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Tuesday, December 29, 2009

[ALOCHONA] Re: [Dahuk]: Muslims Take Hindu Names to Work



This is nothing new. If you see in early 40's to 60's many Bollywood actors took hindu name to enroll.This is only only possible in world only n the only n the only  SECULAR HINDU( close friend of our Kutta jibis)   country  called HINDU STAAAAN.

On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 11:43 AM, Mahmudul Hasan <mahmudwp2000@yahoo.ca> wrote:
 


Muslims Take Hindu Names to Work


IslamOnline.net & Newspapers


Image

Indian Muslims, estimated at 140 million, complain of social and economic neglect and oppression. (Google)

CAIRO – With access to jobs in the lucrative diamond industry closed to them, many Muslims in Hindu-majority India change their names and assuming Hindu ones just to get a chance.

"We would not get a job if we are known to be Muslims," Allarakha Khan, a Muslim worker who uses a Hindu name, told the Indian Express on Tuesday, December 29.

"We have been doing this for a long time, and we take great care not to reveal our real names or addresses at work."

There are some 140 million Muslims in Hindu-majority India, the world's third-largest Muslim population after those of Indonesia and Pakistan.

Indian Muslims have suffered decades of social and economic neglect and oppression.

They have been decrying for years that they comprise only a tiny percentage of police, army officers, public servants and public university students.

They register lower educational levels and, as a consequence, higher unemployment rates than the majority Hindus and other minorities like Christians and Sikhs.

Costly Price

Mehboob Pathan changed his name and those of his son and daughter to Hindu names to find a job in the diamond industry.  

"Like me, my father too was hiding his religion only so that we could have a job," asserted his son Mushtaq, who goes by the Hindu name Mukesh.

But the family paid a tragic price for hiding their Muslim identity.

The father, who went by the Hindu name Jayenti Bhatti, disappeared recently and the family reported his absence.

To their shock, they discovered he was killed over monetary dispute and was cremated as a Hindu.

"How could the police dispose of his body the Hindu way?" fumed Mushtaq.

"An examination would have shown he was a Muslim."

But police insist the family was too late.

"We disposed it of according to Hindu rites not knowing he was a Muslim," said police sub-Inspector V R Malhotra.

"The family turned up too late and we are now helpless."

In Islam, cremation is prohibited as it is disrespectful to the dead body and Islam calls for respecting human beings whether alive or dead.

It is an obligation on Muslims as a community to ensure that every Muslim who dies is properly washed, shrouded, and buried according to the teachings of Islam.

"We are too poor to do anything," said a helpless Mushtaq. 


http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1260258473688&pagename=Zone-English-News/NWELayout


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[ALOCHONA] A National Hero



A National Hero

 
By Zoglul Husain, UK

Major General (Retd) Fazlur Rahman, a national hero of Bangladesh, published an article in the Naya Diganta on 25 December 2009 about certain people's propaganda for change in the military. Actually in the name of reform, a lot of these people want the destruction of the army. He did not, however, refer to any particular article, except that he mentioned the name of Awami columnist Abdul Gaffar Chowdhury, UK.There are many lackeys of India in Bangladesh, who are against the Bangladesh Army and, in this, they were initiated by the seven-point Agreement of Slavery, signed by Tajuddin on behalf of 'Mujib Nagar' government, with India in 1971

The article is as follows:
http://www.dailynayadiganta.com/2009/12/25/fullnews.asp?News_ID=185921&sec=6

Actually in the name of reform, a lot of these people want the destruction of the army. He did not, however, refer to any particular article, except that he mentioned the name of Awami columnist Abdul Gaffar Chowdhury, UK.

There are many lackeys of India in Bangladesh, who are against the Bangladesh Army and, in this, they were initiated by the seven-point Agreement of Slavery, signed by Tajuddin on behalf of 'Mujib Nagar' government, with India in 1971, in which it was agreed that: "3. Bangladesh will have no standing army. 4. India will help raise a paramilitary force to protect the internal law and order of the country". (For details, please refer to Isha Khan's weblog: http://ishakhan.wordpress.com/category/bangladesh/, 'Indo-Bangla Relation: A Strategic Analysis' by Shah Mohammed Saifuddin, 7 August 2009, quoting Dr Kalidas Baidya) Accordingly, Rakkhi Bahini was raised by India and the Bangladesh army was seen as inimical to the interest of India in Bangladesh.

Maj Gen (Retd) Fazlur Rahman is a national hero of Padua-Roumari border battle of 14 April 2001, in which the BDR and villagers together devised brilliant tactics to resolutely and valiantly thwart the incursion of Indian BSF and to drive them out of our territory, with casualties of 18 BSF men killed and a casualty of 3 to BDR, and probably 100 injured on two sides together. Maj Gen (Retd) Fazlur Rahman became a hero of the battle of Padua-Roumari and he won the hearts and minds of the people of Bangladesh throughout the country. But, unfortunately, none of our major political parties did any justice to him.

The Indian government demanded Maj Gen (Retd) Fazlur Rahman's head on a platter, from the bent-knee pro-India Hasina government, which without any hesitation promptly meted out a punitive transfer order to him before border talks with India. Please see the following:

1. Hasina govt. issued punitive transfer order as an 'award' for his heroic battle victory, as recorded in the Indian media: (original report in tehelka.com July 2001, the link seems to be broken)
http://www.thehoot.org/web/home/searchdetail.php?sid=11&bg=1

The then-opposition BNP did not do any better.

2. At the time of Padua-Roumari battle, the BNP in their quest to please India, disowned him as a relative of an Awami leader: (assuming the report not to be wholly manufactured)
http://svaradarajan.blogspot.com/2001/04/dateline-dhaka-bdr-chief-is-not-our.html

(Did the BNP forget that Zia was assassinated by an Indian plot? India will never be a friend of Bangladesh as long as they remain a hegemonic power. India engineered one-eleven 2007 with the backing of the US and their allies, and they hit BNP the hardest through the military-controlled CTG. They also engineered the sham stage-managed election of 2008, in which BNP was brutally deprived, and they also plan to divide and obliterate BNP from the political map of Bangladesh. Should BNP have tried to please India and disown Maj Gen (Retd) Fazlur Rahman?)

To his credit and being totally undeterred, Maj Gen Fazlur Rahman, imbued with glorious patriotism, has been campaigning untiringly against Indian hegemonism, which is now the main danger to our independence and sovereignty. We need to mobilise the grass roots to develop peaceful resistance to the Indian hegemonists and their lackeys in Bangladesh, who have very sinister designs over Bangladesh indeed!

This year, with the complicity of traitors like Moeen U, a section of the BAL, a section of the present government and a host of their lackeys, India, according to many, was able to send a commando to mow down 57 of our brilliant army officers at Peelkhana on 25-26 February.

