The New Nation - Internet Edition

Power generation turns worse

A REPORT in this paper on Sunday stated that the country's power generation came down to 3,324 mw only on Saturday, the lowest in recent years, resulting in large scale power outages across the country even on the weekly holiday. The business community is wailing to get the government's attention to their demand for improving power supply. The government recently declared monetary and fiscal policies that sound sweet on the ears of potential investors for their greater tax breaks and other forms of incentives. But the usefulness of such policies is seriously in doubt for poor power supply.

Entrepreneurs are unlikely to risk their money in building new industries if the same cannot be run from lack of power. This sends a powerful negative signal to investors. Power generation should be planned both for the short term and the medium and long terms. For the short term, government should do much more in getting better services from the ageing power generation units. Repair, rehabilitation and maintenance works must be much improved. The government should buy the excess power that some industries who have their own power generating systems are capable of producing.

For the medium and long terms, all efforts must be directed to installing coal-based power plants. A great deal of precious time has been lost in dilly-dallying on this matter. The country has about 9.2 tcf of unused gas left whereas there is proven coal reserves of the equivalent of 60 tcf of gas. Thus, medium and longer term needs of energy should be taken care of by exploiting this vast coal reserve. Precious gas should be used for producing fertiliser and use in the transport sector. The abundant and less expensive coal reserves should be used for power generation. This is also the international practice.

Earthquake preparedness

AN earthquake measuring 5.1 in the Richter scale with the epicentre at a distance of 290 kilometres from Dhaka shook Dhaka and four northern districts the other day. No serious damage has been reported. In view of increased frequency of tremors in the south-eastern region of the country in recent years, a section of experts apprehends chances of stronger quakes.

On the basis of distribution of earthquake epicentres and behaviour of different tectonic blocks, the country has been divided into three generalised seismic zones. The northeastern regions are seismically the most active earthquake region. Out of 18 major earthquakes since 1548 these zones were shaken at least 11 times. In June 1897 the Great India Earthquake at Shillong Plateau with a magnitude of 8.7 claimed at least 545 lives in Sylhet town. The Barind, Modhupur and Moynamoti blocks and the adjoining areas make up the less risk zones while the southwest region is the least quake prone area.

Bangladesh is at a high risk of earthquakes but it is not ready to combat such calamities. Some multi-storeyed buildings with faulty structural design tilted or even collapsed in the past as approved plans were not properly followed during their construction. Earthquake resistant building code is still not followed rigorously.

In such a state of earthquake preparedness, any quake of greater magnitude is supposed to lead to a human disaster in the cities of Dhaka, Sylhet, Rajshahi and Chittagong. Measures should be taken immediately to minimise damages in the event of a big quake. Buildings with high risks should be identified and demolished or propped up. Experts suggest launching of massive earthquake awareness campaigns, strengthening building inspection system, proper implementation of building code and training for the masons, architects and engineers for facing earthquake. There is also the need for earthquake drills every year to prepare people to face such an event.

Thank God our farmers were untaught

Maswood Alam Khan

Often when I reflect my face on a mirror I wonder what my ancestors did for their living, say, 400 years back! Given the texture and color of my dark skin, my body size and my idiosyncrasies I guess my ancestors were fishermen or farmers from a southern part of India where people akin to my appearance are quite visible. Probability that my genes belong to a distant ancestor of a low caste Hindu cannot be ruled out.

Maybe, many of our ancestors were 'chandals' who had the lowest social status in undivided India and who were 'outcastes even among outcastes' by reason of their degrading work as disposers of dead and they were universally shunned. They were not allowed temple worship with others, nor water from the same sources. Persons of higher castes would not socialize with them. If somehow a member of a higher caste bumped into physical or social contact with an untouchable like a chandal, the member of the higher caste used to feel defiled, and had to bathe thoroughly to absolve himself of the impurity.

