Dec/31/2011

‘Thane' claims 33 lives in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry

‘Thane,' the very severe cyclonic storm that crossed Tamil Nadu and Puducherry on Friday morning, claimed 33 lives, and left behind a trail of destruction and human suffering.

Throwing life off course, the storm, which passed the coast north of Cuddalore at 6.30 a.m. at a speed of more than 125 km an hour, uprooted trees and electric posts, disrupted power supply and transport services and damaged homes and standing crops.

Twenty-six people were killed in Tamil Nadu and seven in Puducherry. Besides, hundreds were rendered homeless and forced into relief camps set up by the governments.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa released Rs. 150 crore towards immediate relief works.

While 21 persons died in Cuddalore district, two persons lost their lives in the neighbouring Villupuram district. One person each in Tiruvallur and Chennai were among the dead as strong wind and heavy rain lashed the coastal areas.

Ms. Jayalalithaa announced a solatium of Rs. 2 lakh each to the families of the victims. Puducherry Chief Minister N. Rangasamy said he had briefed Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram on the situation.

Around 6,000 persons in Cuddalore, Villupuram, Nagapattinam, Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram districts and Chennai and low-level areas were shifted to shelters.

Fifteen fishermen who put out to sea in Thanjavur and Pudukottai districts were reported missing. Samba cropped grown on 1,700 hectares in Thanjavur district and 2,000 hectares in Tiruvarur district suffered damage.

Ms. Jayalalithaa, who reviewed the situation with the Chief Secretary and other officials, sent five Ministers to five districts to oversee the relief works.

Secretaries of various departments and Collectors of the districts that bore the brunt of ‘Thane' have been asked to send a report to the government after assessing the damage.

Four teams of the National Disaster Response Force based in Arakkonam were sent to Cuddalore, Nagapattinam, Chennai and Tiruvallur. As a precautionary measure, electricity supply had been cut in Cuddalore, Villupuram and Nagapattinam districts since Thursday evening.

The Chief Minister said she had asked officials to clear the uprooted trees to ensure smooth flow of traffic and resume power supply by Friday evening.

Unprecedented damage

In Puducherry, the Chief Minister convened a meeting of his Cabinet colleagues and senior officials to assess the situation.

“Probably by this evening or by Saturday morning, we will be sending an interim report,” he told The Hindu. Though the damage could not be assessed now, he said, “it is unprecedented and heavy.”

“Initial reports suggest that the wind speed was around 130 to 140 km after 3 a.m. We haven't heard of such a calamity in the history of Puducherry,” he said.

Trains cancelled

Southern Railway cancelled six trains and partially cancelled three services. The arrival and departure of four international flights and more than 25 domestic flights were rescheduled.

Rail projects to be speeded up

Several of the railway projects in Karnataka, including the doubling of the Bangalore-Mysore line, which have been languishing for over a decade owing to land acquisition related issues, are expected to be speeded up with the State Government assuring the Railways that the required land will be handed over in about a month.

Sources in the State Secretariat told The Hinduthat with the Government here keen on fulfilling its commitment, the Railways had been asked to prepare a timeline for the completion of the projects.

Karnataka has been sharing the cost with the Ministry of Railways with respect to 12 projects, several of which are for laying new lines and the others related doubling the existing tracks.

Delay

So far, the State Government has spent over Rs. 1,000 crore, with little benefit to the people though, owing to the delay in the completion of the projects.

The project cost is being shared on 50:50 basis between the State and the Railway Ministry.

The State Government has decided to speed up the completion of the projects and is of the view that providing the required land is the only way to speed up their execution.

The Railways had sought 2,493 acres, and of this the State Government has so far handed over 2,293 acres, and the remaining land would be made over in a month. Strict instructions had been issued to deputy commissioners of the districts concerned to complete the formalities quickly.

The 12 major projects which have been delayed are the Hassan–Bangalore (new line); Kadur–Chikmagalur (new line); Bidar–Gulbarga (new line); Munirabad–Mahbubnagar (new line); Kolar–Chickballapur (gauge conversion); Ramanagaram–Mysore (doubling); Tumkur–Rayadurga (new line); Kottur–Harihar (new line); Whitefield–Kolar (new line); Davangere–Tumkur (new line); Bagalkot–Kudachi (new line), and the Shimoga–Harihar (new line) .

Towards these projects, the Railways had sought land for the Ramanagaram–Mysore and Bangalore–Hassan lines (5.51 hectares in Bangalore, 68.50 hectares in Ramanagaram district, 83.94 hectares in Mandya district, 3.59 hectares in Mysore district, and 10.65 hectares in Hassan district ); Kolar–Chickballapur (8.7 hectares in Kolar and 2.98 hectares in Chickballapur); Raichur–Gadwal (0.4 hectares in Raichur), and Gulbarga and Bidar (forest lands).

For the completion of the Bangalore–Mysore doubling work, the Government had provided most of the land and has to now provide only 29 acres in Mandya district and 6 acres in Ramanagaram district.