This event and the very recent news that India is about to send a commando of 50 SSB specialist force to defend the Indian High Commission in Dhaka, should remind us of Maj Gen (Retd) Fazlur Rahman's insight:

3. Sultan M Hali, Columnist, pakobserver.net, records Maj Gen Fazlur Rahman's valuable insights and observations on Indian hegemonism: 'Resistance against India in BD'
http://www.hvk.org/articles/0305/14.html

I note another of Maj Gen (Retd) Fazlur Rahman's observation, as reported in the Weekly Blitz (the paper is a well-known supporter of Israel. In Bangladesh, Mossad and RAW seem to have some conflict of interest) on 14 October 2009:
4. Weekly Blitz report: http://www.weeklyblitz.net/314/strange-happenings-in-bangladesh

(Quote from the above article) "Former director general of Bangladesh Rifles [border security force], Major General [Retired] Fazlur Rahman claimed that Indian government has sent three thousand well trained under-cover commandos inside Bangladesh.

He said, though they are Hindus but as per New delhi's plan, they are sent as Muslims [bearing beard and Islamic cap] inside Bangladesh with a very notorious mission.Major General [Retired] Fazlur Rahman claims that, once movement of Indian vehicles will start once the Asian Highway project is implemented, these commandoes will make offensives on Indian convoys and subsequently India will raise this issue with United Nations saying, they need to send their troop within the soil of Bangladesh for protecting 'Indian properties'.

General Rahman sees 'invasion' of Indian army inside Bangladesh in near future. It may be mentioned here that, Major General Fazlur Rahman is known to be anti-Indian element in Bangladesh with Islamist connections." (Unquote) [Please note: The patriotic Bangladeshis are generally referred to as ISI operatives, Islamic terrorists, fundamentalists, etc. by the evil Indian hegemonists and their lackeys in Bangladesh.]

We need to listen to Maj Gen (Retd) Fazlur Rahman and patriots like him in order to prepare ourselves to defend our independence and sovereignty, our national interest and our national resources. If we don't, the consequence could be grim and dire.

Writer: Zoglul Husain, UK
E-mail:
zoglul@hotmail.co.uk
 



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[ALOCHONA] Re: Sahara has no knowledge of extra Indian mission forces



Security analysts on SSB troops in Indian mission
 
 
http://www.amardeshonline.com/pages/details/2009/12/30/11513

--- On Mon, 12/28/09, Isha Khan <bd_mailer@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Isha Khan <bd_mailer@yahoo.com>
Subject: Sahara has no knowledge of extra Indian mission forces
To: "Dhaka Mails" <dhakamails@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Monday, December 28, 2009, 4:25 PM

Sahara has no knowledge of extra Indian mission forces
 
Dhaka, Dec 28 (bdnews24.com) – Home minister Sahara Khatun on Monday said she did not know anything about the presence of 'Indian forces' brought to provide extra security to the Indian High Commission premises in Dhaka.

Responding to queries from the reporters the minister said, "I have heard this for the first time from you. My ministry is not aware about this."

Home secretary Abdus Sobhan Sikder told bdnews24.com that If India wanted to send any state troops to Dhaka for security purposes a bilateral discussion should have been held. But no such discussions were held between Dhaka and Delhi.

The High Commission might have brought private security men from India, he said. "But I don't know."

Responding to a query, Sikder said, the Indian high commission claimed a security threat about a month ago. "Since then, security has been tightened at each of the foreign missions."

--- On Mon, 12/28/09, Zoglul Husain <zoglul@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
The Press Trust of India (PTI) report of 17 December 2009 was as follows:
 

Indian mission in Dhaka to be guarded by SSB troops

 

New Delhi, Dec 17 (PTI) Facing threat from terror group Laskhar-e-Taiba, India will soon deploy its para-military troops to guard it's mission in Dhaka.

At least 50 specially-trained troops of Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), a force that guards Indo-Nepal and Indo-Bhutan borders, will soon be sent to guard the High Commission after getting a clearance from External Affairs Ministry.

The personnel have been trained in VIP, mobile and static security duties and would also render technical support responsibilities, official sources said.

The troops will be sent soon and an assessment report is being prepared for their deployment, they said, adding SSB personnel will be in addition to the security men provided by Bangladesh government.
 
http://www.ptinews.com/news/428467_Indian-mission-in-Dhaka-to-be-guarded-by-SSB-troops

 

Date: Sun, 27 Dec 2009
From: bd_mailer@yahoo.com

 
http://www.amardeshonline.com/pages/details/2009/12/28/11450
 
India did not officially inform Bangladesh of a reported move to deploy its own forces for the safety and security of its high commission premises and diplomats in Dhaka.
   
'India, as far as I know, has not expressed its intent to man the high commission premises with its own security personnel,' the foreign secretary, Mohamed Mijarul Quayes, told reporters on Monday when his attention was called to the concerns expressed by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party secretary general, Khandaker Delwar Hossain, against the deployment of Indian forces for the security of its mission in Dhaka.
   
'Foreign missions in any country are a sovereign and independent territory. But a foreign mission can take its security measures, including the deployment of special forces, only if it is not restricted by the laws of the host country,' he said.
   
'The responsibility for the security of Bangladesh missions abroad lies with us. But we need to make a balance between the laws of the host country and protect our rights to internal and external security of our missions,' he said.
   The foreign secretary was speaking at the ministry after launching of the web site of the Diplomatic Correspondents' Association Bangladesh (www.dcabdhk.com).
   
Several newspapers reported that India would deploy a 50-member team of special security forces to increase protection of its high commission in Dhaka.
   The new Indian high commissioner in Dhaka Rajit Mitter arrived in Dhaka Sunday night to take charge of his office.



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[ALOCHONA] Major grabbing began in 1983



Surveys on 4 rivers point at big names
 

The Narayanganj district administration in its survey report on the four major rivers has revealed how industrialists, influential individuals and government organisations have grabbed the Buriganga, Shitalakkhya, Balu and Dhaleswari since 1983.

All the four district administrations, which also include Dhaka, Munshiganj and Gazipur that submitted their reports to the High Court, are now waiting for the court's directives regarding the next course of action.

The last revised survey (RS) on the four rivers was done in 1983.

Narayanganj district administration based its survey on both the Cadastral Survey (CS) conducted between 1910 and 1913 and the revised survey between 1973 and 1983.

Its survey reveals where the Shitalakkhya, Balu and part of Buriganga were located early last century and how they looked in 1983 and how they look now.

Officials of the survey team said villages, schools and even townships have grown on areas that were parts of the rivers as shown in the map of CS 1913 and this makes it practically impossible to recover the land now.

Government land surveyors used the detailed CS and RS maps provided by the Department of Land Records and Survey to pinpoint the location of the four rivers in 1913 and 1983.

On June 25, the High Court asked the deputy commissioners of Dhaka, Narayanganj, Munshiganj and Gazipur to conduct the surveys to find out the actual width of the rivers as per the CS and RS.

