The Sage and the Prophet
Why should our prime minister be so utterly committed to the USA, asks ANTHONY SIMOES
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Indian humanity has been divided communally and trivialised ideologically. Economically, it is dollar-dominated. It is pathologically politicised. It has been priced-out mega-litigatively from judicial justice. It has devalued ‘swaraj’ and tended to oblige lame-duck President George Bush to serve the interests of America Inc. In the process, it has lost self-respect and self-reliance, going so far as to sign an obviable and obnoxious nuclear treaty.
The masses plead with the protem, but inflexibly firm, Prime Minister: ‘Do defend US, not the U.S. Do compassionately consider the Panch Sheel commandments of ‘swaraj’ since the masses are sinking under asphyxiant inflation. Do break and banish the Iron Curtain between the political parties and the people, do feel for the have-nots and win them back. Do this for the sake of Bharat, ‘swadeshi’ and ‘swaraj.’
The fatal crisis suffocating Indian humanity right now is higher-than-ever inflation. Never has people’s survival been in such peril and so poignant, as it is today. Why should the prime minister of a great country be so utterly committed to the U.S.? Let us recall the country’s first prime minister telling an earlier U.S. president that India was no international mendicant. This nuclear deal submission is unbecoming and unfortunate: it is a bizarre secret. And to think that it comes from Dr Manmohan Singh – an otherwise clean, fine, humane statesman. My patriotic plea is straight: do jettison this surrender to the Yankee.
These words were written in July 2008. Today, they sound prophetic. That is to be expected. These are the words of one of India’s Living Sages. V R Krishna Iyer. The big difference is that the French have come earlier-off the starting-blocks compared to the Yanks who did all the ground work and the wooing. We simply refuse to learn the lessons of history. A history that is less than 20 years old.
In 1992, Sharad Pawar as CM of Maharashtra brought along an American energy company called Enron to build a 2,000 MW gas (LNG) based power-plant in Ratnagiri. It was called the Dabhol Power Project. Since Enron was not a utility company, it roped in Bechtel and General Electric to build the plant. Enron retained an 80% share in the project. Bechtel and General Electric got 10% each.
At that early stage, the World Bank produced a report which said that Ratnagiri was a bad location for a baseline power station. They went on to say that a 600 MW station would be an ideal choice. Sharad Pawar, P Chidambaram, Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Manmohan Singh insisted on going ahead with the project, in the face of all the evidence pointing to an unmitigated financial disaster, in the making. The rest, as they say, is tragedy.
Enron became the biggest bankruptcy in the history of corporate America. Big enough to take Arthur Andersen down along with $40 billion dollars of non-existent wealth. The Chief Executive, Chairman Kenneth Lay, went to jail and an early grave. Hundreds of employees and thousands of shareholders were driven into penury.
India got the worst of it. In 1998, when the power-plant was ‘commissioned’, they used naptha as a fuel, since the LNG facilities were incomplete. The cost had already gone-up to Rs10,000 crore for the incomplete project as against an estimated cost of Rs9,065 crore for the complete project. The electrical energy, generated a cost of Rs8 per unit, as against the estimated Rs1.74 per unit. It was a complete fiasco. Today, the cost of money has raised the cost of the project to Rs20,000 crore and still counting.
The project generated electricity for less than 6 months at a tremendous loss and it has mothballed for the last dozen years. In its latest ‘avatar’, of The Ratnagiri Gas and Power Ltd., it is like the proverbial bride all dressed-up and waiting for a wedding to come along. The new project proponents NTPC and GAIL have abandoned half the installation; viz., regasification plant, cryogenic LNG storage/reticulation, deep-water anchorage for LNG tankers and the service wharf.
NTPC and GAIL are looking at commissioning and then operating only the power plant, but they need the fuel since they are no longer equipped/capable of receiving the original LNG fuel from Qatar. So now, they are building a pipeline from Gujarat to the power-plant in Ratnagiri’s Guhagar taluka to convey natural gas to fuel their power plant. The real cost of this entire fiasco to the people of this country, will not be less than Rs30,000 crore. This is assuming that the power plant will generate power in the next year or so. The abandoned half of the project will be a financial windfall for some of India’s top scrap dealers.
Today, the two shameless Sardars Manmohan and Montek are busy digging, a much bigger hole for us in Ratnagiri. It is called the Jaitapur nuclear power park. It will have 6 reactors/units with a combined capacity of 9,900 MW against Enron’s 2,100 MW. Enron’s estimated cost was Rs9,065 crores. Jaitapur is estimated to cost Rs120,000 crore. Enron used up 1,200 acres of land, Jaitapur needs 2,500 acres. So if Enron power costs Rs8 per unit, what will Jaitapur power cost?
