Uttar'knd Disaster: Politics In The Midst Of Human Tragedy

From CJ Rashmi Kalia in Chandigarh

Despite the devastating events in Uttarakhand, our politicians have not hesitated from playing their petty political games to seek advantage over their political rivals. It is saddening to note that when the entire nation is mourning the loss of thousands of innocent lives in this tragedy, the politicians are only seeking political mileage out of the colossal human tragedy.     

The devastation caused by the flash floods in Uttarakhand is a tragedy of mass proportions for all of us.

Utt'khand: Hydro Power Displacing People, Destroying Lives

By Rakesh Agrawal (Guest Writer)

There has been an unexpected thought out rush to build hydroelectric power projects in Uttarakhand without assessing the ecological, social or economic costs of their implementation. The government is not even sure of how many projects are planned and of what capacity. Written well before the recent destructive floods hit the state, this article shows the extent and nature of the developmentalist disease which has afflicted our planners and policymakers. It will provide some background to the debates on the link between the damage to the environment and the destruction caused by the floods.

Politics Of Religion: The Tug-Of-War Over Kedarnath Temple

By M H Ahssan / Hyderabad

At the heart of what we call religion, lies faith – the variations of which manifest themselves as obsession, superstition, prejudice and several other such disruptive emotions. On the flipside of India’s much celebrated plurality, however, are the consequences of the various expressions of faith – the collective experience of which is called religion. The fact that religion is a social construct and hence readily lends itself to politics, is not new. And major parties in India are not unaware of its potential when it comes to political wrestling matches.

Why Rebuilding Uttarakhand Will Cost 600,000 Crores?

By Sumitra Vahi / Dehradun

What did the cloudburst on 16 June take away from Uttarakhand, apart from the lives of 10,000 people? It snapped the backbone of a state – its infrastructure – into several pieces and literally turned it into a ghost state that needs to be re-civilised painstakingly over several years to come. You can trust India’s predilection for religion and all things holy to see tourists returning to the state, but a lot needs to be done to make it visit-worthy again. A PHDCCI survey pegs the tourism industry’s losses at a staggering Rs 12,000 crore. 

Why Case Against Dams Is Overblown In Uttarakhand?

By Ritu Bharadwaj (Guest Writer)

After the Uttarakhand disaster, every NGO worth his or her jhola has got 15 minutes of fame on TV channels for telling their “I-told-you-so” stories. Predicting disasters about dams and floods is something in which you can never go wrong – if you wait long enough. Some time, some day you will have an Uttarakhand happen whether you build dams or not. Why, even Mumbai had horrible flooding in 2005.

The Wonder Drug 'Sanjivani' Quest: Why The Uttarakhand Village Hasn’t Forgiven Hanuman For Defacing Their Holy Mountain?

By MRINAL PANDEY | INNLIVE

Till today, temples in Drongiri village refuse to house idols of the monkey god.

As news of the Uttarakhand government’s decision to launch a Rs 25-crore expedition in the upper reaches of the Himalayas to find the mythical life-restoring sanjivani herb goes viral, this is a good time to recall that the people of a Himalayan village still haven’t forgiven the monkey god Hanuman for disfiguring the mountain on which this mythical plant grew.

Uttarakhand Fury: Rahul Gandhi And A Case Of Bad Timing

By M H Ahssan / Dehradun

It wouldn’t be entirely wrong to say Rahul Gandhi is to the Congress what actor Sunny Deol is to dance.If one were to choose the worst of his several skills – which include a repertoire of wildlife metaphors, a sense of timing and political preparedness – the last two would be the most notable.

His sense of timing continues to be dismal. News of floods and devastation started trickling in from Uttarakhand almost two weeks ago. Yet, there is little logic to explain why he chose to react and visit the state this late. Conflicting reports suggest that Gandhi might have been out of the country when the incident took place and that accounts for the delay.

Uttarakhand Is Paying High Price Of Anti-Environmentalism

By Aniket Mathur / Dehradun

“Do you think the cloudburst at Kedarnath happened because of wrong or commercial construction on the river beds of Haridwar? Kedarnath doesn’t even fall in the eco-sensitive zone and the dhabas on the walk path couldn’t have  triggered calamity of this magnitude.” declares Vijay Bahuguna when asked if Uttarakhand is a “man-made disaster.