The Dhaka DC in his report said there are 4,021 encroachers in river areas under its jurisdiction; the Munshiganj DC identified 1,144 encroachers while the Gazipur DC mentioned only seven encroachers.

Findings of the survey reports based on RS 1983 records reveal how the land and industries ministries, the BTMC and BIWTA, and the zila parishads have defied the Land Management Manual of 1991 and leased out alluvial land, said an official of Land Department. "The manual only allows the DC office to lease out alluvial land on a yearly basis among the landless," he said.

The 18.58km long eastern bank of the Balu falls under the jurisdiction of Narayanganj district authorities while the western bank falls under Dhaka district. Both banks of the Buriganga under Narayanganj district stretch 24.55km while the banks of Shitalakkhya in the district stretch 86km.

While the CS shows thousands of houses, schools, mosques and industries on these three rivers, the 1983 RS identifies 320 structures there.

Various government organisations are occupying 150 acres of land in the Shitalakkhya and 61 acres in Dhaleswari under Bandar upazila of Narayanganj, according to the report of Narayanganj district authority.

A food department warehouse occupies 17 decimals of land while Bangladesh Institute of Marine Technology occupies 29 decimals in the Shitalakkhya. (100 decimals make an acre while one decimal is equal to 436 square-foot and 1.67 decimals make a katha.)

Narayanganj Deputy Commissioner M Shamsur Rahman said their survey reveals that government organisations alone are responsible for 30 percent encroachment on the three rivers in the district.

In Bandar upazila, Haripur barge-mounted power plant occupies 1.33 acres of land in the Shitalakkhya, Star Particle Board Mills Ltd occupies 17 decimals, Rupayan Housing (Dhamgarh) 15 decimals, Shamsur Alamin Cotton Mills 3.10 acres and BIWTC dockyard 1 acre.

Karnaphuli Texport Ltd (Laxmankhola) occupies 81 decimals in the Shitalakkhya, Sohagpur Textile Mills 3 acres, Dalanbari Jame Mosque 16 decimals, Bandar dockyard 35 decimals, Syed Dockyard 47 decimals, a person named Habibur Rahman 1.08 acres, Cemex Cement (Mahmud Nagar) 7.11 acres, and Akiz Cement Factory 23 decimals, says the Narayanganj report.

The administrative officer of Akiz Cement Factory claimed that they leased the land from the BIWTA.

Cold storages, textile mills and salt and chemical factories occupy land at various points of the Buriganga under Narayanganj.

In Shitalakkhya at Murapara under Rupganj upazila, Global Dyeing (Allied Jute Mills) occupies 3 acres, Shikdar Salt (Crystal Salt) 87 decimals, ACI Salt Industries Ltd 1.18 acres, Rupashi Bonkrit Industries Ltd 35 decimals, Lina Paper Mills Ltd 2.25 acres and Mir Cement Industries Ltd 13 decimals of land.

Partex Group occupies 1 decimal of land in Shitalakkhya at Bhulta under Rupganj.

In Daudpur, MMB Bricks Field Ltd occupies 86 decimals of land in Shitalakkhya, MIB Bricks Field Ltd 69 decimals, MAF Bricks Field Ltd 86 decimals, MAM Bricks Field Ltd 1.29 acres and MHB Bricks Field Ltd 81 decimals. Private dockyards at Kayetpara occupy river land in different volumes, according to the survey report.

When contacted, AKM Mahbub Hasan of Cemex Cement said the company has valid documents for the land it is using.

Sohagpur Textile Mills General Manager Alauddin Ahmed termed the survey incorrect, alleging that the district administration surveyors "gave hints for an underhand deal". "Our name was included as we refused their proposal," he said.

He claimed that the industries ministry allocated the land to Sohagpur Textile Mills through Bangladesh Textile Mills Corporation and that he has valid papers for his claim.

Director of Star Particle and Amber Pulp Quamruzzaman said the industries ministry allocated the entire plot to the industry in 1982. "It is absolutely out of question that we are 'occupying' river land. We wholeheartedly support the movement for saving the rivers without which our future generations are doomed," he said.

Subikash Barua of ACI Salt, which is occupying 1.18 acres of land, refused to make any comment since company spokesperson AG Dey was out of the country.

During the survey, a few industrialists denied the survey team access to their compounds, which delayed the survey process for several days.

They, however, eventually allowed the officials.

Narayanganj DC Shamsur Rahman said after completing the measurement the surveyors informed the authorities of these companies about the encroachment but there was no word from them. A few claimed to have lease deeds but none could produce any evidence, he said.

The DC, who led the 81-member survey team, told The Daily Star that they were now awaiting directives from the court.

"Now we have a clear picture of the river areas and we are in a position to start reclaiming them as soon as we have court's directives," he said.
  http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=119692



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[ALOCHONA] Govt fails to keep word on price spiral arrest



LOOKING BACK: 2009
 

 

