Stop the killing fields

This is our season of despair. This year, it would seem, the gods have been most unkind to Indian farmers. Early in the year came the weird weather events, like hailstorms and freak and untimely rains that destroyed standing crops. Nobody knew what was happening. After all, each year we witness a natural weather phenomenon called the Western Disturbance, winds that emanate from the Mediterranean and travel eastward towards India. What was new this year was the sheer “freakiness” of these disturbances, which brought extreme rain with unusual frequency and intensity. More importantly, instead of “breaking” over the Himalayas, as these disturbances are prone to do, these winds with moisture travelled eastward towards Bengal and even southward towards Madhya Pradesh. Meteorologists were spooked.

And farmers, watching their standing crops destroyed before their eyes, were caught off guard. Their pain was palpable. My colleagues who went to understand what was happening in rural Uttar Pradesh after these events came back with tales of utter shock. Farmers were already caught in a spiral of debt because of the increasing cost of agriculture and now this. It was nothing less than carnage.

But this was only the beginning of the year, the first cropping season. Then came the whopper of a drought season, linked to El Niño—warming of the Pacific that gives the monsoon a fever. In many parts of the country, this would be the second or third or even the fourth consecutive monsoon failure. It is a terrible situation, with no water for crops, livestock or drinking in many parts.

The question is:

will it end soon, or is it a beginning, a glimpse of what the future looks like? The answer to this question holds the difference between life and death, literally.

The fact is if we dismiss this season of despair as a freak year, then we will never put into place the corrections so desperately needed in a future that is even more risky and makes us even more vulnerable. Meteorologists will tell you that the weather is becoming more erratic, more confounding and definitely more devastating. Even if they hesitate to use the word “climate”, they will agree that something new is afoot. In other words, this is not just natural weather variability, but portends long-term changes.

So what do we do?

1. First, we need to invest big time in weather sciences. This is where our future security lies. Monsoon is our finance minister and it is not just capricious, but perhaps the most globalised Indian. We need to invest in the science of monsoons and weather forecasting. In the last budget, there was across-the-board cut in the money allocated to all scientific ministries. This means institutions following and learning the monsoon, like the Pune-based Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, could see as much as a 25-30 per cent reduction in their annual budget. This is short-sighted, if not downright foolish. We need to spend more, not less, on this lifeline science.

2. Second, we need to do much more to fix our agrarian crisis. It is clear that farmers are caught in a double bind. On the one hand, costs of all inputs, particularly labour and water, are increasing and on the other hand, there are controls on food prices. Our food pricing policy is built on the premise that we are a poor country, so consumers must be protected. But this means farmers—who are also consumers of food—are not paid remunerative prices for their product. And all the big talk about deregulation and ease of doing business never makes it to their fields. They are restrained in where they can sell; prices are artificially “fixed”; and when shortages grow, government rushes to buy from heavily subsidised global farms. This cannot go on.

3. Third, we need to plan for development knowing that weather will be more variable and more extreme. This means doing all that we know has to be done.  There is no rocket science here. Build water and drainage infrastructure that can both hold water when there is excess rain and recharge groundwater when rain fails. Again, in this budget, the government has slashed investment in irrigation. We are not even using the optimal potential of rural employment to build water security. We have just not understood that in a climate-risked India, water has to be our obsession. Infrastructure—everything from cities and roads to ports and dams—must be built in a way that they are compliant with best environmental safeguards.

4. Fourth, knowing that building resilience and adapting to these changes is not enough, we need to vastly strengthen systems to compute farmers’ loss and pay for damage— quickly and properly. At present, our so-called crop insurance schemes are poorly designed and even more poorly executed. Once again, this cannot go on.

Let’s get our heads out of the sand and smell the wind. Only then can we stop the killing fields. 

Tips for women safety

1. What should a woman do if she finds herself alone in the company of a strange male as she prepares to enter a lift in a high-rise apartment late at night?

Experts Say: Enter the lift. If you need to reach the 13th floor, press all the buttons up to your destination. No one will dare attack you in a lift that stops on every floor.

2. .What to do if a stranger tries to attack you when you are alone in your house, run into the kitchen.

Experts Say: You alone know where the chili power and turmeric are kept. And where the knives and plates are. All these can be turned into deadly weapons. If nothing else, start throwing plates and utensils all over. Let them break. Scream. Remember that noise is the greatest enemy of a molester. He does not want to be caught.