Today, India has an installed capacity of 180,000 MW. One-third of the energy generated in this country is lost due to transmission, distribution and transformation limitations along with some theft – with or without collusion of the authorities and their political patrons. Which means that 60,000 MW of installed capacity, is being rendered unproductive.
At least half of this 60,000 MW can be salvaged by improving transmission, distribution, transformation and security by spending Rs one crore per MW. In other words, if the National Power Transmission Corporation and Power Grid Corporation spend Rs30,000 crores over the next 5 years, India’s power availability will go up by 30,000 MW without having to build any power generation plants.
Instead, we are going to spend Rs120,000 crores over the next 20 years to build a nuclear power facility that will generate a mere 9,900 MW while gobbling up ten square kilometres of land. Not to mention all the safety, radiation and environmental concerns of millions of people, which are being ignored by our Sardar comedians, Manmohan Singh and Montek Singh Ahluwalia. Maybe we should call them Santa Singh and Banta Singh, like the guys in the erstwhile Sardarji jokes.
As Vladimir Ilyich Lenin would’ve said, ‘Jairam Ramesh is so busy counting the trees, he has missed the forest!’
Now I would like to end on a very serious note, by once again quoting V R Krishna Iyer:
“To wipe very tear from every eye, is our tryst with destiny of the current generation – cricket scores, beauty contests and reality shows are not the priorities. The rule of law shall sustain the rule of life. A wall of separation, an Iron Curtain between politicians in power and people in privation, is the cruel social malignancy.”
Dear prime minister: you are clean, green, simple and straight. Do save and not drown, the billion-plus lives whose trustee you, parliament and the judiciary are. We must and we can win our long march to victory, given the will. Therefore, every party and every social, religious and regional organisation, shall struggle patriotically to tear to pieces the political – communal – economic Iron Curtain that is divisive.
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Jumping over puddles again
By Ervell E Menezes
As time goes by, it unwittingly takes its toll on us. And more so, after the three-score-and-ten years allotted. The hairline recedes, the midriff bulges, energy diminishes and there’s a switch in our daily routine. Like, you no longer look into the mirror, or rush from pillar to post. We are in the slow lane, and have to keep out of the path of the charging bulls.
We must learn how to operate a walking stick, and not pause too long at a vertical point, or it will be snapped by those behind in the fast lane. Avoid peak hours and crowded areas. Say bye-bye public transport and hello cabbie. The stick may or may not add to one’s dignity, but the one plus point is that, it can be used as a weapon of defence. Should have done this much earlier, but me and my middle-class thrift. Yet can one ignore the wide gulf between pre and post-open market salaries.
Every generation has its list of what was available, in their time. What one anna was to one generation, became one rupee in the next, and will become Rs 10 or more, in the next. But everyone is sure that theirs were the best years. It’s a clear sign of ageing.
The advantage of cab travel is speed, more comfort and often good cabbie talk. The world over, they say, it is through these cabbies that one can feel the pulse of the people. But you get all types.
This morning, on the Princess Street fly-over, I remarked on the unique 90 degree left turn not seen anywhere, but he just remained mum, chewing his paan. Another whom I tried soothing for bringing him into the crowed lane saying “I’m an old man.” Pat came the reply “how old, 84?”
But it is funny. Nariman Point is buzzing, four or five times busier than when we were, in our salad days. It’s teeming with offices as is Cuffe Parade both replacing the Ballard Estate of old. It’s the laptop generation and young executives, women in suits, as they scamper as if though there is no tomorrow. Returning home it is at half pace and weary. Poor things, wonder what their burn-out age will be? Lambs to life’s slaughter.
But were we not in the same boat? Now reaping the rewards ha ! ha !and jumping over puddles again. The biggest killjoy is the little things that have to be done on the home front. The process of domestication has been slow, but sure. The kitchen has become a regular haunt.
Now one realises why the women have always been harping on “the work never gets over.” When the milk is boiling, either the telephone or the door bell rings. Then it is the task of getting the groceries and odd jobs on the morning walk, because the next outing will be in the evening.
It is a question of planning a day’s schedule. The helps, their timings, food and the nitty-gritty. The most trying aspect is the helps, because with automation, they are a dying tribe and therefore, demand is greater than supply, so you can’t be too harsh on them, or they’ll quit for another job. Besides, they have their demands like TV and cable, and why not?
They too are human, and want upward mobility. Possessing a psychological background is necessary, which will help in dealing with them. It therefore helps in striking a balance between strictness and lenience.
And speaking about balance, we have to do the same as far as physical and mental wear out is concerned. Stress must be avoided. To avoid forgetfulness, resort to the “things to do today” list. It calls for new solutions to old problems, and special managerial skills. So, we already have psychology, psychiatry and management. In good time, one might well be sitting for an MBA!