Prices of many essential commodities increased significantly compared with the prices a year go when the government assumed office after a stunning election victory with a promise to take the heat out of the kitchen market.
   The prices of everyday necessities, especially prices of items which had declined in the first few months of the past year, are seeing a fresh and sharp rise in recent months, according market observers.
   'Everyone hoped that the government would take steps to contain the runaway prices… but we are now frustrated to see rising prices of essential commodities,' said Mossahraf Hossian, a tea stall owner at Nakhalpara.
   Many consumers also expressed their dismay at the fresh or continuous increases of commodity prices.
   The consumers' rights activists and economist suggested that the government should be more active against market manipulation and artificial fiddling into the supply chain.
   The average price of per kilogram of coarse rice in July-September quarter of the current fiscal year was Tk 21, but the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh's market reports showed the price at Tk 25.5 on Thursday.
   The average price of coarse rice per kilogram was recorded at Tk 28.5 in the first week of 2009. In early 2008, the price hit Tk 35 as damage of paddy by cyclone and a ban on exporting rice from India, pushed the market to become vulnerable.
   Increase in the price of coarse rice also worried the parliamentary standing committee for Food Ministry which last week asked the minister to investigate the reason and keep a keen eye on the market.
   At the beginning of 2009, the price of coarse flour was recorded at Tk 24-28 per kilogram, but a decline on wheat price globally pushed down price of flour in the local market.
   According to Consumers' Association of Bangladesh, packed coarse flour per kilogram sold between Tk 23 and Tk 26 last week, with around 15 per cent increase in just one-and-a- half month.
   The price of edible oil, that had also declined early last year following a massive fall in its prices on the international market, has also increased this few past few weeks.
   The price of loose but fine grade palm oil, which is mainly consumed by poor people, was Tk 53-56 per kg in the first week of 2009. But a Trading Corporation of Bangladesh report on Thursday showed its price shot up at Tk 66-68 per kg.
   The average price of red lentils increased by more than 20 per cent over the year as TCB recorded the retail price of per kg of red lentil at Tk 85-135. The price was at Tk 76-106 in the first week of 2009.
   Sugar, another major essential item became costlier by 59 per cent over the year and it was being retailed at Tk 51-54 per kg on Thursday.
   The sugar market became volatile in last Ramadan with its retail price having increased by more than 50 per cent within a couple of weeks.
   The commerce minister at that time had told citizens that manipulation by some businessmen was the reason for such hike and promised they would be punished, but no specific action in this regard is yet to be seen.
   The TCB report also shows that potato is now 74 per cent costlier than what was its retail price in the first few weeks of 2009.
   Retail price of onion also became costlier by 46 per cent, that of garlic by 21 per cent and ginger 26 per cent. Live broiler chicken became costlier by 19 per cent.
   Quazi Faruk, general secretary of Consumers' Association of Bangladesh, said, 'Fresh increases in prices of the major commodities will bring pressure on the limited income group people which will negate the ruling party's election pledges.'
   Kazi recalled that controlling the prices of essential commodities was top number one priority in the election manifesto of the ruling Awami League.
   "Control Over Commodity Price Hike" was listed as the number one of AL's top five priorities in AL's, a revisiting of the party's website, found. The AL had there specific commitment to keep the market in favour of the consumers.
   "Measures will be taken to reduce the unbearable burden of price hike and keep it within the purchasing power of the people,' the manifesto stated. 'After giving the highest priority to production of domestic commodities, arrangements will be made for timely imports to ensure food security.'
   It added : "A multi-pronged drive will be made to control prices along with monitoring the market. Hoarding and profiteering syndicates will be eliminated. Extortion will be stopped. An institution for commodity price control and consumer protection will be set up. Above all, price reduction and stability will be achieved by bringing equilibrium between demand and supply of commodities."
   Kazi Faruk of CAB said, "Fresh increases on commodity price might have caused uneasiness to the ruling party, but effective steps to bring the market into effective disciplines, are yet to be taken.'
   Mahabubur Rahman, a renowned rice economist, also agrees that fresh increases on rice price would be a matter of worry for all, including the government.
   He however points out that price of rice is increasing due to a shortfall in Aman production. But he believes there may be reasons to be worried as imports of rice stopped and rice price is now high in neighbouring India.
   'The government should take allout measures to support as Boro farmers who suffered a missive price fall after last harvest,' he said.
   Economist Abu Ahmed said the Awami League government, in its beginning, had some unearned pleasure, 'The global prices of commodities, which had increased exorbitantly in the previous two years or so, had declined at that period.'
   There are many things to be done by the government, Ahmed said.
   He said, 'Market should be truly monitored with proper assessment of the local production and timely preparedness by the government and private sector importers to meet any shortages.'

 

http://www.newagebd.com/2009/dec/30/front.html




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[ALOCHONA] Where is the Sense In Using Solar Power in Bangladesh ?



Where is the Sense In Using Solar Power in Bangladesh ?

 

By Shabbir A. Bashar

shabbir_bashar@yahoo.com

 

The Daily Star reported on the 14th December, 2009 that a local Bangladeshi renewable energy company has been tasked with setting up solar power supply to Bangladesh Bank at a cost of Tk 1 Crore for a system with a capacity to deliver 20 – 25 kW. I would like to questioon the wisdom of this investment based on current energy cost in the Bangladeshi market, the current cost of such a system in the global market and the life expectancy of such a system and ask whether it makes any technological or economic sense in the context of Bangladesh's current and medium term energy needs.

Energy Bangla, an internet based energy related information website (www.EnergyBangla.com) reports that the cost of electrical energy to the Bangladeshi consumer is Tk 5.50 per kilowatt hour. This agrees well with what I am now paying (US$0.08) for my personal use here in the United States and gives me confidence that their figures are accurate. If we assume that the consumers (banks and government offices) operate 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 48 weeks a year, their yearly electricity bill per 22.5 kilowatts (median capacity of the system) comes to Tk 2,37,600. Dividing the capital cost of the reported solar power system by this figure gives us the number of years it will take for the investment to pay for itself: 42 years.

In my calculations I have not accounted for the inevitable maintenance cost of the system – particularly the storage batteries and associaated inverters and transformers that are required for converting the direct current (DC) output of a solar cell to alternating current (AC) before it can be used in most office appliances. If those costs are added, the payback period will be even longer. Also, there will be days during the year when the solar system will not be able to deliver to its full specified capacity due to cloud coverage and rainfall. This will further prolong the time. I would recommend that the curious amongst your readership Google search the cost of a solar energy system as a whole to verify the statements I have made. Personally, I found the website of GreenEcon (www.Greenecon.net) – a site that is dedicated to understanding the economics of solar and other alternative energies - to be a good first reference stop.

A study published by Rezwan Khan et al of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology in 2002 reveals that the daily average sunlight hours in Bangladesh ranges from 10 to 7 for summer and winter and respectively; they further reduce this by 54% (or 4.6 hours of peak sunlight) to account for rainfall, cloud, fog and dust over the solar panels. For comparison, here in the United States , a country which is a further 20 degrees north of the equator and therefore subject to greater daily and seasonal variation, the peak sunlight hour is about 3.5. Typically, there is another 10% efficiency loss during the DC to AC conversion – so the nominal (median) 22.5kW capacity now droops to 20kW.

Multiplying the 4.6 hours of peak sunlight per day by the 20kW, this system will deliver approximately 92kW hours of electrical energy per day or 33,507 kW hours in 365 days. The lifespan of one of today's solar power systems is approximately 20 years; therefore, in 20 years, the reported system it will deliver 670 megawatt hours of power. Dividing 670MW Hour by its cost of Tk 1 Crore, we get a cost of Tk 15 per kilowatt hour. In comparison, the energy derived from coal is 42 paisa per kilowatt hour; from oil it is Tk 3.50 and from gas it is Tk 2.10 per kilowatt hour respectively.

The typical breakdown of a solar system is as follows: 63% for solar panels; 25% for batteries; 9% for DC to AC converters and 3% for installation in Bangladesh . I have reduced the installation and engineering costs for installation to reflect the cheaper local labour market. In the United States installation costs are actually 16% of the total cost. With advances in manufacturing technology, the production cost of solar panels will drop – taking advantage of econommies of scale. Similarly, with research and development (R&D) in the solar cell design and improvements in material science, the typical efficiency is set to rise from the 15%. Both of these require capital investments to the tune of billions of dollars per year.

While the United States and Europe (Germany in particular) are some of the biggest R&D contributors, China has been taking manufacturing to the next level. In fact, many Chinese companies have recently come over to the US to manufacture the panels locally so they can penetrate the north American market.

What is Bangladesh's technological contribution to all this? Frankly, I don't believe it is the right time for Bangladesh to be the consumer of this immature technology but rather focus on it's components which are labor intensive where it can clearly play an advantageous role by creating an exportable product such as fully assembled panels and functioning system including the batteries and the converters – all of whicch Bangladeshi engineering companies are capable of doing.