3. Taking an Auto or Taxi at Night.

Experts Say: Before getting into an auto at night, note down its registration number. Then use the mobile to call your family or friend and pass on the details to them in the language the driver understands .Even if no one answers your call, pretend you are in a conversation. The driver now knows someone has his details and he will be in serious trouble if anything goes wrong. He is now bound to take you home safe and sound. A potential attacker is now your de facto protector!

4. What if the driver turns into a street he is not supposed to - and you feel you are entering a danger zone?

Experts Say: Use the handle of your purse or your stole (dupatta) to wrap around his neck and pull him back. Within seconds, he will feel choked and helpless. In case you don’t have a purse or stole just pull him back by his collar. The top button of his shirt would then do the same trick.

5. If you are stalked at night.

Experts Say: enter a shop or a house and explain your predicament. If it is night and shops are not open, go inside an ATM box. ATM centers always have security guards. They are also monitored by close circuit television. Fearing identification, no one will dare attack you.

Supreme Court slams Karnataka on Cauvery issue

Supreme Court, in strong and critical statement, slammed the Karnataka government for ignoring the Prime Minister's orders to release water to neighbouring Tamil Nadu. The two states have been locked in a dispute over sharing water from the Cauvery river that goes back more than a century. On Tuesday, the Cauvery River Authority, headed by the Prime Minister, asked  Karnataka  to release 9000 cusecs of water everyday to its neighbour till October 15. Karnataka refused and walked out of the meeting.
Taking strong exception to this and ordering Karnataka to release the water immediately, Supreme Court told Karnataka government, "Prime Minister is the highest authority... you don't want to comply with this order... we are sorry to say this." Tamil Nadu had approached the top court after Karnataka's refusal to release the water, even telling the court that a minister from Karnataka in the Union Cabinet was saying that the Bangalore shouldn't agree to release the water.

Karnataka, which is governed by the BJP, has accused the Centre of favouring Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu, which faces perennial water shortage, has said that it needs the water urgently to save its crops. But Karnataka has said that it is facing a drought and needs the water for itself. The 800 km long Cauvery river runs through Karnataka and flow into Tamil Nadu. The sharing of this river's water has been a matter of dispute and political posturing for several decades. Even now, rebel BJP leader BS Yeddyurappa has made this an issue as part of his campaign against his party's senior leadership. Across the border, the Tamil Nadu government run by Ms Jayalalithaa has been targetted for not being able to convince Karnataka to release the water. The origins of the dispute go back to two agreements, one of 1892 and the other in 1924, to share the Cauvery's water. After that, there have been a series of tribunals, agreements and court cases, none of which have been able to sort the issue out.

No power in storm-hit US states

Over a million homes and businesses in Louisiana, the home state of Indian-American governor Bobby Jindal, and neighbouring Mississippi were still without power as a weakened storm began a slow trek northward.
Nearly half of Louisiana with some 901,000 homes and businesses was without power late Thursday as Tropical Storm Isaac now downgraded to tropical depression as workers started creating a small breach in a dam on Louisiana-Mississippi border to save parts of the state from flooding.
In neighbouring Mississippi, utility companies are working to restore power to more than 150,000 customers in south and central parts of the state. President Barack Obama declared federal emergencies in Louisiana and Mississippi late Wednesday, allowing federal aid to be freed up for affected areas, media reports citing officials said.
Meanwhile, workers have started creating a small breach in a dam near McComb, Mississipi, in hopes of lessening pressure that could cause it to fail and flood homes along the Tangipahoa River in Louisiana, Jindal said.
The breach in the dam, which is located in Percy Quin State Park, would release enough water to lower the level of Lake Tangipahoa by eight feet, he was quoted as saying by Baton Rouge Advocate.
If the dam burst some 40,000 to 60,000 people living on either side of the river could see floodwaters as high as 17 feet - similar to floods in 1983 and 1990, said Jindal calling the situation in the Tangipahoa Parish area as "the biggest challenge" the state faced.

In LaPlace, Louisiana, about 28 miles north and west of New Orleans, the National Guard was evacuating 3,000 people trapped by flooding. Jindal said they were rescuing about 30 people an hour. As rescues of flood-trapped residents continued in Louisiana, more northern places such as Arkansas, Missouri and Illinois braced for the impact of Isaac. Airline, rail and automotive traffic was likely to remain snarled across several states through week's end, officials said.

Animals in action