A U-turn took place at any point of our genealogical background when one of our ancestors perhaps became ambitious to change his caste by choosing a nobler profession. If our wise ancestor were not ambitious I probably would have been today a rubber plantation worker in Malaysia, or a farmer at a remote village in Bangladesh---or at best a migrant worker in Mauritius as a descendant of any of the indentured Indian laborers who in the early part of the 19th century were shipped in hordes to Aapravasi Ghat, the immigration depot at Port Louis.

Caste system had its merits too. Life would have been hellish if the society were shorn of laborers or shit cleaners. Caste system served as an instrument to ensure an orderly and disciplined society where mutual consent rather than compulsion ruled, where the ritual rights as well as the economic obligations of members of one caste were strictly circumscribed in relation to those of any other caste, where one was born into one's caste and retained one's station in society for life, where merit was inherited, where equality existed within the caste. A well-defined system of mutual interdependence through a division of labor created security within a community.

Caste system and its adhering discriminations, however, have been challenged since the time Islam and Buddhism had started radiating all over the world a message of peace and serenity that 'all are equal to the eyes of the Providence and that there are only two castes: one who views life positively and the other negatively'.

An iron curtain was thus lifted and millions from the dark caves of class slavery were emancipated. The hitherto discriminated people belonging to low castes suddenly broke into rapturous applause to the call for a congregation under a common roof of fraternity; en masse they embraced Islam or Buddhism, two religions that blurred the line between the white and the black, between a chandal and a Brahmin and between the haves and the have-nots. The sentiment against the caste system gathered so much steam that many Hindu reform movements like Brahmo Samaj also renounced caste-based discriminations.

With caste system discouraged and partially abolished a new movement of reverse culture emerged in the mid of the last century: an ironsmith aspiring to make his son a doctor, a chandal aspiring to get his daughter married to an engineer and a dark-complexioned Indian boy studying in Eton aspiring to date with a white-skinned damsel. Selling all their paternal properties many Hindus and Muslims originally belonging to low castes had migrated from rural to urban areas or left home to settle abroad and fraudulently changed overnight their hereditary surnames to graduate themselves to a higher stratum of society.

Farmers had sent their wards to towns for their studying law, medicine or economics with a view to purging themselves of their stigmatic heredity. Thousands of farmers were on a long march to get engaged in non-farm activities in towns and cities at home and abroad---an ominous bandwagon of vocational desertions the British apprehended in advance during their colonial rule.

Lest they face shortage of laborers in tea plantation or railroad construction the British, whose own society back home was divided by class, attempted to equate the Indian caste system to their own class system; they saw caste as an indicator of occupation, social standing, and intellectual ability and Indian caste privileges and customs were rather encouraged. British policies of 'divide and rule' as well as enumeration of the Indian population into rigid categories during their special census contributed towards the hardening of caste identities.

Money on account of subsidies defrayed nowadays by developed countries for their farmers could fetch much more food grains than their farmers are now producing if the amount was spent for food importation from developing countries where labour is cheap.

But, 'food security', a highly prioritised mandate for any government, encompasses responsibilities not only to hoard enough food stock in silos to feed the hungry at times of famines but also to guarantee that farmers remain content with subsidies offered and don't change their vocations so that there is no dearth of workers in agriculture in case a world war flares up or an apocalyptic event closes all the doors for importation of food grains.

Developing nations, however, want to reduce agricultural tariffs and subsidies in rich countries so they can sell more of their produce, while the United States, European Union and others seek better conditions in emerging economies like India and Brazil for their manufacturers, banks, insurers and telecommunications companies. Rich and poor countries have been clashing on this bone of contention repeatedly since the WTO Talks, known as the Doha round, started in Qatar's capital in 2001.

American farmers dominate world markets under the free-enterprise system. They are ever creative in figuring out how to gain larger yields of crops through mechanization or through improving crop strains, such as hybrid corn. They are also taught how to calculate investments taking into account each and every segment of agricultural inputs including self-labor, time, and opportunity cost.