Let's also look at the space requirements of a solar panel. A square foot of solar panel produces approximately 10 watts of power. The reported system will thus occupy no less than 2,250 square feet of space or size of a spacious apartment block. What utilities can be run on 22.5kW? A typical office with n air conditioner, couple of light bulbs and a computer will easily consume 1.5kW. Thus the investment of Tk 1 Crore will only be sufficient for 15 offices. The local renewable energy company representative boasted that up to 500 megawatts of solar power can be produced by 2015; this will require 50 million square feet of space that is open to direct sunlight – orr the equivalent of approximately 430 football stadiums.

What about Bangladesh's future? According to International Energy Agency (IEA) and World Bank data for 2005, the per capita energy consumption in Bangladesh is 1230kWhr; the figure for India is 3,860kWhr, for Thailand it is 14,570kWhr, for UK it is 48,650kWhr and for the USA it is 99,620kWhr. If we consider the per capita energy consumption as a reasonable indicator of a country̢۪s productivity, it would be obvious that in order to transition from a traditional agrarian economy of a poor developing nation to that of an industrialized middle income country, Bangladesh needs to build its energy capacity by a factor of 10 to 20.. In other words, it needs to drastically increase its production from 1830 megawatts per hour in the next 5 to 10 years. Given this reality, if the future needs and aspirations of the country were to be met by solar power alone, this would require panels that can deliver 27,400 megawatts per hour. The space requirement for these would be almost a thousand square miles; given the habitable land space (say 75% of the official 55,600 square mile area) and a population of 160 million, Bangladesh has a population density of almost 4000 people per square mile. These solar panels will take away the space that would otherwise be available for 4 million people. It will cost Tk 1.2 million crores Рequivalent to US$ 1774 trillion or 15 times the current US national debt!

The obvious questions that to come mind are as follows: (a) why is Bangladesh investing its tax money in a technology that costs about 7 times more than conventional energy? (b) What is the logic in capital investment in a product whose life expectancy is half (20 years) of the pay back period (42 years)? (c) Given that Bangladesh does not have the ability to manufacture solar panels (which forms 63% of the total cost), isn't this tantamount to losing valuable foreign exchange which could be better spent on more immediate needs such as upgrading the national grid transmission lines in order to build power distribution capacity? (d) the local renewable energy company is also supplier of the batteries that are required for which they provide a warranty of only two years; since these batteries constitute 25% of the Tk 1 Crore cost, who will pay the additional Tk 12.5 Lakhs per year (or Tk 5.3 Crore over 42 years)? The economic logic just starts to crumble and the picture starts to appear very crooked.

At this point it makes no economic or technological sense for Bangladesh to embark on wholesale solar power based energy production. The economics of solar cells as they are, make such a system wholly unsuitable for one of the most densely and yet at the same time one of the poorest countries of the world like Bangladesh .


Shabbir A. Bashar, PhD
Vancouver , USA
Shabbir Bashar holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering and has several patents to his name. He has been working in the UK and US photonics device related industry for the last 15 years.

http://newsfrombangladesh.net/view.php?hidRecord=298137

----------------------

Solar power to light up BB

 

Rahimafrooz Renewable Energy tasked with the Tk 1cr job

 

After allocating a Tk 200-crore low-cost revolving fund for refinancing banks' green power projects this year, the central bank will now set example for the banks by installing a solar power system at its headquarters.

Rahimafrooz Renewable Energy Ltd (RREL), the largest solar power system provider in the country, has already been selected as the lowest bidder for the project."Bangladesh Bank is expected to install the system in one month," said Governor Dr Atiur Rahman. Rahman hoped the BB move would encourage the commercial banks to go for green power systems in their respective offices soon.

According to RREL officials, the system with a capacity of generating 20-25 kilowatts will cost the BB over Tk 1 crore. Earlier, RREL had installed a solar power system at the Prime Minister's Office at a cost of around Tk 99 lakh.

Energy sector people have hailed both the initiatives.They said such moves are indicative of the government's seriousness about increasing power generation through renewable sources at a time when conventional energy sources such as gas and coal are becoming scarcer.

The government has decided in principle to install solar power units in all public and semi-government offices to promote expansion of renewable energy.It has also set a vision for generating power from the sun, wind, biomass and biogas with an aim to meet 5 percent of the country's total power demand by 2015, and 10 percent by 2020.

Currently renewable energy contributes less than one percent to overall power generation in the country, with solar home systems being installed mainly in off-grid areas and leading the green energy segment.

More than four lakh homes across the country have now been powered by solar energy with a capacity of generating over 20 megawatts of electricity, according to state-owned Infrastructure Development Company Ltd.The central bank governor said: "I urge all banks to install solar power system to save conventional power for industrial use."

Niaz Rahim, chairman of RREL, termed the BB initiative a good move for further expansion of solar power system in the country.He said solar energy would be able to generate 500 megawatts of power by 2015 in Bangladesh.Eastern Bank Ltd, a private commercial bank, has already shown interest to install solar power system at its head office."We have requested quotation from RREL for installation of the solar panel at our head office," said Ali Reza Iftekhar, managing director of the bank.

sajjad@thedailystar.net

http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=117681




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Re: [ALOCHONA] Re: Sermon of BAL Chamcha Iqbal Subhan Chou ??????????? ??



To All:

The best way to find out whether Mr. Sajeeb Wajed Joy, a US resident is innocent or not if his, his firms and financial accounts are investigated by the United States authorities, Internal Revenue Services, US Treasury Department, US Homeland Security Department (if possible) etc.

Anis Ahmed



---------- Original Message ----------
From: "musasarkar" <m_musa92870@yahoo.com>
To: alochona@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [ALOCHONA] Re: Sermon of BAL Chamcha Iqbal Subhan Chou ?????????????
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2009 19:29:18 -0000

 

Yeah, those Petrobangla employees were so courageous and patriotic that they had to use fake names! Only Mahmudur Rahman,
the mastremind of Uttara Conspircay, and Jatiyabadi Bush-Cheney type hardcore right-wing patriots know where they really exist.



