Why China likes mega hydro projects

Recently a ‘political’ novel, Shengshi: Zhongguo 2013 (2013: the Fat Years of China), written by Taiwanese art critic Chan Koon-chung was released in Hong Kong. The book had a tremendous impact on the former British colony, Taiwan and of course amongst netizens and bloggers in the People’s Republic. Since China has become the world’s second economic power, everyone understands the meaning of ‘fat years’; indeed, China is doing well (at least economically), though according to many China watchers, the ‘Chinese model’ is doing too well; it has created many self-contradictions.
To maintain a tempo close to a double-digit growth, the Communist regime in Beijing has become an ogre devouring energy world-wide. Most of the raw materials (such as oil, gas, wood, minerals, etc.) necessary to feed the economic engine can be ‘bought’ from outside China, except for one: water.
Water is therefore crucial to the survival of the Chinese model for two main reasons: the first is that the energy generated by hydropower plants is badly needed for the economy. China's theoretical hydro-power resources have been estimated at 384 gigawatts. Most of this potential comes from the Tibetan plateau (the purported dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo/Brahmaputra itself has a potential of 38 gigawatts).
The second reason why water is so important to China is because the leaders need to feed more than 1.3 billion people. In the 1980’s, the American agronomist Lester Brown wrote a book, Who Will Feed China in which he studied the cases of Japan, Korea and Taiwan. The conversion of agricultural land for other uses (factories, residential areas, airports, roads, flyovers, etc…) had provoked the loss of 52% of Japan’s grain harvested areas, 46% of Korea’s and 42% of Taiwan’s, while more and more waters were being used for industrial purposes. Brown deducted that the same process will occur in China and ultimately China will be unable to feed its own people. A real nightmare for Beijing!
The most acute problems facing China today are food and water. The future of the Middle Kingdom depends on the success or failure of the present Emperors to tackle these issues which are closely interlinked and, if not solved, are bound to have grave social, political and strategic consequences for the Chinese nation and indirectly for its neighbours.
With this in mind, Beijing engaged in the construction of mega-dams in the 1980’s (under Premier Li Peng, himself an hydrological engineer). During the past 25 years, China has built some of the largest hydroelectric plants in the world. The Three Gorges Dam started in 1994 has a capacity of 22,000 megawatts. Some 13 cities, 140 towns, and 1,600 villages were submerged under the world’s largest reservoir. More than 1.3 million people were displaced. Its cost was $ 37 billion.
Despite these mega projects, water has become a rare commodity in the Middle Kingdom. One of the solutions to save China is to divert the waters from the hydraulically rich South to the thirsty North which has half the population but only 15% of the freshwater.
Waters will be diverted via three channels in the eastern, central and western regions, using dams, tunnels and canals to draw 45 billion cubic meters of water upstream. It will cost $ 62 billion to complete and 350,000 people will have to be relocated.
The western route would draw water from the Tibetan plateau via the upper reaches of the Yellow River to quench the deserts of the North-west.
While the Eastern and Central section of the project are well under way, the western section is still at the planning stage, but it is where South Asia comes into the picture.
Most of Asia’s waters flow from the Tibetan plateau, the principal watershed in Asia. Tibet’s waters flow down to eleven countries and are said to bring fresh water to over 85% of Asia’s population, approximately 50% of the world’s population.
Four of the world’s ten major rivers, the Brahmaputra (or Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibet), the Yangtze, the Mekong and the Huang Ho (or Yellow River) have their headwaters on the Tibetan Plateau. The other major rivers which originate in Tibet are the Salween, the Irrawaddi, the Arun, the Karnali, the Sutlej and the Indus.
For us in South Asia, the main concern is the Brahmaputra, the Indus and the Sutlej whose waters give life to more than one billion people living downstream.
The perennial run of the rivers originating from these glaciers results in a stable flow of water to regions which are dominated by monsoon rainfall. However the construction of the mega-structures has consequences. If on one hand, China has become an expert in dam building, with the Chinese hydropower industry constructing hundreds of dams throughout Africa, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, South America and the Himalayas (Chinese companies have built or are building at least 13 dam projects in Nepal and 9 in Pakistan), on the other hand the double-digit development growth has serious negative effects on China’s natural resources (for example 70% of China’s freshwater is polluted).
An indirect consequence: the May 2008 Sichuan earthquake which measured 7.9 on the Richter scale and caused the death of at least 70,000 people and left more than 5 million people homeless.

Fan Xiao, a chief engineer at the Sichuan Geology and Mineral Bureau affirmed that the weight of nearby Zipingpu reservoir was one of the triggering factors: “I'm not saying the earthquake would not have happened without the dam, but the presence of the massive Zipingpu dam may have changed the size or time of the quake, thus creating a more violent quake”, he said.
In August 2010, some 1200 dead bodies have been found in Drugchu county of Amdo province in Tibet, (Zhuoqu County of Gansu province for the Chinese).
One Tibetan website Phayul.com explains: "Past news reports and statistics of Drugchu county reveal heavy damming of the valley, mining and deforestation." Tibetan blogger and poetess Woeser quotes several government reports: "There are 47 hydroelectric power plant construction projects in the region and so far 15 hydroelectric power plants have been constructed, 14 more are under construction,” adding that local Tibetans believe the extensive construction projects have upset the fragile ecosystem of the region."
One can imagine what will happen if China decides to build the 38,000 megawatt dam (twice the Three Gorges Dams) on the Yarlung Tsangpo/Brahmaputra. Not only will large chunks of waters feeding Assam and Bangladesh be diverted to China, but the construction of and later the reservoir itself will create havoc in these eco-sensitive areas, north of the Indian border. It is frightening just to think about it.
The final decision for diverting the Brahmaputra may not have been taken as yet, but plans are ready. In November 2006, Wang Shucheng, the Chinese Minister for Water Resources admitted: "There may be some retired officials that support the plan, but they're not the experts advising the government,” and he added: "There is no need for such dramatic and unscientific projects.”
A few days ago, the Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply: "China has so far denied any proposal for diversion of Brahmaputra water in China. As per the information available with Government of India, no instances of water diversion activity on river Brahmaputra have been noticed so far."
No doubt, China is going through ‘fat years’, but as far as the damming of the Brahmaputra is concerned, let us hope that the 'so far' will continue indefinitely.

Sri Aurobindo and the Future of Humanity

Today we are celebrating the 63rd anniversary of India's Independence, but also Sri Aurobindo's birthday.
It was perhaps a coincidence or my good ‘karma’, but when I came as a backpacker traveling from France to India in 1972, I carried a book for the travel. This French translation of The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo’s magnum opus was to greatly influence my life and answer a vital question for me: should the ‘outside world’ be transformed in something beautiful ‘which works’ or should the material world be abandoned and all life devoted to reaching ‘higher’ realms?
Frankly, I had some reservations. Traveling for a couple of months in India in the early seventies was a shock for a foreigner. The dirt, the chaos in the big cities, the lack of ‘modern’ facilities, the blaring of loud speakers, the crowds, all these were a constant reminder that things were not so bad in Europe where trains ran on time, towns were clean, information was easily available to the public, hygiene a way of life.
Some of Sri Aurobindo’s words went home: “The affirmation of a divine life upon earth and an immortal sense in mortal existence can have no base unless we recognise not only eternal Spirit as the inhabitant of this bodily mansion, the wearer of this mutable robe, but accept Matter of which it is made, as a fit and noble material out of which He weaves constantly His garbs, builds recurrently the unending series of His mansions.”
Matter had to be transformed in the image of the Spirit. In the same work, Sri Aurobindo noted: “The earliest preoccupation of man in his awakened thoughts and, as it seems, his inevitable and ultimate preoccupation… [is]  the impulse towards perfection, the search after pure Truth and unmixed Bliss, the sense of a secret immortality”.
Unfortunately, as he put it: “These persistent ideals of the race are at once the contradiction of its normal experience.” This central contradiction had to be worked out; Matter and Life had to be transformed.
This second discovery decided me: I did not want to spend my life in a Himalayan cave, but to live more a ‘concrete’ life. Two years later, I left France for Auroville, the ‘Universal City’ near Pondicherry whose ideals, defined by its founder, the Mother, corresponded more to my search: ”Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual Human Unity.”