If an American or a Japanese farmer finds that his investment in farming is not highly rewarding compared to same investment elsewhere he is the last person to remain a farmer. That is why USA, to keep their farmers pleased and happy, is distributing more than $48 billion annually in agricultural subsidies linked to price, production and other trade-distorting criteria in contravention of 'fair trade for all' espoused by World Trade Organization.

On the other hand a Bangladeshi farmer's idea of paradise is to till his beloved patch of land and harvest the yield first to fill the stomachs of his family members and then sell whatever is left as surplus. They have not been taught how to calculate opportunity cost on account of labor invested by his family members and himself.

Our farmer sells his land to send his son to Dubai to earn money and prestige and the son, as he returns back to home with some savings after a couple of years, cannot really buy back the land that was sold to buy him the job in Dubai. The unseen opportunity costs thus become the implicit hidden costs of his foolish course of action.

Whatever the asking prices we don't hesitate to pay a private tutor, a cab driver, a hair cutter or a plumber. But we groan in pains and fume in grudges whenever we have to pay a little more to a farmer for his products because we have been used for ages to look at them as belonging to lower castes. Thank God our farmers remained unlettered since time immemorial, did not calculate opportunity cost and dared not ever to ask for a fair price. If our farmers were as educated and organized as their American counterparts we would have been bound to pay a heavy price for our rice.

A bad omen for doom is palpably clear now in Bangladesh with farmers and their sons deserting their paternal homes and fields in quest for fortunes in Dhaka or Dubai as farming in fields is now viewed as degrading a work as that of a chandal in the past. Pushing a cart to carry goods or pulling a tricycle to haul human passengers or cleansing tiled floors of a hotel in Kuala Lumpur instead of tilling lands or weeding the paddy fields is nowadays deemed a graduation from a lower to a higher echelon in our society.

Subsidy to farmers must be the 'priority number one' for our very survival. Educated sons of farmers are getting used to sedentary jobs; they would never go back to their ancestral homes to cultivate fields burning their skins under a scorching sun. If we, therefore, fail to keep our farmers glued to their fields by making the farming jobs more prestigious and monetarily more rewarding than the non-farming ones and if hopping from villages to towns continues unabated the day, I am afraid, is not far away when we would once again be colonized---this time by a country who could well protect their farmers through heavy agricultural subsidies.

Nepal: Things go wrong for Maoists

Nava Thakuria

Loosing an important ballot race in the Constituent Assembly for the 'Head of the State' and his subordinate, the rebellion communists of Nepal find themselves in an embracing situation. The emergence of a three party alliance, opposing the Maoists, has even compelled the Maoist leader Prachanda, who was projected as the Prime Minister of the new Himalayan democratic republic, to rethink about his next step. Why things go wrong, the Maoist chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal alias Prachanda might have asked himself. Prachanda, who lead a bloody revolution to end the then Hindu monarchy, wanted a major share of power in the new democratic regime at Kathmandu. And for many weeks after the April 10 general election (to form the Constituent Assembly), where his party (the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist) scored highest number of seats, everything went on smoothly. In the polls, the Maoists won 220 seats and they were followed by Nepali Congress (110 members) and Communist Party of Nepal - Unified Marxist Leninist (103 members).

It was the glorified time, when the Maoists demanded both the posts of President and Prime Minister for their leaders. But soon they faced the heat of democracy, when the other political parties rejected their demand out rightly. The Maoists then left their claim (for the post of President) but sticked to the post of an executive Prime Minister (which was reserved for Prachanda, 53).

Initially, Nepali Congress projected its leader and the acting Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala as the candidate for the first President of Nepal, who would replace the King as the head of the state. But Prachanda rejected the proposal, because he feared that a senior politician like Koirala as the President would definitely invite troubles for him (as the Prime Minister).