Source: http://www.amadershomoy.com/content/2009/12/18/print0762.htm

--- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, Faruque Alamgir <faruquealamgir@...> wrote:
>
> Friends
>
> As we all know that the couregious Petrobangla employees have done a great
> job as patriot unveiling the clandestine corruption by the HRH Prince Joy n
> the hencemen of her mother.
>
> The Amardesh has performed it's right ONUS informing the people about about
> what is going on underneath the sweet coated *DEMOCRAZY *led by the only
> "dhan konnaya,Democrazy konnaya,newly born Begum Rokeya, highest P.hd
> holder in Bangladesh n the only legally/fairly elected PM in 38 years.
>
> *This truth has struck the BAL n it's "paa chatta kutta jibis" as bomb shell
> as showered by the Israelis in ME.*They got perplexed by thinking that *"ghorer
> kothat manushey janlo kemney" *since it was inhouse dealing between the
> contractors n the owner of the country through their agents. This has
> stirred the duffers brain n on instruction from the boss netri the
> sycophants forgot Nowa khowa n their ghum nidra made haram are "Chunga
> Fukaiiiing" about showering abusive slangs,threatening(only visible BAL's
> DEMOCRAZY) to kill n resorting to physiacl attack on the honest n cougious
> journalist who are risking their life hold on to the truth.
>
> Series of meetings(so-called protest) n TV talk are organised with great
> lickers "Jibis" to try to distract(failed attempts) the people's attention
> from the truth. So, this time one great paa chata joutnalist(??) name ikbal
> subhan chou of observer who shameless licked BAL's ideology and expressed
> his indignation on the false(????) allegation against of the great son of
> the soil HRH Prince Joy.
>
> *The laughing statement he gave that this would have credible had it been
> published in RWA Kantha,P.Alo,D.Star, agnbad, AjkerKagoj etc etc. Oh what
> great utterence that except these papers non others have credibility. *
>
> Plus this eruditre,prudent n shameless journalist also aded that Mahmudur
> Rahaman has no qualification to be editor of a news since he does not have
> 15 years experience as journalist(may be he meant BAL allignd journalist)
> so he has no right to be editor of n news paper which is working for a
> particular party.
>
> *My humble question to the erudite n prudent BAL chamcha that could you
> please tell how come messers Atikullah Khan Masud of RAW Kontha(who was a
> Mosquito coil producer), Babul of Jugantor who is a snatrashi n Balu
> bebshai, one retired colonel of Ajker Kagoj could become
> editors?????????????????? If these BAL sycopants could bcome editor n get
> credit n recognition from BAl than why not Mahmudur Rahman n others should
> not recognition n respect from the people not a coterie.*
>
>
> Mr.Iqbal for god sake leave chamchami n stand on yr vanity n dignity n try
> to perform the right onus as a citizen of a free country brought by the
> ocean of blood of the martyrs else U will listed as a hikrito n ghreenito
> like Janwar Razakas(including hasinas beai Musharaf).
> The nation can demand something better from your erudite people for a better
> future of our next generation.
>
> BANGLADESH ZINDABAD
>
> Faruque Alamgir
>



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[ALOCHONA] Case against Tipaimukh Dam: A Himalayan Blunder



Case against Tipaimukh Dam: A Himalayan Blunder
 
The Tipaimukh project was originally conceived in 1955 as a barrage to control flood in Barak Valley in Assam and had nothing to do with Manipur. Subsequently the emphasis has shifted to hydro-electric power generation with irrigation and other benefits as spin-offs. People from both India and Bangladesh are opposing this project. Nazmul Alam investigates the real of it.
 

The TIPAIMUKH (or Tuiruong to the local indigenous Hmar people) dam is located at Churachandpur district, the SW corner of Manipur[1] It is almost on the border with Mizoram[2] where the river Barak[3]  takes a 220 degree turn from SW to the northerly direction flowing through a gorge. According to the International Commission on Large Dams (1928), any such structure of at least of 15 meter high with a water storage capacity of 15.9 million cubic meter or more is to be called a large dam. The huge (390 meter long and of 163 meter high head concrete monster at the altitude of 180 meter above the sea-level and 500 meters down the confluence of Barak and Tuivai river with "billions" of cube meter (M3) reservoir (minimum draw dawn level or MDDL 136 meter, and a maximum of 178 meter giving a storage capacity: 15, 900 million cubic meter with maximum depth of 1725 meter, the largest in India) is situated barely 100 km from the Bangladesh border. It is a multi-purpose project in the sense that the project is designed to harness electricity from 6x250- MW (1500MW ) power house, work as a flood control dam for Monipur and the neighboring Mizoram and provide irrigation  of at least 3.1 lakh hectare  of cultivable lands using water of the  huge reservoir and of the  Tuivai or Barak river - the second largest river in the region, providing 7-8% of the total inflow to Bangladesh and mother of Surma- Kushiyara[4]  and the Meghna[5] (SKM) system, one of the three major life lines: Ganga/Padma[6], Meghna, Brahmaputra[7] (GMB) that  have formed the biggest delta on the mouth of the biggest bay in the world.

 

Critics however, may term a multi-purpose dam that ensconces within itself a host of conflicting purposes. Such a cross- purpose dam can only validate the Biblical dictum that one can not serve two masters at the same time. For, irrigation uses up water required to produce power, while flood control requires keeping the reservoir empty during the monsoon months to deal with an anticipated surfeit of water. The Tipaimukh project was originally conceived in 1955 as a barrage to control flood in Barak Valley in Assam and had nothing to do with Manipur. Subsequently the emphasis has shifted to hydro-electric power generation[8] with irrigation and other benefits as spin-offs.

 

2.0. The construction process was staggered principally on the face of opposition from the the local people. It has received a boost-up with recent clearance from the environment agency and the construction is now scheduled to be completed by 2012 if every thing goes right. Though the dam will have an installed capacity of 1500MW of electricity, according to a study report (1998) of the North Eastern Electric Power Corporation (NEEPCO) - the sponsoring agency, the best possible scenario envisages a firm generation capacity of 401.25 MW only on the basis of the plant load factor of 28% of the installed capacity, typical for a hydro-electric plant[9]. This implies that at most 412 MW power could be generated regularly. The estimated cost (Rs 15.9 billion, of which Rs.51638.6 million has already been spent in design) is surely to escalate with the gestation period implying cost and time over run. The host state of Manipur is expected to get a maximum of 10-12% share of the generated power (40-45MW) as per standard agreement between the state and the central government of India at the cost of incalculable loss to the ecosystem initiating a catastrophic irreversible damage which is bound affect Bangladesh as a lower riparian neighbor. The possibility of electricity sharing by Bangladesh, as suggested by some, is simply a travesty of truth. This is firstly because of the meager net output and secondly, because of absence of any such facility in the design as admitted by the sponsors themselves.[10]

 

Given the backdrop one can reasonably surmise why such a self-inflicting colossal investment is made to harvest peanuts. Is it to teach a lesson to the rebellious sons of the eastern seven sister states [11] or a manifest schadenfreude towards a neighbor not particularly keen to genuflect before a big brother? Was it not possible to resist the 'disease of gigantism' and adopt small hydropower plants[12]or economically more sustainable smaller Weiss/ Run-of-the-River (RoR) schemes elsewhere to minimize the human induced disaster?[13]

The expected maximum head (difference between reservoir water level and power generation unit), in the case of Tipaimukh project is about 160m. But at Loktak Lake[14], in the same region, the head is about 269m- about 100m more than that of the proposed Tipaimukh project). So, why not harness the potential from an alternative and safe site like the lake Loktak of Manipur? Why such a tremendous head is wasted for a diabolic contraption sure to strangulate lifeline of a neighbor? Are the potentially dangerous mega dams the only source of power?[15] What about the increasing success stories of power generation from non renewable sources? For whose benefit and for what benefit or to convey exactly what message the project is being executed by the big neighbor? Is it also part of the game plan that the foreign ministry should play the role of Prima Donna with expected faux from an uninitiated innocent thing while the Water Resources Ministry in the know of the hard-nosed facts and seasoned negotiators be relegated to play the second fiddle from the margin? For whose benefit and for what benefit the issue is conspicuous by its absence in public debate despite nauseating TV talk shows of the veteran fast cats of the so called civil society? Why the Parliament too seems to seek refuge in the dictum: silence is golden when even a Dostoyoskian idiot would recall T.S. Elliot: 'With such knowledge, what forgiveness'?