Is Sri Aurobindo still relevant in the 21st century?
This question remains valid today (if not for me, for India)
To answer this query in few lines does not do justice to Sri Aurobindo who left us 35 thick volumes of his philosophical, socio-political and evolutionary thought, as well as Savitri, an epic in 28,000 verses. However, some glimpses of his socio-political philosophy and how it translated into action during the last years of his life might be thought-provoking.
Today, we hear that India is shining as never before. But on the streets of any metropolis or in the villages of rural India, one still sees the same ‘misery’ which I saw more 30 years ago (with louder noise, more chaos, pollution and garbage).
It is true that in the past two or three decades the Spirit of India appears to have woven new garbs. However is it not symptomatic that a great deal of the ‘shine’ has come from the Indian Diaspora in the West which did not reject the world ‘outside’ while retaining some inner Indian values?
Sri Aurobindo, in a chapter of his Foundations of Indian Culture envisioned a three-point program for the ‘renaissance in India’:
The recovery of the old spiritual knowledge and experience in all its splendour, depth and fullness is its first, most essential work.
The flowing of this spirituality into new forms of philosophy, literature, art, science and critical knowledge is the second.
An original dealing with modern problems in the light of Indian spirit and the endeavour to formulate a greater synthesis of a spiritualised society is the third and most difficult.
This message is more than relevant today as these tasks written nearly a century ago remain unfulfilled. ‘Synthesis’ is a key word in Sri Aurobindo’s vision.
Recently, this ‘Indian renaissance’ has been equated to economic growth, a Chinese-model development with an 8 or 9% growth of the GNP (to ‘become rich is glorious’ à la Deng Xiaoping), but it is certainly not the sort of renaissance Sri Aurobindo envisaged (though he excluded nothing).
But ‘synthesis’ does not mean aping the West! India has to rediscover her past, not for the sake of the past, but because “Spirituality is the master-key of the Indian mind.” The ancient seekers had found that “the physical does not get its full sense until it stands in right relation to the supra-physical; [Ancient India] saw that the complexity of the universe could not be explained in the present terms of man or seen by his superficial sight, that there were other powers behind, other powers within man himself of which he is normally unaware.”
This knowledge is the key to the true transformation the bodily mansion of Mother India. Only then will India be able to play her rightful role in the world and truly shine.
In the meantime, planetary civilisation is going through one of the most difficult (and challenging) times of its recorded history. Just read a newspaper, whether published in India, the US, China or Timbuktu, everywhere headlines are similar: Iraq, environment catastrophe looming large, nuclear proliferation, corruption, new viruses…
In 1940, Sri Aurobindo foresaw: “At present mankind is undergoing an evolutionary crisis in which is concealed a choice of its destiny... Man has created a system of civilisation which has become too big for his limited mental capacity and understanding and his still more limited spiritual and moral capacity to utilise and manage, a too dangerous servant of his blundering ego and its appetites…”
How can we deal with this crisis? Sri Aurobindo’s answer is by a change in consciousness; not only an individual one, but a revolutionary transformation of the entire race.
Sri Aurobindo had noted: “The end of a stage of evolution is usually marked by a powerful recrudescence of all that has to go out of the evolution.... The law is the same for the mass as for the individual.”
The planet is today going through this stage. India could help, but will she be able to grasp once more the Spirit which sustained her past achievements and formulate a ‘greater synthesis’? In 1920, Sri Aurobindo wrote to his brother Barindranath: “The chief cause of the weakness of India is not subjection nor poverty, nor the lack of spirituality or Dharma, but the decline of thought-power, the growth of ignorance in the motherland of Knowledge… The modern world is the age of the victory of Knowledge.” Since then, a tremendous change has occurred; the explosion of the Indian IT phenomenon is one of the many signs which could be cited. But is it enough?
Sixty years after Sri Aurobindo’s departure, can his message help us to deal better with this troubled world?
Though for the sake of his sadhana, he lived a secluded life, Sri Aurobindo never retired into some sort of Nirvana or beatific splendour. He remained well acquainted with the politics of the sub-continent and the world situation. In 1940, when many Indian leaders were vacillating and would have supported a German victory in World War II, he sent a personal contribution to the British war effort and expressed ‘unswerving sympathy’ to the Allies cause. He wrote: “We feel that not only is this a battle waged in just self-defence and in defence of the nations threatened with the world-domination of Germany and the Nazi system of life, but that it is a defence of civilisation and its highest attained social, cultural and spiritual values and of the whole future of humanity.”
Most contemporary Indian politicians believed that Sri Aurobindo could no longer understand the intricacies of the freedom struggle. When Sir Stafford Cripps came to India in March 1942 with a proposal for dominion status as a first step towards full independence, Sri Aurobindo immediately offered his support to Sir Stafford: “I welcome it as an opportunity given to India to determine for herself, and organise in all liberty of choice, her freedom and unity, and take an effective place among the world's free nations. I hope that it will be accepted, and right use made of it, putting aside all discords and divisions...”
Unfortunately, the Congress leaders thought otherwise and rejected the proposal. Dr. K.M. Munshi, a senior minister in the first Indian Cabinet after independence (and the founder of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan) told an audience soon after Sri Aurobindo passed away in December 1950: “We rejected the advice. We who rejected it had sound reasons for it, but today we realise that if the first proposal had been accepted, these would have been no partition, no refugees and no Kashmir problem.”
Sri Aurobindo strongly disapproved of the “two-nation theory”. He described it as “only a newly-fangled notion invented by Jinnah for his purposes and contrary to the facts.” He pointed out: “Jinnah is himself a descendant of a Hindu, converted in fairly recent times, named Jinahbhai.”
If Pakistan would accept its common past with India, a great step towards a more harmonious relation would be made. And why not the creation a sort of confederation between the two nations? Today, it seems that there is long, long way to go.
Today, Sri Aurobindo would certainly firmly condemn terrorism or the Al Qaida type of actions simply for the reason that it is again the future of the human race which is at stake. How can one accept an ideology or a creed which seeks to dominate others and impose by force its will on the rest of humanity?
Sri Aurobindo had taken a similar position when North Korea attacked the South in 1950. He even foresaw the invasion of Tibet: “The whole affair is as plain as a pike-staff. It is the first move in the Communist plan of campaign to dominate and take possession first of these northern parts and then of South East Asia as a preliminary to their manoeuvres with regard to the rest of the continent - in passing, Tibet as a gate opening to India. If they succeed, there is no reason why domination of the whole world should not follow by steps until they are ready to deal with America.”
Sri Aurobindo opposed the hegemony of any one single ideology. For the planet to survive, every nation, every culture or individual has to find its rightful place according to its own genius.
On August 15, 1947 India obtained the independence which Sri Aurobindo had worked so much towards. It coincided with his 75th birthday. For this occasion, he wrote about five dreams. The first one was to see India united again: “India today is free but she has not achieved unity.” During the last years of his life he often spoke of the aberration of the Partition. “It has to go!” Though the occasion presented itself a few times, political leaders were never able to grasp the opportunity. The problem remains, can the division between India and Pakistan disappear one day?
The second dream was to see the “resurgence and liberation of the peoples of Asia”. He envisaged an important role for Asia in the future of mankind. In many ways, this continent has come out of its ashes and it is widely predicted that Asia could be the leader of the world in a few decades. One can hope that it will not be an economic leadership alone, but a deeper one, more in resonance with its spiritual roots.
His third dream was a “world-union forming the outer basis of a fairer, brighter and nobler life for all mankind.” Many groupings such the European Union or the ASEAN are already taking shape. The sub-continent has been slow to come together, but the progress towards a free trade zone and a region where ideas and people can travel freely, seems now to be on its way.
The fourth dream was a “spiritual gift of India to the world”. Here again, one just has to go to a bookshop in the West or look at the number of yoga, dharma or meditation centers flourishing in the United States or Europe to see that a firm beginning has been achieved.
The final dream was a new “step in evolution which would raise man to a higher and larger consciousness and begin the solution of the problems which have perplexed and vexed him since he first began to think and to dream of individual perfection and a perfect society.”
Sri Aurobindo has described this quest as ‘the Adventure of Consciousness and Joy’. It seems to be the most urgent task at hand for humanity. If enough individuals would aspire for this higher consciousness, undoubtedly the process could be hastened and the world around us would begin to change. The Mother once told the Ashram children: “I invite you to a Great Adventure”.
It is perhaps the only relevant adventure in the world today.

The logical outcome of deforestation and dams

Read this report from Green Earth Volunteers (China Environment Brief).
What to say? 
It had to happened. The Tibetans believe in Karma, but it is here purely a physical Law of Nature. The trees retaining the soil are cut, there is nothing left to anchor the soil which, at the first torrential rain becomes mud.

A Report prepared by the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamsala had pointed out: "The first natural resource to be consumed in a modern way was the great forest of eastern Tibet. This is the best watered part of Tibet, and has long had mature forests of spruce, fir, juniper, larch, cypress, oak, bamboo and rhododendron on its steep slopes, perched above the wild mountain rivers that rush toward lowland Asia. These forests have served many purposes to Tibetans for centuries. They were sustainable sources of shelter, rest,firewood, mushrooms, medicinal plants and construction timber. While the nomads may have occasionally cleared a section of forest in order to expand their pastures, they preserved the majority of the forest, especially on the northern face (Daniel Winkler).
Following the Chinese occupation, chainsaws tore into the Tibetan forests all through the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and well into the late 1990s, clearing whole valleys of all their trees without exception, and leaving the mountain slopes without protection from erosion. The felled trees were often simply slid into the rivers, to be recovered downstream in lowland China. Innumerable logs were damaged or smashed en route by the wild mountain rivers,making their sacrifice senseless."
The worse is that it is still the Tibetans who pay the heavy toll. This is not Karma.

