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Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Locked, tortured by father for 7 years
Karnataka, Andhra floods: Is the worst over?
| Monday October 5, 2009, Hyderabad, Bangalore |
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Four days after what are being described as the worst floods in history, many parts of Andhra Pradesh remain water-logged and cut off. The only access to many areas is through Indian Air Force choppers carrying out relief and rescue operations.
In Karnataka the situation is better, with water receding and none of the affected areas cut off.
Over 250 people are dead and close to 1 million have been displaced due to the massive floods in the south. The death toll stands at 206 and 63 in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh respectively.
Andhra Pradesh still flooded
One of India's most prosperous cities Vijayawada is today virtually cut off with highways connecting it to Hyderabad and Chennai under water. Army and private boats are being used extensively in Vijayawada and other villages in Krishna district to evacuate people and shift them to relief camps. The levels at the Prakasam barrage have been steadily rising, with the swollen Krishna virtually swallowing the areas on both sides of the river.
The Andhra Pradesh government has asked the Centre for Rs 6,000 crores for relief measures as water has submerged villages, entered homes leaving lakhs homeless, marooned; families have left as water from the Prakkassam barrage entered the city.
About 15,000 people in low-lying areas have been evacuated.
Andhra Pradesh has estimated damages due to heavy rains and floods at Rs 12,225 crore.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi took a closer look at the extent of devastation through an aerial survey of Kurnool and Mahabubnagar. Both districts took the maximum brunt of torrential rains and floods. The Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister said he has requested Karnataka not to release water from Almatti and Narayanpur dams upstream unless it is inevitable.
Rehabilitation on in Karnataka
In Karnataka, the focus is now on rehabilitation efforts. With no rains over the last couple of days, floodwaters have receded but lakhs of people are in relief camps.
The Karnataka Chief Minister appealed to the PM to declare the worst floods in the state since 1972 as a 'national calamity' and release Rs 10,000 crore from the National Calamity Contingency Fund to rehabilitate the affected people. Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa told NDTV that many corporates are pitching in for the relief efforts and many villages will now be shifted permanently.
Meanwhile, Karnataka's Irrigation Minister Basavaraj Bommai said that the flood damage in Andhra Pradesh could have been lessened if that state had handled its dams properly says. He told NDTV that Karnataka had kept its outflow to the minimum possible.
In Karnataka the situation is better, with water receding and none of the affected areas cut off.
Over 250 people are dead and close to 1 million have been displaced due to the massive floods in the south. The death toll stands at 206 and 63 in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh respectively.
Andhra Pradesh still flooded
One of India's most prosperous cities Vijayawada is today virtually cut off with highways connecting it to Hyderabad and Chennai under water. Army and private boats are being used extensively in Vijayawada and other villages in Krishna district to evacuate people and shift them to relief camps. The levels at the Prakasam barrage have been steadily rising, with the swollen Krishna virtually swallowing the areas on both sides of the river.
The Andhra Pradesh government has asked the Centre for Rs 6,000 crores for relief measures as water has submerged villages, entered homes leaving lakhs homeless, marooned; families have left as water from the Prakkassam barrage entered the city.
About 15,000 people in low-lying areas have been evacuated.
Andhra Pradesh has estimated damages due to heavy rains and floods at Rs 12,225 crore.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi took a closer look at the extent of devastation through an aerial survey of Kurnool and Mahabubnagar. Both districts took the maximum brunt of torrential rains and floods. The Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister said he has requested Karnataka not to release water from Almatti and Narayanpur dams upstream unless it is inevitable.
Rehabilitation on in Karnataka
In Karnataka, the focus is now on rehabilitation efforts. With no rains over the last couple of days, floodwaters have receded but lakhs of people are in relief camps.
The Karnataka Chief Minister appealed to the PM to declare the worst floods in the state since 1972 as a 'national calamity' and release Rs 10,000 crore from the National Calamity Contingency Fund to rehabilitate the affected people. Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa told NDTV that many corporates are pitching in for the relief efforts and many villages will now be shifted permanently.
Meanwhile, Karnataka's Irrigation Minister Basavaraj Bommai said that the flood damage in Andhra Pradesh could have been lessened if that state had handled its dams properly says. He told NDTV that Karnataka had kept its outflow to the minimum possible.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Coal India May Complete Mine Acquisition This Year (Update1)
Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Coal India Ltd., the nation’s monopoly producer of the fuel, said it expects to complete a mine acquisition in the year ending March 31, and has hired Royal Bank of Canada to carry out due diligence on a deposit in Australia.
The state-owned company is seeking mines in the U.S., Australia, South Africa and Indonesia and as many as 52 companies want to be its partners, Chairman Partha S. Bhattacharyya told reporters in New Delhi today.
Coal India said Aug. 27 it may invest as much as $1.5 billion to acquire mines overseas to help overcome a shortage of the fuel as the country plans to almost double its power generation capacity by 2012. The company estimates a shortage of about 228 million tons a year of coal by March 2012.