 

3.0. The dam is likely to submerge 288- 311 sq. km habitat area of 16 villages, disposes 1,320 indigenous people, endanger 90 more villages of the adjacent Tamelong area and wipe out already rare species of reptiles and mammals, destroy more than 27 thousand hectares of forests and mountains including orchards rich in medicinal and herbal plants, undermine navigation of Barak and several other rivers by putting a hold on 17, 354 cusec flow on the Indian side. In Bangladesh the dam will have particular adverse effect on all the districts of the greater Sylhet, plus two each of the greater Mymensingh, greater Dhaka and three of the greater Comlla, nine districts in all.[16] And all these will be wrought on the dystopian slogan of local pain for national gain in the form of 'an electric bulb from every tree'. (Jiten Yumnam: 2009).

 

3.1 Effect on for the lower riparian country Bangladesh is bound to be more catastrophic than Farakka,[17] and a second   albatross on the cursed neck with perhaps many more to follow as we are yet to have an agreement on water sharing foe 53 of the 54 rivers flowing in from India.  Thus the project site, barely one hundred kilometer upstream north from the Zakiganj-Karimganj[18] international border, Sylhet, turns out not only one of a series of mega projects for energy hungry India, but also one of the most sinister one, eventually to control the Meghna through Barak as it did with Farakka to control Padma through Ganga with, surely many more to follow

4.0. The THEMP has already come to represent development aggression, in utter indifference to India's own environmental rules requiring free, prior or informed consent (FPIC) of the local people, or their voiced or concern of the people of lower riparian Bangladesh by furnishing any Detailed Project Report (DPR), despite assurance from the then Minster for Water Resources of India (Priya Rangan Das Munshi) given as early as in September, 2005.[19] Recent reports of damage of drilling machines of NEEPCO, the sponsoring agency, exposes the fact that construction work is already in full swing, with little respect for  all existing human rights and developmental standards, including guidelines of the World Commission on Dams for construction of dams.

5.0. The project seems to have been launched like an army operation and one can visualize establishment of a cantonment first at the dam site (as is there at Farakka) to ward off  attempts to undermine the construction as have already been  made by the local rebellious groups in more than one occasion. One wonders if the dam water is going to act as octane to the already existing fire of agitation among the local inhabitants.[20]

6.0. It is claimed that the NE region of India has the potential of about 58,971 MW of electricity from its flowing rivers, representing 40%  of the current electricity demand of India out of which less than 2% (1095MW) have been harnessed so far.  The Tipaimukh hydel project turns out to be the biggest of the six such projects undertaken by the NEEPCO under the XII plan (2012-2017). But the region and particularly the site selected for the project in also happens to be one of the most geologically unstable area. The region is one of the six most tectonically active areas of the world that includes California, Japan, Mexico, Turkey and Taiwan. The dam –site itself is in the most seismo-tectonic zones.[21] of the eastern India.

 6.1. This is because the fact that the structural-tectonic features of Indo-Myanmar region (IMR) in general and Manipur in particular evolved through interaction between India and the Myanmar plates rather than the Indian-Eurasian (Chinese) plates under shear deformation mechanism which is still active in the region. The faults and fractures around the dam axis belongs to a category that may undergo strike-slip and extension movements causing   considerable displacement like moderate to large earthquakes and, a displacement by a mere a few centimeter along the dam axis is enough to cause a major dam disaster. Thus the proposed dam axis falls on a 'fault line' potentially active and a possible epicenter for another major earthquake. In addition, the reservoir o0f the dam itself may trigger an earthquake

6.2. It has further been claimed that well-designed and constructed rock fill dams are the safest type for large height dams. Needless to say, such claims are made for ideal conditions without taking into account of the condition of the dam site. Tipaimukh would be among the largest of such dams in the world. But what is not mentioned is geo-morphological condition of the site itself. The gigantic (90m high) earth-filled Teton Dam in US collapsed in less than one and a half hour deluging the down stream with 20 m high waves. The Chinese-built a large and high dam in Cameroon, Africa, and 40km east of the Nigerian border on the Benue River in 1980. Design flood for this large dam was taken as 50,000-year period flood. In the high hilly drainage basin of the dam, there was very high rainfall with consequent abnormal rise of water level of the reservoir in 1988 flood season, almost overtopping the dam. It was a rock-fill dam on which overtopping might have resulted in washing away of the dam with catastrophic consequences for both countries.The Huaccoto Dam in Peru was 170 m high, similar to the Tipaimukh Dam; failed within 48 hours due to a natural landslide in the reservoir. Fact is the old fashioned rock-filled design is basically outmoded and given the seismic-tectonic characteristic of the site, the dam does carry potential risk of great ecological catastrophe: human and environmental. Hence for a dam in a hilly earthquake-prone and a high intensity rain region like Tipaimukh, a 100,000 to 500,000-year design flood should have been undertaken. In all probability that has not been done. If it had indeed been done,  the several episodes of dam failure would have turned up in the study.  Clearly, over enthusiasm for the dam has pushed a through dam-break study for Tipaimukh at the back seat.

 

7.0. It is not a fact that the downstream adverse effects of a Tipaimukh Dam-break have been not been studied by the Government of Bangladesh .Since 1992-94, the Flood Action Plan 6 (FAP 6) which had a Future Without Plan component that looked at a dam-break scenario on the basis of whatever data on the project were made available through the Joint Rivers Commission (JRC)[22]. At that time, the dam reservoir water is planned to be diverted for irrigation in Catcher District of India at the cost of water flow down the Surma and Kushiara in Bangladesh, particularly its North Eastern Region.

 

7.1. As no statement was  available how much water Indian intends to siphon off through the project , it was assumed for FAP-6 that the total depth of irrigation water would be 1 M and that the water would be diverted on a continuous basis during the six dry months (November through April). With that rather sober assumption, a dam-break scenario[23] was also envisaged by the experts. It transpired that the Dam posed serious adverse consequences for the Surma, Kushiyara and Meghna River system with likelihood of major tectonic realignment with decreased weight of the water load. Assuming the events as random with a simple binomial probability model with a return period of 30 to 50 years, there would be 40-60% probability of a major earthquake (7.6 magnitudes) with epicenter at Srimangal of Maulavibazar by 2015 (similar to the 8 July 1918 event) causing severe disruptions in river channels, collapse of river banks and directions. Assuming a return period of 300-1000 years, there was a 2-5% probability of a really large (8.7magnitude) earthquake at the Shillong Plateau as the epicenter (similar to the one of 12 June 1897), the largest on record causing major change in the  existing morphologic trends and even inducing re-configuration of the total drainage system.