Overdevelopment may have caused Zhouqu landslides
(Compiled by Green Earth Volunteers' China Environment Brief)
As of 5:20 p.m. on August 11, the worst mudslide ever to hit Zhouqu County, which is in Gansu Province’s Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, had claimed 1,117 lives and left 627 people missing. The place hardest hit by the natural disaster Sanyan Yugou, experienced large-scale mudslides in 1978, 1989 and 1992. These mudslides destroyed 842 houses, killed two people and left 194 others injured. Nearly every year mudslides in the area damage roads.
A Xinhua news article published on Wednesday said the causes of the Zhouqu mudslide were the “mountainous terrain and loss of ground cover” and, according to the deputy director of the Department of Geological Environment at the Ministry of Land and Resources, “a lingering drought lasting almost 9 months in some local areas and the 2008 Sichuan earthquake that might have loosened the mountainside and caused some cracks are also reasons behind the devastating mudslide.”
An article from Xinmin Evening News [which is the source for all but the previous paragraph of this summary] discussed early warnings of a large-scale mudslide and possible human causes of the disaster.
In the 1980s experts suggested that Zhouqu County be relocated. Five years ago, county investigations identified 86 places that were in danger of landslides. In 1997, Ma Dongta, an engineering expert in natural disaster prevention at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Chengdu Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, wrote in a public paper that if a large-scale mudslide were to occur in Sanyan Yugou, the losses of the disaster would be greater than those experienced in 1992.
After the earthquake in Wenchuan, Sichuan Province in 2008, the land ministry was particularly concerned about landslides. A team of investigators sent by the ministry found 57 areas in Zhouqu at risk of landslides and also advised that the county be relocated in order to reduce losses from natural disasters.
Relocation is difficult, however, because more than 30% of county residents are Tibetan minorities accustomed to living on mountain sides and making a living raising ruit trees, county funds are tight and there is nowhere to go.
According to public data, since 2003, several preferential policies released in the county have spurred the development of hydropower. In five years, contracts for 53 hydropower construction projects were signed, with 41 of them either completed or under construction. The projects have accumulated a slag heap of more than 38 million cubic meters and estimated soil erosion of 749,000 tons. These projects account for more than 80% of construction projects in the county.
Geology expert Fan Shao said that although there is currently insufficient evidence to prove that the mudslides are directly related to hydropower construction, the effect of large-scale engineering projects on geological conditions cannot be ignored and may speed soil erosion. “Hydropower is Gannan’s economic backbone, but if you only consider short-term economic gain, you may eventually face heavier environmental and human losses,” Shao said.
Driving along the Bailongjiang River, there are many hydropower stations of various sizes. “Including all of its tributaries, in total, there should be nearly 1,000, most of which are small power stations with capacity of a few hundred kilowatts,” according to Bailongjiang Forestry Management Administration worker Zhang Qirong.
The hasty development of some of the projects has created potential danger. One week before the recent mudslide, one hydropower station was cited for a series of problems including incomplete safety measures at its materials processing plant and disposal areas. These problems were found to be causing soil erosion.
“I heard my grandpa say that 50 years ago the mountains were covered in dense forest,” said a student at Zhouqu’s No. 3 Middle School. “Now, every year my school takes a trip to plant trees on the mountain side, but the trees survive only rarely.” From August 1952, when Zhouqu’s forestry administration was established, until 1990, about 126,500 hectares of county forest were used for lumbering, with 100,000 cubic meters of forest cut down each year.
At the same time, large-scale cultivation was underway. Zhouqu is an impoverished county, in which about 90% of residents are farmers. Today, all of the land in the county with inclines of less than 40 degrees has been cleared for farming.
Recently, Gansu Province Civil Affairs Bureau Director General Tian Baozhong said that, though plans remain undecided, it was unlikely that reconstruction of Zhouqu County would occur in its current location. According to Tian, a memorial might be erected at the site of the mudslide.
[Source: Xinmin Evening News , Xinhua ]

Some good news on the declassification front

It is probably the beginning of a process, but no doubt the babus will fight hard to keep their 'secrets'. One should congratulate people like Kuldip Nayar or Inder Malhotra for the great work that they are doing to get the history of India free from the bureaucrats' (and politicians') hands.
It would be interesting to file a RTI to request the Government to declassify the content of the two letters sent by Nehru to President Kennedy on November 19, 1962.

"Here is what the Foreign Relations of the United States (US declassified history) says:
November 19, 1962, 8 pm

Eyes Only President, Secretary and SecDef. Verbatim Text.
Following is text of message dated today from Prime Minister to President, to be delivered by B.K. Nehru. Copy handed me this evening by M.J. Desai.
Begin Text.
[The letter conveyed in telegram 1891 was the first of two letters sent by Nehru to Kennedy on November 19. The second was delivered to the White House by the Indian Ambassador on the evening of November 19. The text of that letter was transmitted to the Embassy in New Delhi in telegram 2167, November 19. These letters have not been declassified by the Indian Government. In his biography of Nehru, Gopal summarized these two letters as follows:
["Nehru, apparently without consulting any of his Cabinet colleagues or officials, apart from the Foreign Secretary, M.J. Desai, wrote two letters to Kennedy describing the situation as 'really desperate' and requesting the immediate despatch of a minimum of twelve squadrons of supersonic all-weather fighters and the setting up of radar communications. American personnel would have to man these fighters and installations and protect Indian cities from air attacks by the Chinese till India personnel had been trained. If possible, the United States should also send planes flown by American personnel to assist the Indian Air Force in any battles with the Chinese in Indian air space; but aerial action by Indian elsewhere would be the responsibility of the Indian Air Force. Nehru also asked for two B - 47 bomber squadrons to enable India to strike at Chinese bases and air fields, but to learn to fly these planes Indian pilots and technicians would be sent immediately for training in the United States. All such assistance and equipment would be utilized solely against the Chinese." (Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru, Vol. 3, pp. 228 - 229)] Galbraith [US Ambassador to India]"
And there are many more such historical treasures. 

CIC asks govt to revisit declassification policy
Himanshi Dhawan,
Times of India
Aug 14, 2010,
NEW DELHI: Slamming the government for not having an effective declassification policy, Central Information Commission (CIC) directed the ministry of external affairs to "revisit" the policy and categorise records along the lines of the US and the UK.
The move came in reaction to an RTI application by veteran journalist Kuldip Nayar who had asked for records of 1962 talks between Indian foreign minister Swaran Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the wake of the India-China war.
Incidentally, while the government denied Nayar the information, he told the commission that Pakistan was willing to disclose papers related to the talks but not to an Indian national as there was no such agreement between the two countries.
The commission also directed the government to set up a high level committee to decide on declassifying confidential records. The transparency watchdog said the committee should comprise secretaries from foreign, defence and home departments.
The decision came after a full-bench of the CIC perused all eight "top secret" files related to six rounds of talks between Singh and Bhutto during 1962-63.
"A committee comprising the foreign secretary, the defence secretary and the home secretary be constituted to address and finally decide whether the information in the instant case can actually be disseminated at present fully or partially after the passage of more than three decades of the incident," the commission said.
Nayar had sought these documents from the MEA but his request was rejected by the ministry citing exemption clauses of the RTI Act. The Bench had in March asked the ministry to produce these files for perusal.
The commission asked the ministry to revisit its declassification policy with respect to information existing in the form of old documents, particularly relating to events that took place more than 20 years ago.
The RTI Act allows disclosure of information which is more than two decades old if it does not attract three exemption clauses -- related to sovereignty and integrity of India and other interests of the state, breach of privilege of Parliament or state legislature and Cabinet papers including records of deliberations of the council of ministers, secretaries and other officers.
The panel directed MEA to consider the "automatic, systematic and mandatory declassification review" policy of the UK and the US while deciding on the issue with respect to old documents of historical and international significance. "The MEA will also have to decide whether the policy of withholding the information can be applicable in eternity," the commission said.

Trends in Nepal not good for India

My article on Nepal, Trends in Nepal not good for India appeared today in The New Indian Express. Click on the title to read.

Market Economy Talibans

The day this article appeared  on Phayul.com, I came across another article on 'culture'. 
Interviewed by Xinhua, the Chinese Minister for Culture Cai Wu blasted 'vulgar' media foreign cultural influences for having a growing profile in Chinese society.
The Minister lashed out at the country's broadcasters and publishers, saying much of what they produce is vulgar and kitsch.
Cai Wu said many Chinese publications were full of gossip and sensational stories advocating money-worship. He accused regional governments of spending money on 'vanity projects' instead of basic cultural facilities.
Cai squarely put the blame on China's market economy for this state of affairs.
Well, Mr Cai Wu, look at what your government is doing in Afghanistan. This is wild and vulgar market economy.Don't you think that when China is abroad, it should respect local 'basic cultural facilities'.
Last week, I had already written about the Chinese presence in Afghanistan in The New Indian Express.