The State Government has constituted a high-level committee, under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary S.V. Ranganath, to monitor the completion of the rail projects.

Secretary, Infrastructure Development, Rajkumar Khatri is in overall charge of coordinating with the various departments of the Government and the Railways.

Showdown between PSC and Cabinet averted

A showdown between the State Cabinet and the Public Service Commission (PSC) was averted on Friday with the commission accepting the former's recommendation for extension of rank lists.

The Cabinet had met specially to consider the reply of the commission to its recommendation which had been sought by 4 p.m. on Friday.

The Advocate General, Law Secretary, and other officials were called in to the Cabinet meeting with the objective of considering an Ordinance to take away the powers of the commission for extension of the rank lists and empower the government to do so.

Reply delayed

However, as the reply from the commission was delayed, the Cabinet meeting was adjourned to 6 p.m. By the time it met again, the PSC had communicated its decision to accept the recommendations.

The Cabinet had recommended extension of the rank lists expiring on December 31 to April 2012 twice before, but the PSC had declined to accept the recommendation.

On Wednesday, the Cabinet reiterated the recommendation with some modifications. It was proposed that the rank lists need be extended only till a new live list becomes available or till April 30, whichever falls earlier. Rank lists which were live for four-and-a-half years need not be extended. Expressing his happiness over the PSC accepting this recommendation, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy told the media after the Cabinet meeting that the Cabinet had, however, decided to bring three issues to the notice of the PSC.

The government had reported 41,260 vacancies between April 1 and November 31 this year to the PSC. However, the PSC had advised candidates for only 19,109 posts so far. Appointments to the remaining 22,000 posts should be expedited.

If live rank lists did not exist for those posts, the PSC should take urgent steps to prepare rank lists and advise candidates for the posts.

The Chief Minister noted that about 500 live ranks lists would now be expiring on April 30 following the extension. As the government was not interested in backdoor appointments, it would be reporting all vacancies to the PSC. The PSC should complete procedures and prepare the rank lists to replace all the expiring lists. Mr. Chandy noted that the appointment of differently abled people to the government service had been entrusted to the PSC by the previous government.

Earlier, appointments to posts reserved for them were being made by a committee headed by the Collector. There were 1,154 reserved posts in the government service and vacancies from 2005 remained to be filled.

The government had so far reported 470 posts to the PSC. The PSC should expedite the matter and advise the candidates after completing the procedures.

‘Fleedom' at midnight: Jaitley

Accusing the UPA government of “running away” from voting on the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Bill, 2011 in the Rajya Sabha, the BJP on Friday demanded its resignation, and elections.

At a news conference here, Leaders of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, however, ducked questions whether the party would move a no-confidence motion against the government.

“We would finalise our strategy before the budget session of Parliament scheduled for the last week of February,” they said.

The crux of their argument is that the Congress floor managers orchestrated “disturbance” to bail out the government, which faced the embarrassment of the Trinamool Congress voting against the Bill.

Ms. Swaraj alleged that the entire drama had the blessings of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. Both of them, present in the House, neither spoke nor intervened to bring order, she said.

“At the stroke of midnight, when the world slept, India awoke to a great fraud being played on its parliamentary democracy. It was fleedom at midnight,” Mr. Jaitley quipped.

The two leaders asked how the government could blame the Opposition for the failure to pass the Bill when most of the Opposition parties were consistent in their stand in the Lok Sabha as well as the Rajya Sabha.

Security agencies plan complete tab on mobile, Internet communication

The next five years could change the way how security agencies keep a tab on your phone calls and flow of content on the Internet as the government has proposed a Rs.900-crore corpus for setting up a ‘Centre for Communication Security Research and Monitoring' to give law enforcement agencies a free hand to intercept calls and monitor the worldwide web.

While Rs.800 crore would be invested in setting up a “Centralised Monitoring System” for interception of all types of communications through phones as well as Internet, a ‘Telecom Testing and Security Certification Centre' worth Rs.100 crore would come up for testing of all kinds of equipment, says a Department of Telecommunications report. It has been prepared by the working group on the telecom sector for the 12{+t}{+h}Five-Year Plan (2012-17).

“For the assistance of the law enforcement [agencies], in the 11th Five-Year Plan, a Centralised Monitoring System (CMS) was envisioned. A proposal for the setting up of a Centre for Communication Security Research and Monitoring has already been approved by the Cabinet Committee on Security with a government funding of Rs.450 crore…a good amount of research work on CMS has already been done and rollout has begun during 2011-12,” the report says.

Explaining how the system would be upgraded and strengthened in the next five years, the report points out that a facility for centralised monitoring will be created throughout the country across different telecom and broadband technologies and services at a cost of Rs.350 crore. The system would be further upscaled to take care of an expanded network by creating more facilities at an estimated cost of Rs.150 crore. A sum of Rs.300 crore would be kept aside for operation and maintenance of the mammoth infrastructure.

At present, the entire monitoring of phone calls and Internet content is done, after manually taking authorisation at multiple places on the premises of the telecom service providers (those giving phone and Internet services).

