum is billed for a spice park.

Where is Mysore in this picture ? As a resident,  I feel  excluded,  overlooked.  You can’t talk food-processing  without mentioning  Mysore.  What with the location of CFTRI and  DFRL, not mentioning the recent opening of a commercially operational airport,   wouldn’t you consider Mysore  an obvious choice for investors  in food-processing ? Perhaps, it’s not so obvious, if we take into account the role  political clout and  local  industry  lobby  play  in decision-making process.

Dharmasthala

Haven’t we heard people say,  ‘there’s no such thing as a free lunch’ ? If there is a place where this cliche doesn’t apply, it is   Dharmasthala;  it’s  not just the lunch that’s free here. Our taxi driver who has been here before spoke of free accommodation for pilgrims.  But then he took Rs.50 from me as parking fee at the car park in front of the Manjunath Dharmasthala temple.  I wonder who runs  this parking lot.

They have several residental blocks such as this one.  The Rs.10  you pay when you move into one of these rooms is paid back when you vacate and hand in the key.
Dharmasthala is  a one-class temple,  where everyone  joins the same queue – for dharma darshan.  The security man here is considerate in the case of senior citizens who are allowed to take a short cut that meets  the queue at the inner courtyard of the Manujnatha temple.
This is as close as you can get to the main shrine for taking pictures.  It is not just  photography that is banned inside the temple. Also not allowed are children below aged 2 (didn’t get to ask them why);   cell-phone that is  switched on, and men in half-pants with their shirts and vests on. I guess they don’t allow females in jeans and nighties either.

Moving shirtless inside the temple came as a relief though, for we visited the place during those   sweltering days before monsoon.  The temple authorities have thoughtlfully fixed overhead  tabletop fans every few yards in the queue on  temple parikrama.

Bellary Investment Meet

The two-day Global Investors  Meet (GIM)  in Bangalore turned into a Bellary investment meet.   Mr Lakshmi  (Arcelor) Mittal and the Karnataka govt.  have plans to  turn Bellary into a steel city.  Known for large scale iron ore mining  Bellary is  poised to becoming  man-made environmental ghetto.  Mr Mittal has signed an MoU for a 6 mill tonne steel plant in in the district . Karnataka urban development  minister, Mr S Suresh Kumar  spoke of plans for a steel city in the same area entailing an investment of Rs.80,000 crores.

As if this isn’t enough by way of  state-sponsored high pollutant investment the minister Mr Kumar spoke of other plans,   not just for Bellary but  also Bagalkot, Chitradurga and Gulburga.  If the govt.  has its way,  these districts would be turned into a cement belt.  Steel and cement,  granite and deep-drilling for gold were the sectors that attracted attention of delegates to  GIM-B . Mr Azim Premji of Wipro faults Karnataka for not being as  ‘aggressive’  in drawing  investment in  manufaturing, as neighbouring Tamilnadu which has roped in Dell and Nokia for hardware manufacturing.

News reports on   GIM-B  should set us thinking,  if Karnataka, in the  name of promoting development,  isn’t inviting environmental problems on a massive scale.  Steel and cement are  energy-intensive and high pollutant sectors, whose  long-term social costs  are bound to be higher than the immediate and  mid-term economic benefits  Viewed in this light Karnataka’s development agenda  smacks of  economic adventurism,  for which future generations may well have to pay a  high environmental cost.  A mitigating factor is that  expectations built up at international investors gatherings are never fully  realised.  MoUs that are signed with such media fuss  and fanfare  do not translate into reality. I’m not saying this .  Mr Mittal did, at a Bangalore press meet soon after he signed the first of the MoUs  at the Bangalore  Global Investors Meet. Mr Mittal admits that his company is faced with, in Orissa and Jharkhand  ‘lots of issues , particularly relating to environmental clearances and protests by local bodies”.

Solar alternative to Chamulpura

Going by a Deccan Herald newsreport, a  US-based technology  firm  is  willing to set  up a 50 MW solar plant in Karnataka,  if the govt.  is  interested.  A sales guy from the company is quoted as saying they would even  arrange institutional loan covering 85  percent of the project cost.  Which means the govt. has to chip in upfront  just about Rs.11 crores for a  Rs.750-crore solar project.