Ancient Buddhist site faces threat from mining
Phayul
August 06, 2010
By Tenzin Tsering
Dharamsala, August 6 - A two millennia Buddhist site covering 4500 square metre monastery in Afghanistan’s Mes Aynak hill, faces impending demolition for mining, reported Andrew Lawyer to Sciencemagazine.com
A mining project worth $3 billion is awarded to China Metallurgical Group Corp by the Afghan government which plans to dynamite the ancient monastery located near the capital, Kabul.
It is estimated that China will extract 200,000 tons of copper and provide Afghan government with up to $400 million in annual revenues.
A group of Afghan French archaeologists who recently uncovered more than 100 statues, stupas, and a 5 metre long reclining Buddha among other relics have raised concern saying though the plan to blow up the monastery in last April was stalled, the proposition remains.
Chinese have started building a railroad, housing, and a power plant nearby, in preparation for mining.
Archaeologists are hoping to draw international support to save the historical site which will provide new information about how Buddhism flourished in the region and coexisted with Islam during one era.
“The monastery flourished from as early as the 2nd century BC until at least the 6th century AD although it may have continued as a settlement until as late as the 9th century AD” said Phillipe Marquis, head of the French Archaeologists’ team in Afghanistan.
He proposed a view saying “copper mining and the monastery can coexist by creating a protected archaeological area that eventually could generate tourism income” for the war torn country who are in desperate need of foreign revenues.
Marquis further added that “ Karzai ( President of Afghnaistan) is the one who can say no” and abort the annihilation of the ancient monastery.
“The site is huge and we have amazing remains. Time is running short.This place is going to be destroyed in a few months, and we need to find another solution—or the site is doomed” said Nader Rassouli, director of Afghanistan’s National Institute of Archeology.
AFP reported that the hill has already been heavily looted and quoted Marquis as saying, “the problem of plundering of historic sites in Afghanistan is not only an Afghan problem,it is also an international one.”
This latest threat on the Buddhist monument is reminiscent of the destruction of two monumental Buddha statues carved into a mountain at Banyam, Afghanistan by the Taliban a decade ago.
The two statues standing at 121 and 180 feet high were destroyed by the Taliban in early March 2001 calling them “idolatrous and un-Islamic”.

The Fat Years

My article The Fat Years is posted on Sify.com. Click here to read.

A stupid argument: dam for dam

I find this argument (dam for dam) as one of the most stupid that one can imagine. It has come from the brains of bureaucrats and politicians who have vested interests in the construction of the dam. 
It is surprising that The Economic Times uses this argument.
The pro-dams are probably thinking to take refugee behind the ‘First User’ rights on water flowing from across the border. Unfortunately, as a NGO River Basin Friends points out: "this logic defies the ground realities in absence of an international law on uses of trans-national rivers as much as absence of any binding and tenable treaty with Chinese government."
The NGO further explains: "A report by the Technical Expert Group on Brahmaputra Water Diversion (TEGBW) in early 2009 stated that average water contribution of Chinese river to Brahmaputra is just about 78.10 billion cubic meters (BCM). Although repeatedly Chinese have denied any plan to divert water from Brahmaputra towards its North Western Provinces, yet National Technical Research Organization (NTRO) confirms the Chinese plan to divert billions of cubic metres of water. Ministry of External Affairs had also endorsed the view that China has every reason to divert water to save time and cost towards water starved North Western Provinces. All claims and counter claims have been put to rest on Indian side by National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA). NRSA’s report released in November 2007 indicated that construction in the Chinese area has further progressed in 3 out of 9 structures reported in Brahmaputra basin. As per an assessment report by the TEGBWD, this will reduce average inflow of water by 71.4 BCM into Brahmaputra River at the Chinese observation site called Nuxia. In commercial term for hydro developers, this would reduce the power generation capacity at Lower Siang Project to half and Siang Upper Project by one sixth."
The main point is that Delhi needs to sign a Water Treaty with Beijing regarding not only the Yarlung Tsangpo/Brahmaputra, but all the rivers originating from Tibet.
 

Dam for dam in Arunachal
Economic Times
6 Aug 2010,
Urmi A Goswami,
NEW DELHI: India will fast track hydro power projects in Arunachal Pradesh to counter the Chinese buildup in the area. China is developing a hydel project on the Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibet. Beijing may have assured that the project would not impact the flow of the river into India, but New Delhi is not sitting back. It is focusing on setting up projects on the Siang River, which what the Yarlung Tsangpo is known as after it enters India in Arunachal Pradesh.
This is what gives the Siang basin its strategic significance from an international point of view. Developing the Siang basin will strengthen India’s negotiating position with China. Till now, India has concentrated on the Subasari and Dibang basins.
In view of its importance, the environment ministry has made a commitment to the prime minister that it would put environment and forest clearance for the Siang river basin projects on a special track. As a first step it has already set out the terms of reference for the 2,700MW project by the JP group in lower Siang. The developer will now have to prepare an environment impact assessment report.
The Siang basin has a potential for 20,000 MW, of which only three specific projects with a total capacity of 11,000 MW have been identified. Each of these is at a preliminary stage. The environment ministry is understood to have made a written offer to the power ministry that it would clear these projects in an expeditious manner given their strategic importance.
Upper Siang project likely to be relocated on Chinese concernsth a capacity of 1,600 MW) and the Siang Middle Project (with a capacity of 1,000 MW) in Arunachal Pradesh. The government is considering the suggestion to provide more attractive rehabilitation packages and even additional incentives to the Arunchal Pradesh government to ensure that projects can be implemented smoothly. Given the these projects would improve India’s negotiating stand, in the face of relentless buildup by China, the matter is also being discussed by the group of ministers discussing the external interface on energy security. India and China have no water agreements. As a result there is no structured international convention under which India can appeal should its lower riparian rights be affected by the power projects on the Tsangpo river. In this context, developing the Siang basin provides India the best the safeguard.

Man-made disaster in Tibet

More than 700 dead bodies have alreday been found in Drugchu county of Amdo province in Tibet, (Zhouqu County of Gansu province for the Chinese).   
This raises serious questions. 
The Tibetan website Phayul.com answers partially these questions: "Past news reports and statistics of Drugchu county reveal heavy damming of the valley, mining and deforestation."
Tibetan blogger Woeser quotes several government report: "There are 47 hydroelectric power plant construction projects in the region and so far 15 hydroelectric power plants have been constructed, 14 more are under construction,” adding that local Tibetans believe the extensive construction projects have upset the fragile ecosystem of the region."
“Zhouqu has been ruined for long due to mining activities for many years. All the trees in the hillsides had been logged and you could see dark mud exposed in the air. The river has been polluted with gold rush and it is all muddy. The location of the town is downhill at the village. It is surrounded by cliffs and dangerous slope. Some buildings are constructed in the slopes. I visited the site many years ago, it is not suitable for human habitation. Actually, the town was also hit by the May 12 earthquake in 2008,” says a blogger.
The article of Reuters also quotes different reports and officials to prove that Drugchu faces today a man-made disaster.
The Chinese ogre needs more and more energy in the name of 'development'. But it has consequences on the environment. One can imagine what will happen if China decide to built the 38,000 Megawatts dam (twice the Three Gorges Dams) on the Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra). Not only the large chunk of the waters feeding Assam and Bangladesh will be diverted to China, but the construction and later the reservoir will create havoc in this eco-sensitive areas, north of the Indian border.It is just frightening to think about it.
Of course, the decision has not been officially taken as yet.
A couple of days back, the Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply: "China has so far denied any proposal for diversion of Brahmaputra water in China. As per the information available with Government of India, no instances of water diversion activity on river Brahmaputra have been noticed so far." Let us hope that the 'so far' will continue.

China officials saw landslide risks before disaster
Reuters,
Aug 10, 2010
By Chris Buckley
BEIJING (Reuters) - Officials have warned for years that heavy tree-felling and rapid hydro development were making a mountain area struck by China's deadliest mudslide in decades vulnerable to flooding and land slips.
Government reports last year urged work to restore a battered line of  environmental defences in a brittle landscape, deemed a "high-occurence disaster zone for landslides".
As of Tuesday, 702 people were listed as dead from the tsunami of mud,rocks and water that swept through the town of Zhouqu, in China's northwest this weekend. Another 1,042 are missing.
The Bailong river that rushes through the valley is swollen, some pent up behind a loose dam of landslide debris.
Officially, the landslide has been described as a natural disaster brought on by heavy rains, a drought that preceded it, and the huge 2008 earthquake that loosened the riverside slopes in Gannan Prefecture, the mountainous region of southern Gansu.
But government and media warnings about the fragile state of the 576-kilometre-long (358 mile) Bailong River go back years.
Government documents issued before the disaster said the river and its surrounding slopes were prey to manmade problems, as this poor corner of China sought to turn its forests and riverways into economic assets.
Specifically mentioning landslide risks in a document from April 2009, a government office overseeing the river highlighted the urgent need to rejuvenate the battered natural environment.
"Water volumes have fallen drastically, soil erosion is accelerating, and the trend of frequent land- and mudslides and other geological hazards has not been contained. The repair of the Bailong River basin must not brook delay," the report warned.
The problems are numerous, but widespread tree-felling along the river since the 1950s had caused "grave destruction to the natural environment,creating serious erosion, worsening geological hazards, frequent natural disasters, a fall in water absorption capacity and shrinking flows," it said.