Prachanda however described Koirala as a statesman and a National figure of Nepal. But he preferred Koirala to keep away from any heavy responsibility because of Koirala's age (he is over 80) and fragile health.

Following the mounting pressure from the Maoists, Koirala had earlier resigned from the office of the Prime Minister and waited to submit his resignation letter to the newly elected President. Earlier his resignation letter would have been sent to the King. Mentionable that Nepal Constituent Assembly declared the country as a democratic republic in May 23 and even asked the last King Gyanendra to leave the Narayanhiti palace, which was later converted into a museum.

The Presidential and Vice Presidential race in the Constituent Assembly has however paved way for an alliance of three political parties opposing the Maoists. During the July 19 polls in the Assembly, Maoists faced the first defeat, when their candidate Shanta Shrestha lost to Paramananda Jha, a Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (Madhesi People's Rights Forum) candidate for the post of Vice President. Jha, 73, bagged 305 votes in the 601-member Constituent Assembly to get elected for the ceremonial post.

The Madhesi community, who lives in southern Nepal that is adjacent to India, emerged as a visible political power after the general election and the community leaders asserted its space for political bargaining with the Maoists. Possessing nearly 40% population of Nepal (total populace 27 million), Madhesis, who are culturally and linguistically closed to India, were primarily demanding for an autonomous structure in their localities.

The polls for President could not be completed on Saturday as no one gained the required minimum number (301) of votes. The final round of the polls held on Monday, where Ram Baran Yadav, 61, was declared elected as the first President of Nepal. Yadav, also a Madhesi candidate won the support from 308 members in the Assembly. With the support from the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal - Unified Marxist Leninist, the medical practitioner turned politician, defeated the Maoists backed candidate Ram Raja Prasad Singh, 74 convincingly.

But a section local media at Kathmandu went on reporting that the Maoists supported candidate was winning the polls, as they had highest number of members and also enjoyed the support from the Madhesi groups. Of course, Madhesi leaders initially supported Koirala as the President. Following the objection of Maoist leader Prachanda to Koirala's candidature, the Madhesi leaders were understood to join hands with the Maoists. But it was not realized even though the Maoists supported a Madhesi candidate for the post of President.

It all happened because of a last minute alliance of the Nepali Congress with the Communist Party of Nepal - Unified Marxist Leninist and the ethnic Madhesi People's Rights Forum to confirm the defeat of the Maoist backed candidate. They had earlier succeeded in defeating the Maoist candidate in the Vice-Presidential race also. The new alliance has planned to continue their tie-up till fighting for the post of Chairman of the Constituent Assembly. Even Prachanda himself had termed the alliance (Nepali Congress, Communist Party of Nepal - Unified Marxist Leninist and Madhesi People's Rights Forum) as 'unholy'.

"Maoists now can understand what the democracy is. It is not the time of their bloody revolution, where they could put pressure on some one to make things favourable for them. Now they have to follow the norms of democracy, where people's mandate remained vital and certainly not the other form of power (read weapon)," commented a Kathmandu based political observer.

Speaking to this writer from the capital city, he also hinted that the newly emerged alliance (Nepali Congress, Communist Party of Nepal - Unified Marxist Leninist and Madhesi People's Rights Forum) would put Prachanda in trouble even after he takes the charge of an executive Prime Minister. Moreover, he might have to face an enormous opposition in policy making and implementing accordingly. More significantly Prachanda would face continuous risk of toppling his government by the combined opposition, the observer concluded.

Facing the critical situation, the Maoists had lately decided not to go for the exercise of government formation. The Maoists, after losing in the crucial ballot races in the Constituent Assembly, are ready to sit in the opposition. Prachanda disclosed their decision on July 22 evening, "We will not go to form the government." The decision of the Maoists has however indicated to the emerging complexity in the formation of a government at Kathmandu and also more political uncertainties looming over Nepal in the coming days.

(The writer is a senior journalist based in Gowahati, Assam.)