Groundwater depletion linked to quakes
Early on February 17, an earthquake of a magnitude of 4.3 reportedly jolted Delhi. Surprisingly, many claimed they had never felt such a strong jolt before. Fortunately, the earthquake did not result in fatalities.
However, the city’s infrastructure remains vulnerable. Research has shown that Delhi’s seismic activity is influenced by human activities such as irrigation and urbanisation, which impact groundwater levels.
Studies suggest that pumping out groundwater can trigger earthquakes by reducing pressure in the underlying rocks.
Most of these quakes occurred within the upper 25 km of the Earth’s crust, making them shallow earthquakes.
The link between groundwater extraction and seismic events has been observed worldwide. In Goa following reports of 60-70 illegal borewells found at Chimbel, the Water Resource Department (WRD) has directed officials to investigate the matter and see to it these wells are disconnected.
Several construction activities in the State have put a huge pressure on groundwater availability. Digging of borewells and transportation of water without the permission of the groundwater officer is a violation of Section 5(3) & 6(1) of the Goa Ground Water Act 2002 and Rules 2003.
Thankfully, Goa has not directly experienced an earthquake, but only tremors from earthquakes in neighbouring States.
The vulnerability of Goa to earthquakes is low. However, with depletion of groundwater taking place in Goa at such a rapid rate, an earthquake cannot be completely ruled out.
Adelmo Fernandes, Vasco
Sovereignty in tatters
The concept of sovereignty is relatively a new phenomenon in history, the primal instinct to extend borders and encroach on a neighbour’s land has never really left the human psyche.
There can be no better example of this than Ukraine, 20 percent of whose territory is now under Russian occupation.
The peace talks initiated by Russia and the US on the neutral territory of Saudi Arabia to end the war ironically do not have any representative from Ukraine, the sufferer.
This could point to a nefarious plan by the two superpowers to divide up the former USSR constituent between themselves with the Ukrainians being declared persona non grata. Trump’s utterances on acquiring Greenland, merging Canada into USA as the latter’s 51st State, annexing the Panama Canal and other assorted hyperbole are ominous signs that the world order or whatever is left of it is sought to be criminally upended by two rogue presidents.
It was after World War II that sovereignty and respect for territorial integrity were codified and enshrined in international law, but countries have only paid lip service to the concept of a self-governing supreme
authority.
Many wars spread across the globe after cessation of hostilities in WWII are undeniable evidence to the fact that the world has never been really at peace ever. As the international rules based order loosens, such cartographic conquests are but resurfacing of primordial impulses of land grabs, sovereignty will become a question of might, not right ; only the mightiest
will survive.
It wouldn’t be a brave new world, but a grave new world where the identity of small countries lacking military muscle would be buried 6 feet under.
Vinay Dwivedi, Benaulim
Exorbitant Metro
fare hike
There has been widespread discussion in Bengaluru about the Metro fare hike and how exorbitant it has been.
The counter arguments from the Metro Rail & government have been that the increases are necessary to recover costs and that the raise in fare is coming after 5/7/12 years as variously stated.
There is also the duality that is being debated as to who is responsible for the fare hike, the Centre or the State government.
Let us answer the last question first. The Metro Rail is a Central Government establishment and is operated by the Centre though the State government may have a stake in it.
Therefore, any fare hike is squarely in the Centre’s court. Now, let us come to the philosophy of assigning fares for public transportation systems.
All around the world very rarely do public transportation systems run at a profit.
Primarily, the motive is to provide transportation as a public convenience or good and hence the fares charged are kept low and to barely recover costs.
Even sometimes the government steps in to subsidise the fares so that the commuter is not overly burdened. This applies to Metro Rail and also underground kinds of public transportation systems.
Thus, one would think that the Metro Rail management in Bengaluru needs to re-think its fare policy. The other thing is that costs keep changing year by year and hence it is the responsibility of the service provider of the transportation systems in this case the Metro Rail to try and recover these costs at reasonable intervals say annually or
bi-annually.
Letting recovery go beyond that is irresponsibility on the part of the service provider since as we have seen in the present case, the commuter is overburdened and looks for alternatives. It was reported that the footfalls in the Metro Rail have dropped by around 100,000 since the
fare hike.
This defeats the very purpose of the mass transportation system. The above principles of pricing would apply across India for all public and mass transportation systems.
Srinivas Kamat, Mysore