HYDRO DANGERS
An official in the area said that, like other rivers in western China, the Bailong River was over-exploited by rapid hydropower development.
Zhang Qirong, an official with the Bailong River forestry authority, told Reuters that the hydro dams appeared to have been a major factor -- after loosening caused by the 2008 earthquake -- in unleashing the landslides and clogging the river.
He said more than 13 hydro power stations operate in the stretch of the Bailong coursing through Zhouqu, including three big ones.
"Some bigger power stations do (ecological) repairs according to the regulations, but many of them are small power stations under individual investors...They're very lax."
In Diebu County upstream from Zhouqu, the natural brittleness of the environment, tree felling, mining and hydro development had created 228 potential hazard spots that "directly endanger a population of 97,000 people", according to a recent report.
"The Gannan section of the Bailong River has become one of the nation's high-occurence disaster zones for land- and mudslides" the proposal added.
In a recognition of the problems facing the Bailong River, China's State Council, or government cabinet, in 2008 approved a plan that to repair erosion and geological hazards there.
The plan would cost 7 billion yuan ($1 billion), Wang Yong, an environmental protection official in Gannan Prefecture, told the China Environmental News last year. ($1 = 6.77 yuan)

No airport for Tawang

While on the other side of the McMahon Line, Nyingchi (Tibetan: Nyingtri) is gearing up to receive 1 million visitors, the Indian Defence Ministry is stubbornly refusing to have an airport in Tawang.
What to say, except that India will never catch up with China in defence preparedness. Let us not fool ourselves, the Chinese will use the 'civilian' infrastructure in case of conflict with India. A few days back China admitted that the train to Lhasa was used by the PLAs. In fact, there is nothing wrong in this. What is wrong is the attitude of the Ministry of Defence. 
Read also my April posting on the railway to Nyingchi.


Defence Ministry rejects proposal for Tawang airport
9 Aug 2010, PTI
ITANAGAR: The Defence Ministry has rejected a proposal to construct an airport at the Buddhist town of Tawang as it is located close to the Sino-India border, the state government said today.
"They have rejected the proposal but I have taken up the issue with Defence Minister A K Antony and he has assured me to relook into the demand," Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu told reporters here.
At present Tawang, the home district of Khandu, is linked by a daily helicopter service from Guwahati through Bhutan.
Meanwhile, the chief minister alleged that even though the clearance for a greenfield airport at Itanagar has been obtained, the civil aviation ministry is delaying construction.
"I dont know why the NCP, which is a coalition partner of the UPA government is taking a step-motherly attitude towards the Congress-ruled Arunachal," he said.
The state govt has proposed airdropping of PDS items, especially in border areas to mitigate the hardships of the people, Khandu said adding that eight unused advanced landing grounds in different parts of the state have been handed over to the Defence Ministry for their revival.

The mountaineer changing lives in a hill village

Munsyari in the Pithoragarh district of Uttarakhand is the last small town before the Nepal-Tibet border. It is here that Malika Virdi, a well-known mountaineer, social worker and sarpanch till January 2010, has chosen to live amongst the local folk.
It needs courage, character and idealism to forsake urban comfort and move to such a beautiful, but harsh place. Yet coming as an outsider to a remote village, Malika has taken up women's and environmental issues and is working towards bringing a change in the lives of the womenfolk.
Claude Arpi and Abha Tewari discover a lady who left the city for the mountains and is tackling the problems confronting the locals as her own.
Click here to read.

Mind over matter

The Pioneer has published today my article on Nalanda and Amartya Sen, Mind over Matter. Click here to read.
"The Tibetan Buddhist tradition draws its root texts from the Nalanda masters and describes itself as a ‘science of the mind’. It is ironical, therefore, that an initiative to revive the Great Vihara of northern India should plan not to include its greatest champion — the Dalai Lama".

Emergency erased?

Whether it is for the Mukti Bahini Operations in East Pakistan (Bangladesh) in 1971, the death of Lal Bhadur Shastri or Shyama Prasad Mukherjee or the War with China (1962) the historical records have been confiscated by the Government (or destroyed in some cases). Is it the hallmark of a great Nation?
How can Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah keep quite in these circumstances? 
This makes me sad!

'30 yrs on, info on Emergency cannot be official secret'
Jaya Menon,
Times of India
Aug 8, 2010
CHENNAI: So where are the records of India's "darkest days", the political period that seemed to spell curtains for democracy, the Emergency of 1975-1977? If replies to an RTI query are to be believed, no one knows where to find the communications between then President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed and the government before and after the Emergency. And no one has any idea where to look for the relevant documents, notings and records of various decisions. These are not with us, says the ministry of home affairs, passing the buck to the National Archives of India (NAI). The NAI, which is the repository of 'non-current records' of the government of India, says nothing was transferred to it. So where did the records go?
"The presumption is that they (the officers) have either destroyed them or they don't want to give it away. In this context, one can only assume that all the allegations (pertaining to the Emergency period) against Indira Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi were true," said M G Devasahayam, an ex-IAS officer who served as Chandigarh district magistrate during the Emergency.
On February 25, Devasahayam, who now lives in Chennai, set off a chain of extraordinary events with extraordinary implicationw when he sent an RTI application to Sanjukta Ray, deputy secretary and chief principal information officer in the prime minister's office (PMO). He asked for information on the "presidential proclamation of June 26, 1975, declaring a state of Emergency in the country that lasted up to March/April 1977".
The PMO replied on March 4, transferring the queries "for appropriate action" under Section 6(3) of the RTI Act, to the ministry of home affairs, the nodal ministry for enforcing the Emergency. On April 7, PK Mishra, a director in the home ministry, said the information sought was more than 25 years old and not available with the ministry. "As per Rule 5 of the Public Records Rules, 1997, the relevant records and documents may be available in the National Archives of India," he said, adding that a copy of Devasahayam's application had been forwarded to the NAI.
The NAI's response was prompt but the mystery only deepened. On May 11, Rajesh Verma, assistant director, NAI, wrote to Devasahayam, saying, "During a preliminary search, the requisite information sought could not be located ... since it has not been transferred to NAI."
On May 27, Devasahayam dashed off a complaint under Section 18 of the RTI Act to chief information commissioner Wajahat Habibullah but says his "good friend and batchmate...remains silent". Devasahayam says he wants the information, which is not under the Official Secrets Act, because "the country is yet to get over the hangover of the dark days. All that is going on now, the corruption in the system, has flowed from then".

The end of the peaceful rise?

 

Once upon a time, (two/three years ago), the Middle Kingdom spoke of its 'peaceful rise'. 
Now we don't hear any more this slogan coined by President Hu, it has been replaced by the 'core interests' of the People's Republic (and the Party). 

On July 3, 2010, China Review News  published an article discussing the strategy behind the U.S. use of its aircraft carriers in the vicinity of the 'Chinese sea'. 
For the author there were four reasons for the U.S. to send its carriers: (1) pushing China to buy more US bonds; (2) using war threats to hammer China’s development; (3) reducing US debt pressure; (4) confirming that China doesn’t dare to start a war. 
The author believed that the U.S. heavily manipulates nearly all of the problems that trouble China today, such as issues regarding Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, India, Vietnam, the South China Sea, Mid-Asia, and Falun Gong, etc. He sees the ultimate way to resolve China’s problems as being to weaken the U.S. The author further suggested that the right way to handle the U.S. carrier situation is to sink the carriers that are currently having a joint naval exercise with South Korea in the Yellow Sea." 
This is not a very 'peaceful' attitude. The article from the China Brief of the Jamestown Foundation reproduced below illustrates the change in the Chinese strategy.

