The Kudankulam Saga

With frightening ease the establishment has managed to confine the Kudankulam discourse to a local problem that concerns only a few illiterate villagers who have some very personal and trivial concerns. Spiced up a bit by 'foreign' funded NGOs, out to divert us from our shot at greatness and superpowerdom.

Civil society at large, the 'professional' intelligentsia as also the scientific community have been lulled into acceptance of a totally fake assurance that safety is not an issue.

Over the last few years public pronouncements have been of the type where the prime minister says he has full faith in the nuclear scientists of the country. This is followed a few days later by some employee of the Department of Atomic Energy, which controls all activities nuclear, saying he has full faith in the prime minister.

Not to be outdone Abdul Kalam pipes up shortly thereafter to the effect that he has full faith in the prime minister and the nuclear scientists of India, and that he has satisfied himself that all available state-of-the-art safeguards have been built into our nuclear power plants.

Therein lies the rub. State-of-the-art isn't good enough.

As we lathi-charge and fire tear-gas at the Kudankulam villagers, another voice opened up yesterday. In a prime editorial-page piece in the Hindu titled "The Real Questions", one Rahul Siddharthan, employed by a DAE funded outfit, came out strongly against scaremongering and suggesting that 'an independent safety regulator" is needed to reassure misguided, ignorant and ill-informed people.

Siddharthan does not present any personal credentials to show that he knows whereof he speaks. He cites instead an eminent authority on the subject, one George Monbiot, a zoologist, author and journalist. Said George has converted recently from 'neutral' to 'pro-nuclear power' because, hold your breath, no one died as a consequence of the Fukushima disaster.

The fact that radiation fallout forced the evacuation of about 160,000 people surrounding the plant and left about 132 square kilometers as a no-go zone, some of it uninhabitable for decades does not merit mention.

As I finished reading this mischievous work designed to misinform and obfuscate, Sajal Lahiri, the noted International Trade economist and Japophile,  posted a BBC news report that the Japanese have decided to totally phase out nuclear power.

Do we know something they don't or is it vice versa? If we do, we should capitalise on that by selling that knowledge to Germany and Japan.

Snippet: The other expert Rahul Siddharthan cites is Randall Munroe, the creator of the web comic XKCD.

Previous: Nuclear Business Opportunity
First:  The Nuclear Mess

The Real Superpower

The lady who manages our household is from the Coorg district of Karnataka. Racially the Coorg do not seem to have much in common with the rest of the country, least of all with the south where they are ensconced. Legend has it that the Coorg are descendants of the remnants of Alexander’s army. Coorg is the only district in India the residents of which have the right to bear arms, and they do. They do not yet have, however, any stated ambition to go independent.

Our lady manager has been with us for twenty years now planning our meals, preparing them, managing our laundry, making sure we take our respective vitamins or, when sick, medication and generally looking after our welfare. She also answers the phone and manages all outsourced services like ironing, plumbing or electrical repair. She is literally invaluable, no one knows how much she is paid.

Over her longish association with us, a lot of her siblings, other relations and friends have moved into Bangalore and are now gainfully employed in industry and businesses ranging from healthcare to financial services as also in the armed forces. They all come in and she helps them out in various material and other ways until they get, so to speak, their green card.

In the process Coorg has become a superpower. Much as India has over the last few decades. We do it by sending our best and brightest to foreign shores . We also do it by sending the second best to call centres to answer phone calls from rich customers of rich companies from rich countries. We solve their tricky tech problems or answer stupid questions about their credit cards. We write code for software conceived and planned by others in places where local culture permits innovation to happen.

In the recent economic downturn, we as a family have taken a bit of a haircut. As has India.

One thing is clear, however. Coorg has nothing to fear. We need our manager and her cohorts. Much as the developed world needs the "people power" India provides. In spite of recent big talk of India emerging as a "Superpower", we know who calls the shots when the chips are down, as does our house manager.

Next: Superpower Two

Cool Superpower

The Economist has just run a special feature on alternative energy. ALTERNATIVE ENERGY. Made me sit up and think. 

• Indian companies or institutions featuring in the all-encompassing study - NIL. 
• Indians working in India featuring in the study - NIL
• Come to think of it Indian originated science and technology advances in last sixty years - NIL
• Indian originated products wanted by anyone else over the last sixty years - NIL 
• Indian originated services wanted by anyone else in the last sixty years - NIL 

On the other hand 

• Indian public schools without full teacher strength - 50% 
• Indian children who are malnourished - 50% 
• Indian young mothers-to-be without medical care - 50% 
• Indian seniors without pension / healthcare - 75% 

Who are these people who talk about super-powerdom? Emerging or otherwise. Where do they live? What do they read and see? What do they think? Why don't they think?

 

ps: The rare Subeer Bhatia, Vinod Khosla et al who live and work in a different culture do not count for this purpose. 

pps: "Monkey-see Monkey-do" products and services do not qualify. 

ppps: The country is in turmoil over some Government land in a Muslim majority state being given, needlessly and stupidly, to a Hindu temple trust.