But this system is “time consuming and fraught with dangers of loss of secrecy” and “there is hardly any analytical capability in the system” to assist law enforcement agencies, says the report.

Anti-social activities

While building the case for the new monitoring paraphernalia, the report says: “Exponential growth and quick technological development in the telecom sector further compound the security challenges, because the expanding reach of the sophisticated telecom networks has also led to the communications systems being used by however a small number, individuals, clans and groups, from within the country and outside, for anti-social and criminal activities.”

The report notes: “The anti-social and anti-national elements can use the communication facilities either to communicate their plans, coordinate and execute the crime or they can attack the network, steal the confidential and private information contained in the network devices or flowing through the Internet. These two types of threats require distinct and different handling of the issues.”

‘Pakistan gets due share of Indus water'

“Pakistan is getting its due share of river water under the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960,” Pakistan's Water and Power Minister Syed Naveed Qamar said on Friday.

In a written reply submitted in the National Assembly, he said the treaty allocated waters of the eastern rivers — Sutlej, Beas and Ravi — to India and those of the western rivers — Indus, Jhelum and Chenab — to Pakistan, except for certain specified uses.

In the past, Islamabad had said its share was being diverted by dams in Jammu and Kashmir, though New Delhi has denied the charge.

Army Chief's plea on age rejected

The Defence Ministry has rejected Army Chief General V.K. Singh's statutory complaint to consider May 10, 1951 as his date of birth and conveyed to him that he will have to retire on May 31 next year. Gen. Singh had filed the statutory complaint with Defence Minister A.K. Antony, the first Chief of the 1.2 million-strong Army to do so, after the government on July 21 issued an order saying it would consider May 10, 1950 as his date of birth, which would have denied him another 10 months in office.

‘Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg regions seriously impacted by mining, power projects'

The Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) has called for a “careful cumulative impact analysis of various development activities” in the plains and coastal regions of Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg districts of Maharashtra. It has observed that the “entire region has been seriously impacted, both environmentally and socially, by a number of mining, power projects, and polluting industries.”

The Madhav Gadgil-led panel has accused the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) of “suppressing” the Zoning Atlases for Siting of Industries (ZASI), “apparently under unfair pressure.”

Incidentally, the Ministry had asked the panel to suggest an appropriate course of further development of mining, power production and polluting industries in the two districts.

For the Western Ghats regions of the districts, the panel prescribed “an indefinite moratorium on new environmental clearances for mining in Ecologically Sensitive Zones 1 and 2 and phasing out of mining from ESZ 1 by 2016.”

It recommended the “continuation of existing mining in Ecologically Sensitive Zone 2 under strict regulation with an effective system of social audit” and said no “new red and orange category industries, including coal based power plants, should be permitted to be established in the two ESZs.”

The “current moratorium on new environmental clearances for mining, red and orange category polluting industries and power plants in the plains and coastal tracts of Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg districts should be extended till satisfactory completion of such an analysis of the carrying capacity of these districts. The moratorium may then be reviewed in light of the findings of the study.”

The environmental degradation in the region had led to the “depletion and pollution of groundwater, siltation of water bodies, increased flood frequencies and loss of fertile agricultural land.” It has also resulted in the “depletion of fisheries, deforestation, loss of unique biodiversity elements, such as herbaceous plants of lateritic plateaus, air pollution, noise pollution, traffic congestion and accidents and increase in respiratory ailments,” says the report.

It termed the problems faced by the region as “not just legal, but substantial levels of illegal activities,”

The panel said, “pollution from many industries is also well above the legally permissible limits. Consequently, there is much social discord, especially because people firmly believe that the law and order machinery is being misused to protect illegal activities.”

The panel directed the MoEF to “ask the State Forest Departments to proactively assist the Tribal Welfare Departments in implementing the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers Act. The implementation of the Community Forest Resources provisions of this Act will greatly help create broad-based stakes for people in safeguarding the environment of the region.”

Release zoning report

The ZASI had “generated a spatial database for all the districts of the country, mapping the existing pollution levels and environmentally and socially sensitive areas, delineating zones where it would be undesirable to add further pollution loads, and suggesting locations where industries with different levels of potential air and water pollution impacts may be set up without undue environmental risks.”

However, the database “has not been released at all, and a copy was obtained by the WGEEP only after much effort. The MoEF must obviously expeditiously put all these documents in the public domain,” the panel said.

It observed that the Environment Impact Assessments conducted in the region “were particularly weak in the sections on biodiversity and socio-economic issues.”

The “process leaves out of consideration many pertinent issues. The inputs made available during the public hearings are often simply ignored, leading to high levels of social frustration and discord. In the absence of any transparent, participatory monitoring process, the conditions imposed while according environmental clearance are routinely violated.” It said, “No step has been taken to implement the Biological Diversity Act in Maharashtra, and the implementation has been unsatisfactory and restricted to the State level committee in Goa. The Biodiversity Management Committes must be immediately activated at all levels, before taking any further decisions.”