PLA Posturing for Conflict in the South China Sea?
China Brief Volume: 10 Issue: 16
August 5, 2010
Russell Hsiao
The recent revelation of a Second Artillery Corps (SAC) facility that is under development in China's southern coastal province, Guangdong, and the "unprecedented" maneuvers undertaken by the combined naval fleets of the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) in the South China Sea are only the latest in a string of developments that suggest changes in Chinese strategic posture may be underway (AsiaEye, August 3; South China Morning Post, July 30). These developments appear to be part of a larger effort by the Chinese military to accelerate the re-posturing of its strategic forces in light of thawing cross-Strait relations and to add strength to China's increasingly assertive claims to the South China Sea and other areas that Beijing considers of "core interest."
The Chinese Foreign Ministry's rhetoric of cooperation in resolving territorial disputes in the South China Sea has been replaced by a tone that has grown increasingly assertive in recent years. The latest escalation of tension in the South China Sea is widely seen as a Chinese response to U.S. efforts to mediate competing claims in the region. Growing tensions have been accompanied by an increased level of Chinese naval activity and advances in military modernization that appear directed at countering U.S. capabilities to intervene in the region. Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi even went so far as to characterize the most recent U.S. overture as "an attack on China" (PRC Foreign Ministry website, July 26).
Following the tense exchange between Beijing and Washington, Chinese state-media reported that the PLAN was organizing a large-scale exercise in the South China Sea. PLA Chief of General Staff Chen Bingde and PLAN Commander Wu Shengli supervised the exercise. "We must pay close attention to changes in [regional] situations and the development of our mission; prepare ourselves for military struggle," Chief General Staff Chen was quoted by the state media as saying (South China Morning Post, July 30).
According to Xu Guangyu, a senior researcher of the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association, the three fleets of the PLAN regularly conduct separate exercises to mark the PLA's founding anniversary on August 1. "But of course, this time there is a strategic necessity to bring all three together for such a big joint mission" (South China Morning Post, July 30). The South China Sea exercise exhibited the PLA's comprehensive array of long-range attack capabilities, including missiles launched from submarines and fast-attack craft. More significantly, the exercise displayed the PLA's increasing capability to project force across a wide range of platforms.
China’s force posture appears to be evolving in tandem with the PLA's growing capabilities and adapting to shifts in the changing security environment. This trend is not limited to the Chinese Navy and Air Force but also the SAC.
The SAC’s relocation of a new brigade in the Guangzhou Military Region (MR) was highlighted by an August 3 entry on the Project 2049's AsiaEye, which reported that the Chinese state-run media unveiled a project to construct a new Second Artillery missile brigade—the 96166 Unit—in the northern Guangdong municipality of Shaogun (AsiaEye, August 3).

While the exact motive of relocating the brigade to Shaogun is not known, experts speculate that it may be equipped with the DF-21C medium-range ballistic missile or DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM). According to Retired Major Mark Stokes and Tiffany Ma, the authors of the Project 2049 report, the 96166 Unit’s move to Shaoguan also coincides with the permanent deployment of another possible DF-21-related unit in Guangdong. The 96219 Unit—which has been attached to a host DF-21 brigade in Chuxiong, Yunnan province—has reportedly been moved to Guangdong’s Qingyuan municipality. Another Second Artillery facility, which may be a forward deployment base for ground launched cruise missiles, is reportedly also under construction in the eastern suburbs of Sanya City on Hainan Island off the coast of Guangdong. These recent developments, they argue, "signal a possible broadening of the Second Artillery’s capabilities in alignment with China’s widening ‘core interests’ in the region" (AsiaEye, August 3).
Coupled with the over the horizon radar (OTHR) system under development on Hainan Island, these systems combined would provide the SAC with long-range, accurate targeting of United States carrier battle groups and other important naval assets in the region (See "China’s Conventional Cruise and Ballistic Missile Force Modernization and Deployment," China Brief, January 7). To be sure, China's development of anti-access capabilities could seriously complicate any U.S. ability to maneuver the maritime terrain in this region.
In the final analysis, China’s force posture appears to be evolving with the PLA's growing capabilities and adapting to shifts in the changing security environment. As the SACs' force modernization gains speed with the development of more advanced missiles, the role of the SAC in securing the strategic sea-lanes surrounding China’s coast appears to be growing. These new SAC assets could free up China's growing navy and air force to undertake operations farther from shore. As China continues to develop, field and expand its stock of weaponry, the possible deployment of anti-access capabilities, longer-range conventional ballistic missiles and anti-ship ballistic missiles—which are all under development—could seriously challenge U.S. strategic posture in the region. As time progresses, the PLA may have the ability to hold at risk all classes of targets in the western Pacific and South China Sea.

Repression in Tibet, Human Rights Watch Report Takes The Lid Off

My article Repression in Tibet, Human Rights Watch Report Takes The Lid Off appeared in today's edition of The Statesman. Click to read.

A Chinese Monopoly: Rare Earths

One more worrying news. China has more or less the monopoly on the Production of Rare Earths. I am copying here an article of Wikipedia on the Rare Earths production and another on the defense implications for the US. 
What will happen in case of conflict between China and the US? One billion yuan question!
India is slightly better positioned.

From Wikipedia

"Until 1948, most of the world's rare earths were sourced from placer sand deposits in India and Brazil.  Through the 1950s, South Africa took the status as the world's rare earth source, after large rare earth bearing veins were discovered in Monazite. Until the 1980s, the Mountain Pass rare earth mine  was the leading producer. Today, the Indian and South African deposits still produce some rare earth concentrates, but they are dwarfed by the scale of Chinese production. China now produces over 95% of the world's rare earth supply, mostly in Inner Mongolia.
The highest concentrations of mineable rare earth elements are Inner Mongolia, China, Mountain pass, California, and Mount Weld, Australia.
The use of rare earth elements in modern technology has increased dramatically over the past years. For example, dysprosium has gained significant importance for its use in the construction of hybrid car motors. Unfortunately, this new demand has strained supply, and there is growing concern that the world may soon face a shortage of the materials. In several years, worldwide demand for rare earth elements is expected to exceed supply by 40,000 tonnes annually unless major new sources are developed. All of the world's heavy rare earths (such as dysprosium) are sourced from Chinese rare earth sources such as the polymetallic Bayan Obo deposit. Illegal rare earth mines are common in rural China and are often known to release toxic wastes into the general water supply. The Mountain Pass rare earth mine in California is projected to reopen in 2011. A site at Thor Lake in the Northwest Territories is also under development. Locations in Vietnam have also been considered.
Chinese export quotas have also resulted in a dramatic shift in the world's rare earth knowledge base. For example, the division of General Motors which deals with miniaturized magnet research shut down its US office and moved all of its staff to China in 2006.
In Sept. 1, 2009, China announced plans to reduce its quota to 35,000 tons per year in 2010-2015 to conserve scarce resources and protect the environment. Other sources of rare earth have been searched to avoid shortages and China's monopoly, mainly in Australia, Brazil, Canada, South Africa and the United States. In May 2010, China announced a major, five-month crackdown on illegal mining in order to protect the environment and its resources. This campaign is expected to be concentrated in the South, where most mines are smaller."
World Mine Production (Tonnes)

Country	2006	2007
China	119,000	120,000
India	2,700	2,700
Brazil	730	730
Malaysia	200	200
Thailand	-	-
Australia	-	-
U.S.	-	-
Other Countries	NA	NA
Total (rounded)	123,000	124,000

Key Components of America’s Military Dominated by China?
05 August 2010
Jul.05 (China Military News cited from Business Insider)
How can we put this without sounding alarmist?
Most of America’s key military technologies require rare earth elements, whose production China holds a near-monopoly over.
It’s thus perhaps no surprise that China has made the threat of rare earth export restrictions a new political bargaining chip.
While the U.S. technically has large sources of rare earth elements within its territory, the U.S. rare earth mining industry died over ten years ago.
The Pentagon and the US Energy Department are still scrambling to work out what this means for US security. An interim report from the Government Accounting Office (GAO) has laid bare just how delicate the situation has become.
“The US previously performed all stages of the rare earth material supply chain, but now most rare earth materials processing is performed in China, giving it a dominant position. In 2009, China produced about 97 percent of rare earth oxides. Rebuilding a U.S. rare earth supply chain may take up to 15 years,” it said.
The GAO report said the US had been self-sufficient in rare earth minerals for most of the post-War era. The key mine at Mountain Pass in California shut down in the 1990s when China flooded the market with exports and drove Western mines out of business. One by one, US-based processing plants owned by German and Japanese firms switched operations to China. There are none left.
Cutting-edge weapon technologies are classified, but the GAO said the M1A2 Abrams tank and the Aegis Spy-1 radar both rely on chinese samarium. The US Navy’s DDG-51 Hybrid Electric Drive Ship needs neodymium, which enhances the power of magnets at high heat. The Hell Fire missile requires Chinese components, as do a host of functions in satellites, avionics, night vision equipment, and precision-guided munitions.
We’ll admit that we previously didn’t consider China’s rare earth global monopoly, at 97% of global production, a major issue, given the U.S. has massive rare earth reserves within its borders.
Yet if it would really take 15 years to re-start a homegrown rare-earth industry, then surely China’s monopoly is worrisome, not just militarily, but also economically since rare earth metals are a part of many new consumer technologies, from iPads to hybrid cars.

Indian Cyber Army

In March, I had suggested to present the Award for the Most Misleading Statement of the Year to Sachin Pilot, the young Minister of State for Communication and Information Technology for telling the press: "There have been attempts to hack into the government computer network, but till date there has been no loss of vital information. Yes, there have been attempts but I can categorically say that not one attempt has been successful. ...The government's computer network system, maintained by the National Informatics Centre, is highly efficient".
It is good that the Government acknowledges now that there is a problem and has decided to use the skills of thousands young Indian IT professionals. It sends a strong message to China and Pakistan that India will not lay down, if attacked.
 