A “calamity of this magnitude” may make a lesser leader second-guess his decisions or rethink his future policies, but not Mr Bahuguna. He has no plans to reassess a single tourism or hydro project just because some “activists” are making a fuss.

'No Politics Of Sycophancy Nor Personality Work In 2014'

By Rajdeep Sardesai (Guest Writer)

There is a story, possibly apocryphal, on Babasaheb Bhosale being made Maharashtra chief minister in 1982 when AR Antulay had to resign in the wake of the cement scandal, which perhaps best illustrates the Congress ‘culture’ of power sharing.

Shocked by the surprise appointment of Barrister Bhosale, a senior Congressman summoned the courage to ask Indira Gandhi why she had chosen a political non-entity with no mass base to the high profile post. “Well, the very fact that he is a political novice with no mass appeal makes him the perfect choice!” was Mrs Gandhi’s sharp response.

Commentary: Why Uttarakhand Is Crumbling?

By V. K. Joshi (Guest Writer)

The holy shrine Kedarnath is very much in the news. It witnessed one of the worst natural disasters in the recent years. On the morning of 16th June, 2013, as per the newspaper reports, there was a loud explosion in the Gandhi Sarovar, about four km upstream from Kedarnath. Thereafter a huge mass of rocks and mud and water began engulfing the whole valley. The mudslide was so powerful, that it did not spare anything in its wake.

Dehradun Men Landed At Hyd After Rescue By AP Netas

By Swati Reddy / Dehradun

In a bid to increase the number of people rescued by them from Flood-hit Uttarakhand, politicians from Andhra Pradesh ended up taking several residents of Dehradun to Hyderabad with them. A group of 50 Dehradun residents are currently stranded in Hyderabad after being taken away by these politicians who had gone to Uttarakhand for rescue works.

'Tug-Of-War Of Partisan Politics On Rescue Operations'

By M H Ahssan / Hyderabad

Just when you thought our netas couldn’t plumb the depths of politics any further, they go right ahead and surprise us. Images of Andhra Pradesh Congress MP Hanumantha Rao and Telugu Desam MP Ramesh Rathod jostling with each other and virtually trading blows at the airport in Dehradun point to the extent to which the optics of the rescue effort in Uttarakhand are being cynically used in the tug-of-war of partisan politics.

Opinion: Why is Telangana Getting Provisional Assembly?

By Syed Amin Jafri (Guest Writer)

How long will the formation of Telangana state take under Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill? When will Assembly elections be held? Will Assembly polls coincide with Lok Sabha elections or held separately? Will Telangana and residuary state of AP have simultaneous Assembly polls or go their separate ways? What are the earlier precedents? These are the questions plaguing the political parties and leaders on both sides of the regional divide.
   
The most recent instance of formation of new states — Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chattisgarh — dates back to the year 2000. Madhya Pradesh Reorganisation Bill 2000 was passed by Lok Sabha on July 31 and Rajya Sabha on August 9, 2000.

Animal Concern: Chemical Murder Of Uttarakhand’s Tigers

By Avinash Awasthi / Dehradun

Uttarakhand forest officials have found that poachers are using a deadly but easily available insecticide to target tigers. At first glance, the insecticide carbofuran is innocuous. Like dozens of other pesticides, insecticides and fertilizers, it comes packed in brightly colored bags and is sold over the counter under the common name of Furadan. Yet, the colorless, odorless crystals of carbuforan are stealthily being used to kill tigers in Uttarakhand. Investigations carried out by officials Dr Abhishek Singh, Dr Utkarsh Shukla and Paramjit Singh have revealed that carbofuran poisoning is the probable cause of the mystery deaths of a number of tigers in the region.