Bhattacharyya and officials including Sriprakash Jaiswal, India’s junior coal minister, visited Australia in September to assess potential acquisition targets. About 15 companies with coal operations in Australia have signaled that they are interested in possible agreements with an Indian partner, Partha Sen, a business development manager for the Australian Trade Commission, said in Sydney Sept. 3.
Coal India secured two blocks in Mozambique that may hold a combined 1 billion metric tons of thermal coal, along with some coking coal, Bhattacharyya had said in a June 4 interview.
India’s coal demand is estimated to reach 731 million tons a year by March 2012, J. Goel, chief general manager of sales and marketing at Coal India, said Feb. 24. The company wants local mining approvals sped up to boost domestic output.
Companies including NTPC Ltd., Reliance Power Ltd. and Tata Power Co. plan to boost generation to meet demand in the world’s second fastest-growing major economy.
Mittal may pull India steel plant plan: report
NEW DELHI, India (AFP) – The world's largest steel maker ArcelorMittal is threatening to scrap a 20-billion dollar project to build two major steel plants in eastern India because of problems with land acquisition.
Chairman Lakshmi Mittal was quoted in Monday's Financial Times as saying that delays in purchasing the land from farmers and others in the states of Orissa and Jharkand were "unacceptable".
"If we cannot make progress in these two sites, we will have to abandon the idea of starting the projects there and look for other places in India for our expansion," Mittal told the newspaper.
The saga has echoes of the problems encountered last year by India's largest vehicle maker Tata Motors which was forced to shift the plant for its new, cheap Nano car from West Bengal to Gujarat amid farmers' protests over land acquisitions.
India's industrial expansion faces a problem in purchasing agricultural land for development, with farmers often unwilling to sell and regional politics fuelling local anger at perceived commercial exploitation.
Mittal told the Financial Times that people in India needed to be "educated" to understand the collective benefits of industrial development.
The two plants envisaged by ArcelorMittal would jointly produce around 24 million tonnes of steel by 2015.
Mahatma Ghandi's Day
Fri, Oct 2, 12:10 PM
India, Oct. 3 -- Forty years ago, illustrator Biman Mullick designed an image that has been branded on India's popular imagination indelibly.
It was the smiling face of an old Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The original work was done for the British Post Office, which issued a stamp commemorating Bapu's birth centennary in 1969.
Then the image made its way to India. Now, decades after Mullick's work, the Father of the Nation, famous for his frugal lifestyle, is also a bestselling 'brand'.
And at the heart of the phenomenon is that image. Versions of Mullick's rendition are to be found everywhere today - from t-shirts and coffee mugs to keychains and pens.
Take a stroll around the city and you will find Gandhi paraphernalia all around. From roadside stores on Janpath to luxe brand stores in tonier shopping districts, several shelves are filled with the image.
It's perhaps not out of reverence for the Mahatma - but because sporting Gandhi is cool. Sagar Sharma, a 26-year-old software engineer based in Noida, loves to have in his wardrobe t-shirts with leaders' faces emblazoned on them.
"I have one of Che, one of Martin Luther and a couple of Gandhi ones." And entrepreneurs have wisened up to the fad.
Kaushal Saxena of People Tree makes sure they stock up on Gandhi shirts. "They are in demand all round the year, but we are usually overwhelmed around October 2," he says.
Apart from shirts, you can buy hand-painted Gandhi greetings and postcards with quotes by the Mahatma. A short walk away on Janpath, S. Paul and Bros sells a variety of t-shirts with sketched monochrome images printed on the front.
The National Gandhi Museum at Rajghat sells some novelty items such as key-chains and figurines. There is also an intriguing mug that slowly shows up the Mahatma's face as you fill it up with any hot liquid.
"I'm buying a lot of books about Gandhiji," says Lukas Meuller from Berlin, a visitor at the museum. "But I'm taking a few key chains as souvenirs for my two teens back home," he smiles.
"I hope to inspire them by the life and thoughts of the Mahatma." Lukas is not the only German to be inspired by Bapu.
Germany-based pen-maker Mont Blanc has recently launched a set of premium 'Mahatma Gandhi Limited Edition 241' pens at a princely price of Rs 11.3 lakh each. The series commemorates Mahatma Gandhi's Dandi march against the British salt tax in 1930.
The '241' marks the miles Bapu covered in the march from Ahmedabad to the Gujarat coast- and also the number of pens to be produced globally. The pen has a gold wire entwined around the middle of each pen that represents the roughly-wound yarn on the spindle that Gandhi spun everyday.
It sports a hand-crafted rhodium-plated 18-carat gold nib depicting Gandhiji holding his trademark lathi. For those not feeling all that extravagant in these tough times, there's also the Mahatma Gandhi Limited Edition 3000, a series that will sell 3,000 fountain pens at Rs 1.7 lakh each and 3,000 rollerballs for Rs 1.5 lakh each.
Other international brands, too, are cashing in. Lladro, the Spanish manufacturer of high-quality porcelain figurines, has created an astonishingly life-like one of Gandhiji.
Standing 31 cm tall with his lathi, it will set you back by Rs 40,000.
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