The offer appears tempting. The company got no response when it first made a proposal for 20 mw solar plant to the UP govt. Now they are  willing to do a deal with Karnataka.  I view this as  an opportunity for Mysore to lobby for a solar plant.  An earlier move by the government to put up a thermal power plant at Chamulpura,  near Mysore,  got shot down by agitationists.  Here is a chance for  them  – NGOs and environmental care-takers – to get something done.  Here  is a green alternative to Chamulpura.

Mysore has a mayor in Sandesh Swamy, who is out and about on the streets of the city every other morning,  listening to public grievances.  He goes about his padayatra with a platoon of supporters and municipal officials. Dry municipal taps, choked drainage, uncleared garbage in street-corners, and unannounced  power shutdown are the issues residents come up with.

Mr Swamy may not be able to clean up the mess, but he makes headlines in the local media, on a daily basis. Would the city mayor use public support and media goodwill to take up the case of solar power plant for Mysore?  He is chairman of the city corporation’s solar cell, tasked to review  a master plan for energy conservation and promotion of renewable energy  among residents in the city.  Karnataka Renewable Energy Dept. is reported to have santioned Rs.50 lakhs for preparing a master plan and running a  campaign. The civic body has outsourced drafting of a master plan to Mumbai based firm  (Is it Darashaw ?). A solar power plant fits in with such scheme of things.

Agreed. The city mayor can’t bring a solar plant home,  even if he has political clout. But he can surely move party leaders and the bureaucracy in Bangalore. He can take intiative to write to  shakers and movers in the government. He can Google, and connect with the company executives for details on the  proposal, locational and land requirements, terms of funding, timeline of the solar power plant and its employment potential.

US Tamils aid panchayat schools

Philadelphia is home to Liberty Bell, and the  National Constitution Center.  A Tom Hanks/Denzil Washington movie themed on AIDs was set in Philadelphia.  The city now has a Tamilnadu  connection as well , with the state’s education secretary making a trip to  sign  an MoU with US-based non-profit Tamilnadu Foundation (TNF) at their convention held in the city  during Memorial Day weekend.

TNF’s  Philadelphia, Delaware and South Jersey Chapters  and philonthropic Tamils from elsewhere in the US attended the convention. Organisers have decided to use the proceeds, by way of delegates  fee and donations, for  school education programme in Tamilnadu. TNF runs a pilot project in six panchayat schools of Madhurantakam taluk near Chennai. It entails providing for neat, well-equipped class-rooms and toilets ; focus on holistic development of children by enabling them to learn, apart from text-book lessons, yoga, arts & crafts, music and computer learning – the kind of things that make dropouts want to come back to school.

A 9-min. fund-raiser video – Kaveri’s  Kadai – speaks of two lakh Kaveris who are on the verge of giving up schooling  for various reasons -  such as parents migration to cities for emplyment ; economic compulsion that put children to work; burden of  household work on children, examination failure, lack of motivation from teachers, and access to schools. TNF has agreed to partner with the Tamilnadu government in addressing the  issue of school dropouts.

TNF was founded on Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 29) 1974 by four NRI doctors at Baltimore, Maryland, under the presidentship of Dr. P.G.Periasamy. It  has since set up eight Chapters in the US, with a back-up office of 20 staffers in Chennai. It has a conference room, library with educational CDs, two classrooms and computer labs.  TNF has a membership of over 650 NRIs.  Many members commit funds to  projects taken up in  their native villages.

TNF website says Mr N Ponnuswamy of Pasadena CA has taken up building/upkeep of a village school library near Sivakasi (TN) at a cost of $ 7,500 to be spent over the next five years.  ‘Brightened Birthdays’ is a project that enables one to celebrate one’s  birthday with a monthly remittance of $20 (for a year) to help a girl at a  Seerkahzi orphanage. TNF members finance training of  handicapped residents of Madurai Cheshires Home in job skills such as composting, making handicraft products as well as farming ; meeting schooling expenses of children at an orphanage at Aruppukottai . Mr D Arumugam has offered higher education scholarship to two deserving students from his village ( Dalavaipet) in Erode district . TNF has a project to help the upkeep of the aged and the terminally ill in Eruvadi, Tirunelveli.