Buried Treasure: Villagers In Uttarakhand Turn To A Lucrative Fungus To Supplement Regular Income

By Swetha Reddy | Dehradun

SPECIAL REPORT Every year, as the snow begins to melt towards the end of April, Mahender Singh Bisht and his friends trek three days from their village of Sai-polo in Uttarakhand’s Kumaon division to fields near the Poting Glacier, about 40 kilometres to the north-west. Here, at an altitude of about 3,800 metres, they spend two or three days crawling on their hands and knees, scouring the ground for the protruding stalks of what is known, in the local Kumaoni, as kira jhar—ghost moth caterpillars attached to the stalks of a fungus that attacks and mummifies them during their underground larval phase. 

Uttr'knd: From VVIP Visits To Tourist Influx Has No Plans

By Ashok Chakraborty (Guest Writer)

If only the country had a well-designed plan, a well-equipped, properly functioning disaster management machinery on its toes, with a clear delineation of the hierarchy of commands between the states and the central outfit, you wouldn’t have had a Narendra Modi descending on Uttarakhand.

Nor a Rahul Gandhi, breaking a ban on VIP chopper flights and landings, to see if the relief material in 137 trucks from Delhi had reached the victims. If he needed to that, as suggest by the Congress spokesperson, Renuka Chowdhary, it speaks poorly of her party which was ferrying the material in trucks, flagged off by no less than the mother-son duo, Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, their indisputable leaders.

Home minister, Sushilkumar Shinde, in a rare show of common sense had decreed that there shall be no VIP landings in a region hard-pressed for flat lands, lest such visits interfere with the work on the ground and distract the personnel from operations on the ground.

A Poverty Of Self-Knowledge: What Uttarakhand Reveals?

By Pratap Bhanu Mehta (Guest Writer)

Disaster exposes ways in which our social self-knowledge has not kept pace. Whatever one's views on the myth that moving the Dhari Devi idol unleashed nature's fury on Kedarnath, the story is a perfect metaphor for the faultlines the tragedy in Uttarakhand exposes. According to one version of the myth, the idol is in two parts, the head located at Dhari Devi and the base at Kalimath. For the devout, the important thing is that the head and the base need to be aligned on a particular axis, with the head and feet matching directionally. 

Why India Was Not Prepared For Uttarakhand Floods?

By Jagan Shah (Guest Writer)

The headlines three years ago were similar: ‘flash floods leave North India in deep trouble’ and ‘flood, rain, wreak havoc in North India’. Then, the worst hit districts were Almora, Chamauli, Uttarkashi and Nainital. Now, it is Rudraprayag. As we watch the escalating devastation of lives, homes, livelihoods and public utilities, we shrug about how helpless we are before the wrath of Mother Nature.

But we aren’t helpless: we’ve failed because, though we’ve done our homework on how not to fail, we haven’t actually turned these lessons into practice.

India accounts for one fifth of the deaths caused due to flooding across the world. Twenty-four out of the 35 States and Union Territories are vulnerable to disasters and over 5 percent of our landmass is vulnerable to floods. Annually, an average of about 18.6 million hectares of land area and 3.7 million hectares crop area are affected by flooding.

This has led to a great amount of concern—but not a whole load of action.

'Forgotton Heros': 'The Veer Kargils That Go Unnoticed'

By Rajeev Chandrasekhar / Delhi

Kargil Vijay Diwas is upon us. It is a day of remembrance for and tribute to our armed forces and to the gallant soldiers whose determined efforts saved our country against the enemy on this day in 1999. Many lives and limbs were sacrificed to achieve this, and many families lost their loved ones. We can never forget this. This year, Kargil Vijay Diwas comes in the wake of the devastating floods in Uttarakhand and Assam.

Interview: Why Bahuguna Believes He Shouldn’t Resign?

By M H Ahssan / Dehradun

Facing flak over the handling of rescue operations and politicising the Uttarakhand, Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna has ruled out resigning and said that the state didn’t have adequate information to prevent the tragedy from taking place.

In an exclusive interview, the Uttarakhand Chief Minister brushed aside criticism from other leaders like the BJP’s Sushma Swaraj who had said he should resign over the handling of rescue efforts. “I think other states have faced such calamities and I dont think such a demand was made by any political leader of this country,” Bahuguna said, adding that the BJP leader might not have been aware of the scale of rescue operations carried out.