India readies cyber army to spy on hostile nations
Times of India
Harsimran Singh & Joji Thomas Philip,
Aug 5, 2010
NEW DELHI: Borrowing a page from China’s art of cyber war, the government is giving shape to an IT infrastructure setup manned by a small army ofIndia's top 10 BPOs software professionals to spy on the classified data of hostile nations by hacking into their computer systems.
IT workers and ethical hackers who sign up for the ambitious project will be protected by law, says the proposal being discussed by senior government administrators. The expertise of these professionals will be used to go on the offensive or preempt strikes by breaching the security walls of enemy systems.
The strategy of taking the fight to hackers was drafted at a high-level security meet on July 29 chaired by National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon. The meeting was attended by the director of Intelligence Bureau as well as senior officials of the telecom department, IT ministry and security agencies, documents seen by ET show. Departments whose officials were present at the meeting did not respond to ET emails.
The government is worried about spying and sabotage from neighbouring countries, particularly China and Pakistan, after a spate of assaults on its computer systems in recent times. The Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto said in April that a clique of hackers based in China had conducted extensive spying operations in India, pilfering confidential documents from the defence ministry.
Though Beijing strongly denied any role in the attacks, the investigation pointed to the Chinese government’s tacit approval of the spying operations. The technical reconnaissance bureau of the People’s Liberation Army that is responsible for signals intelligence collection is headquartered in Chengdu, where the hackers had set up base.
According to the government proposal, the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) along with Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) will be responsible for creating cyber-offensive capabilities. NTRO is a key government agency that gathers technical intelligence while DIA is tasked with collating inputs from the Navy, Army and Air Force.
The NTRO will also suggest measures to ensure legal protection to recruits, a move that is expected to coax software professionals into joining the government group because under the Indian IT Act, hacking is punishable with imprisonment up to three years, or carries a fine up to `2 lakh, or both.
"Even if the offense is done on a computer on foreign soil, it is punishable under Indian laws," says cyber lawyer Pavan Duggal, adding that the IT Act will have to be changed for "patriotic stealth operations".
Mr Duggal welcomed the efforts to establish a hacker group, pointing to the explosive growth in assaults on Indian systems recently. Last year, 600 computers belonging to the external affairs ministry were hacked, allegedly by Chinese groups. The hackers also managed to steal crucial documents from the computers of the defence establishment then.
Vikas Desai, lead technical lead of network security firm RSA, said the government’s efforts can be classified as ethical hacking. "Many countries and organisations in the world already have this kind of infrastructure," he said.
In sheer numbers at least, recruitment may not be a problem. The country is due to produce nearly 5.71 lakh technical graduates and postgraduatesIndia's top 10 BPOs in 2010, says IT lobby group Nasscom. There is also a teeming workforce in India thanks to large anti-virus and software companies such as McAfee, Microsoft, Intel establishing R&D labs here.
The government is not taking chances, however. The NSA’s National Security Council Secretariat has directed the HRD and IT ministries to introduce cyber security in the curriculum of IITs and education institutes.
The government also plans to amplify efforts to strengthen its cyber armour. A National Testing Centre to check all types of hardware and software being sourced by departments for spyware will be established to prevent India’s computers from coming under attack.
The NSA has also asked the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) and DIA to magnify efforts against electromagnetic-pulse bombs that can interrupt wireless signals inside the country. It has also directed the DIA to harden its Transient ElectroMagnetic Pulse Emanations Standards, known as TEMPEST in military parlance. Hardening TEMPEST to a geek means lowering the chances of interception of data transferred by defence agencies on the internet.
To enable this, the government wants to involve engineers and scientists from the IITs and Indian Institutes of Science to develop highly-encrypted algorithms, in large numbers. The high-level meeting notes that government’s cyber efforts are stumped by its ability to produce no more than 3-4 such algorithms in a year.

The Nalanda Tradition excluded from Nalanda

It is perplexing to discover that an Indian Nobel Prize Laureate does not possess the insight to grasp what has been the hallmark of the Indian mind for millennia. I am speaking of Dr. Amartya Sen, the Chairman of the Mentor Group who is trying to revive the ancient Nalanda University. Dr. Sen recently made a statement showing he is out of tune with the spirit of the Indian Ancient Viharas. This is rather worrying for the project. One can always argue that he is just a modern economist and can’t be expected to understand the subtleties of the Ancient Indian Mind.
The facts: when asked about the omission of the Dalai Lama’s name from the international project, Dr Sen stated that “religious studies could be imparted without involvement of religious leaders.”
This is a flabbergasting statement. Does it mean that ‘religious studies’ should be disconnected from the practitioners?
It reminded me of the 1960’s in Europe when the first Buddhist Lamas were engaged as Lecturers in Universities, they were told not interpret Buddhism as an ‘insider’, but remain an ‘outsider’. It is probably what Dr. Sen means when he spoke about the Dalai Lama: “Being religiously active may not be the same as (being) an appropriate person for religious studies.”
These declarations from a supposedly eminent intellectual proves that Dr. Sen has no knowledge of what once made Nalanda University the greatest knowledge center of the entire world.
Does he know why the great viharas of Northern India attracted scholars and students from Korea, Japan, China, Tibet, Indonesia, Persia or Greece, at least till the day it was looted by Bakhtiyar Khalji’s Muslim troops in 1193?
Simply because the teachers, the gurus, the pandits taught what they had practiced and experienced.
It is during the 8th century that Trisong Detsen, the great Tibetan King invited Shantarakshita, the Abbot of Nalanda to introduce the Dharma to Land of Snows and ordain the first monks. Since then, the Lamas of Tibet have faithfully followed the masters of Nalanda.
During a recent encounter, the Dalai Lama explained: “I always describe Tibetan Buddhism as pure Buddhism from the Nalanda tradition. ...Nalanda had great masters such as Nagarjuna or Arya Asanga. …During the 8th century, the Tibetan Emperor invited Shantarakshita. He was a famous, well-known scholar and master of Nalanda. He went to Tibet and spent the rest of his life there. He introduced Buddhism in Tibet. I myself studied the Nalanda tradition of Buddhism; first I learned by heart and memorized what we call the Root Texts. All these Root Texts have been written by Nalanda masters. …The Tibetan Buddhist tradition is the Nalanda tradition which combines the Sanskrit and the Pali traditions as well Buddhist Tantrayana. Masters like Nagarjuna, Aryadeva and Chandrakirti wrote tantric treatises in Sanskrit.”
After the Muslim invasions, the monasteries of Tibet became the last repositories of the ancient wisdom which had been virtually destroyed in India, its land of origin.
Dr Sen does not seem to understand that the Nalanda tradition is not a ‘religion’, but a ‘science of the mind’. The Dalai Lama recounted the story of Dr. Raja Ramanna, the nuclear physicist, who told him that he was surprised to find the concept of quantum physics and relativity in a text of Nagarjuna. The Dalai Lama continued: “The West discovered these concepts at the end of the 19th century or beginning of the 20th century, when some Indian sages like Nagarjuna knew it nearly 2,000 years ago.” Nagarjuna’s concept of Madhyamaka (the Middle Way between extremes) was very much part of the Nalanda curriculum.
The Dalai Lama likes to speak about his contacts with Western scientists. They started 27 years ago: “We have had some serious discussions. We have been meeting annually; the interest is from both sides. …In Buddhism, there is a lot of explanation about the mind, many categories of mind. Therefore Buddhism should be considered as ‘science of mind’.”
The Tibetan leader clearly differentiates between this ‘science of mind’ originating from Nalanda, Buddhist philosophy (like Buddhist relativity of things, he explains) and Buddhist religion. He said: “When I contact modern scientists, I don’t put them in contact with Buddhist religion, but with Buddhist science and to some extent to Buddhist philosophy.” And he adds: “It is important to understand that when we say ‘Buddhist science’, we mean science of the mind; it is something universal; it is not a religion. Buddhist religion is not universal, it is only for Buddhists.”
The Nalanda project should be based on the ‘science of the mind’, not on Buddhist religion.
Unfortunately one has the feeling that Dr. Amartya Sen would like to recreate a new Shantiniketan, an academic institution without its original Spirit. How to lay the foundations of Nalanda International University without the Spirit of Nalanda?
Some analysts tell me, “You are wrong, it is not a question of religion or science, but of politics, Sen is a politician and has to take care of Chinese susceptibilities. China wants to participate and does not want to hear about the Dalai Lama”.
This is terribly ironic. Dr. Sen is probably unaware of it, but the Chinese fought hard to impose their own system of Buddhism in Tibet, but finally it is the Nalanda Path which prevailed.
The decision was taken after a long debate, the famous Samye Debate which was held in Samye (Central Tibet) between the Chinese and Nalanda schools of Buddhism. Shantarakshita before dying had predicted that a dispute would arise between the two schools of Buddhism that had started spreading in Tibet.
The first one — the Chinese school, influenced by Taoism — was of the opinion that enlightenment was an instantaneous revelation or realization. This system of thought had spread throughout China.
The second school, taught by the Indian Pandits of Nalanda, known as the ‘gradual school’ — asserted that enlightenment was a gradual process, not an ‘instant one’, but requiring long study, practice and analysis.
The Samye Debate took two years (792–794 ce) to reach its conclusion. Hoshang, a Chinese monk, representing the ‘instant school’ was defeated by Kamalashila who defended the Indian view. At the end of the debate, the king issued a proclamation naming the Indian Path (from Nalanda) as the orthodox faith for Tibet.
Today, the Marxist rulers in Tibet seem to have forgotten these details; they want to participate in rebuilding the Great Vihara. Fine, but it is nonetheless strange that the main living proponent of the Nalanda tradition is kept out of the project. I am sure that the Dalai Lama does not mind, but it would certainly have been a blessing for the project to have him as a mentor (or Chancellor), like Shantarakshita had done for Tibet.
It is clear that it is the Spirit of appeasement and not of the Spirit of Nalanda which will prevail in South Block today. Very sad.

The Fat Years of China

A new dystopian novel is said to be spreading ‘like a fire burning in the wilderness’ amongst intellectuals in China. Let me explain.
‘Dystopian is the antonym of ‘utopian’. According to the dictionary, it is used for ‘a futuristic society that has degraded into a repressive and controlled state, though often under the guise of being utopian’. In other words it is a negative utopia.
‘Like a fire burning in the wilderness’ is an expression used by Mao Zedong to describe ‘the unexpected rise and popularity of something marginalized or rebellious’.
These metaphors describe a new ‘political’ book, Shengshi: Zhongguo 2013 written by Taiwanese art critic Chan Koon-chung who has been residing in Beijing for the past 10 years. With ‘shengshi’ usually translated as ‘fat years’, the novel is a description of the ‘fat years of China in 2013’.
Though not distributed in the mainland, Chan Koon-Chung's novel has already had a tremendous impact in Hong Kong and Taiwan and of course amongst netizens and bloggers in the People’s Republic.
In The South China Morning Post, Paul Mooney explains: “It's the year 2013 and China is stronger and richer than ever before, while the rest of the world is still reeling from a huge economic tsunami that struck a year earlier. Starbucks is now owned by the Wang Wang Group, and the hottest new drink around the world is longane dragon well tea latte. The authoritarian and often ruthless, Communist Party faces no serious opposition and is patting itself on the back for not following the path of the West. Capitalism with Chinese characteristics is thriving and foreigners who once lambasted China over human rights are now afraid to offend China. Most interesting, the majority of the Chinese people, at least the residents of major cities, are enjoying unprecedented fat times, and couldn't be happier.”
The Middle Kingdom has reached the peak of its prosperity when suddenly the entire population (with the exception of a few) suffers of a ‘collective amnesia’: a month is erased from the memory of the nation, at the same time the population gets intoxicated with the feeling of happiness.
The first part of the book introduces the main characters, while the second tells the story of Lao Chen, a Taiwanese writer who lives in Beijing since many years (like Chan Koon-chung) and shares the collective happiness, until he meets Fang Caodi, one of few who still remembers the terrifying lost month. Both search for Xiao Xi, a young rebel who may also have witnessed this ‘lost month’. Xiao Xi is terribly frustrated as her intellectual friends have stopped fighting against the regime in exchange of comfortable bourgeois lives: "They've changed …They've all become so satisfied."
While searching for Xiao Xi, Chen and Caodi slowly discover a dark China behind the material prosperity. China is not shining, though its people suffer from a collective illusion. The culmination of the story is when the seekers managed to kidnap a high-ranking official named He Dongsheng. They force him to tell the truth about the lost month. After they learn that the Chinese ‘gilded years’ have been achieved by ‘cunning, deception and terror’, they decide to leave the ‘prosperous, powerful, and happy China’.
The novel raises several fascinating (and embarrassing) ‘political’ issues about today’s China. This is probably the reason why the novel will not be published in the Mainland. A reviewer wrote: “the author provides a convincing assessment of how deceptive propaganda, historical misrepresentation, and forced amnesia work together to severely distort the personality and mentality of China’s new generations.” Interestingly the new generation is as severely touched by the loss of memory as the older one.
It is worth reflecting on some of the contemporary issues raised by Chan Koon-chung.
• The Party uses violence to control its own people. In the novel, the Party treats China’s drinking water with a chemical which can change people’s mood, managing to induce the entire nation into a feeling of well-being and happiness. This stirs deep into the psyche of China’s intellectuals. Many in China probably realize today that they have swallowed the amnesia pill. Chan writes that most Chinese have forgotten what happened between the big disaster and the fat years. What about the Tiananmen Square event (referred to in the book as 8964 for June 4, 1989)? The main character Chen asks if this event really happened or not, because after the massacre, “a lot of people in China believed that if the government didn’t suppress the people, society would deteriorate.” It is what Party propaganda made them believe.
• Another interesting point raised by the novel is that the ‘masses’ have been the accomplice of the Party. One character argues, “If it were not that the Chinese people want to forget, it would be not possible for us to force them to do so,” and concludes “it is the ordinary Chinese people themselves who voluntarily take the drug which causes the amnesia.” It is a fact that many Chinese academics or thinkers prefer today to ‘work’ with the Party and join one of the thousand-odd official think-tanks run by the Party, rather than rebel and fight the system like Xiao Xi does. Even in India, most young citizens dream of a sinecure, justifying that he/she will be more useful to the society working within the system. As a result, most sins (social injustice, corruption, babuism, nepotism, etc) are bound to remain forever.
The kidnapped official He Dongsheng says at one point that the Central Propaganda Department does indeed do a lot of work to cover up the truth of the lost month; but it is the Chinese people themselves who choose to forget in the first place.
• It is true that ‘fat years’ have a soporific effect, not only in China. A double-digit growth makes many in India very complacent. Does it mean that when a nation become ‘fat’, the thinkers should stop thinking and keep mum?
• The founder of a leading Chinese scholarly journal lists ten features of the ‘Chinese model’: “democratic one-Party dictatorship, rule of law with social stability as its top priority, an authoritarian government for the people, a state-controlled market economy, fair competition dominated by the central government-owned enterprises, scientific development with Chinese characteristics, self-centered harmonious diplomacy, a multi-racial republic with sovereignty of one people, post-Occidental and post-universal main body of thought and national rejuvenation of the incomparable Chinese civilization.”
The ten characteristics show the skills of the propaganda masters in Beijing; they manage to marry incompatible values such as ‘democratic’ and ‘one-Party dictatorship’, or ‘authoritarian’ and ‘for the people’ or even ‘multi-racial republic’ and ‘sovereignty of one people’. The only question seems to be: how long can the amnesia pill remain potent and keep the people of the Middle Kingdom asleep?
• What is rather shocking is the abandonment by the intellectuals of their role as ‘conscience of the society’ and their open complicity with the State. It is probably why the book stirs so deep in today’s China. In the novel, a member of the Party explains that for intellectuals “recognition by the Party is the greatest success and honor possible.” In other words, the intellectuals are bought out by the promise of material gains or social status. Some may argue that it is not very different in India.
The book has been frequently compared to George Orwell’s 1984. A Chinese reviewer wrote: “From the surface, The Fat Years: China, 2013 and 1984 have several similarities. Both are set in a fictional totalitarian future, and both satirize the system which corrupts the society and the human soul. When we read The Fat Years, we can’t help but be reminded of its predecessor. There is also a Winston Smith in The Fat Years, in the form of Fang Caodi, who is searching for the ‘lost February’. There is also a Julia, in the form of the solitary fighter Wei Xi Hong. There is even a high official in the form of He Dongsheng who is a reminder of O’Brien.”
However the times are different, the Soviet Union has collapsed, China has 300 million netizens and potential bloggers (and a few lakh hackers) who should be clever enough to bypass the Great Firewall Wall of China to find out the truth.
But as long as the Party is able to feed the people and make them proud to be member of the G2, their national egos will probably grow ‘fat’ and they will be blinded by the ‘Orwellian’ system. One doubt however hovers above the Middle Kingdom: can the economic miracle last forever?
The themes used in the novel are obviously written with the situation of China in mind, but what makes this book special is that the concept can be applied at all times and to all nations. Did not Germany suffer a five-year amnesia between 1939 and 1945.
And what about India?
The parties in power (whether present or previous) have never had the propaganda machinery or even the cunningness to make the people swallow a long-lasting pill on their own, and India’s famous democratic system has proved to be a safety valve. Remember when a Party’s mantra was “India is Shining”? It was trashed during the following elections. This is perhaps the greatest advantage of ‘democracy’ compared to the ‘Chinese Model’.