 

7.2 The study is corroborated by reports of past disasters. The District Gazetteer of Assam      (1917) reported on the 1899 earthquake along the Brahmaputra River informing that "Strong ground shaking triggered liquefaction of river cross-sections in a few seconds,..bottom of the river heaved, the banks lowered; water immediately started to rise and overflow the banks and adjacent zones where infilling of the channels took place. Natural sills formed causing temporary lakes to develop; channels gradually re-opened by scouring where currents were strong enough, and  water levels decreased.'

 

7.3 Generally, a flood wave is found to travels downstream at a rate in the order of 10 km /hr reaching velocities as high as 30 km/ hr. This implies that in case of collapse of a large dam like Tipaimukh, the initial flood wave could reach the eastern limit of Bangladesh, say of 200 km from the dam site, in 24-48 hours, inundating to a depth of about 5 meter. Further, due to small gradient slowing the gravity flow, may take several weeks to drain out the water of the enormous reservoir keeping the Northeast Region pended for quite some time. A release volume of 10 Mm3, for instance, could keep a ponded area of 100 km2, on the depth of 1.0 m above the normal flood level. How one is expected to respond to such a deluge? Ask for a Noah's arc?

 

8.0 In general, it can reasonably be said that environmental degradation, economic crisis and hydrological drought will cause colossal irreversible damage to Bangladesh. The free flowing Surma and Kushyara rivers supporting internal navigation agriculture, irrigation navigation, drinking water supply, industries like fertilizer, electricity, gas etc.fisheries, wildlife in numerous haors and low lying areas in the entire Sylhet division and some peripheral areas of Dhaka division will suddenly dry up and remain so particularly during November to May.

 

8.1 Water flow in Meghna is likely to fall by about 80% during winter and  by 25% during the rest of the season adversely affecting 2 million inhabitants in Cacher-Karimganj in India, 12 million in greater Sylhet,6 million in greater Comilla,,4 million in greater Noakhali, 6 million in greater Dhaka, i.e. about 30 million in Bangladesh alone.[24] Agriculture based on tube wells will become dysfunctional.

 

8.2 Massive environmental degradation will occur, drastically affecting weather and climate, turning a wet cooler habitat into a hot uncomfortable cauldron.

 

8.3 Scarcity of water will cause siltation on river beds. High rainfall in the catchments area of the dam, will release enormous quantity of sediment-laden flood water causing severity of flood in the silted –up channels of Surma and Kushyara causing floods in adjoining additional areas.

 

8.4 Navigation in the lower Meghna will become next-to impossible with severe deplete of water flow and consequential increased sedimentation, severity in flooding during the wet season and in the dry season, the upper Meghna up to Chandpur may simply dry up.

In short, the adverse effect of the Tipaimukh project on our water resource management, would be worse than what the Farakka has wrought on the G.K. Project[25]

 

9.0 It has been suggested that the Government of Bangladesh should formally and immediately request the Union Government of India, to stop the construction of the Dam, taking advantage of the relationship existing  between the  governments  of the two countries at the moment  through  JRC  and  bi-lateral diplomatic  forum  like SAARC during which all  works on the dam should strictly be kept in abeyance.

9.1 It has also been suggested that if nothing tangible comes out from such negotiations within a reasonable given time frame, we should seek intervention by United Nations under the 1815 Vienna Meet for settlement of the dispute as it was met for instance, between Czechoslovakia (later Slovakia) and Hungary on water sharing of Danube by the International Court of Justice in 1921. It may also be recalled that the Indus river water dispute was also successfully negotiated between India and Pakistan with the assistance of the World Bank. The Mekong River water dispute was also resolved through such intervention by the UN. So our problem is not quite a unique one: there are about 214 rivers in the world that flow through more than one country and out of these, at least nine [26]are flowing through as many as half a dozen x countries. It has also been stated that the different provision of various agreements, treaties, conventions may be invoked to buttress our stand like: violation of the 1996 Indo-Bangladesh Treaty on Ganges water sharing, UN Convention on water sharing of 1997, UN Declaration of basic Human Rights of 1948,,Convention on Biodiversity( CBD), World Bank guidelines for conservation of the environment,  UN Development Conventions, Guidelines of the World Dam Commission, etc. to resolve the issue acceptable to all the stake holders.

9.2 It has further been recommended that we should lend our voice to the  protest raised by the indigenous people  of the dam-site for a free, prior and informed consent" (FPIC) as provided under the International convention [27] The argument runs:  If their problems can be solved through mediation of a third party, why not our? [28]

All these are noble suggestions. But the caveat lies in the reality the socio-economic and cultural norms that prevail amongst those economies are quite different from what is here in our South Asia. Our foreign policy is professedly based on friendship to all and enmity to none. In reality, however, there prevails a sense of uneasiness, being a tiny neighbor next to a giant of overwhelming influence.

10.0 What is of most importance is that the International Conventions are less than clear on these issues. It is true that the Convention, Protection and Use of Tran-boundary Water courses and Tran-boundary Lakes of 1992 provided some bindings for environmental protection (Article 2, 2b). Articles 5a, 5b also refers to sustainability. In the Helsinki Agreement, there is a full article (Article 22) on issue of dispute settlement. It is also true that this Convention has been adopted by the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in 1997 with 'duty to cooperate in protection and development' (Article 5) protection of the ecosystem (Article20-23), provision for dispute settlement (Article 33).But all these are for advanced rational societies where one can still discern modicum of civility and methods even in their apparent madness. The only basic frame work for any international agreement between states sharing a common water course is still the UN Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational uses of international waters of 1997.

 But the snag is that to make the Convention binding, there is a minimum requirement of 35 signatories while till date, only 15 member-states have put their signatures on it.[29] The Berlin Rules on Water Resources (2004) with its particular provision for settlement of International water disputes (Chapter 14) mooted by the International Law Association is also yet to be a binding Convention.

11.0 Quite a few have suggested that as the first step, the Joint River Commission,(JRC) which remains mostly dysfunctional, should jump- start spade works for a summit meet at the topmost level of the government as an exclusive agenda sharing for water sharing of the Bramhaputra, Meghna basins on  just and equitable basis, buttressed by the International consensus. Other stake holding states can also be factored in at subsequent stages, if possible, as the area of the total catchments of the Ganga-Meghna- Bramhaputra,(GMB) that have largely created the delta itself is about  eleven times larger than the total land mass of Bangladesh, Such a phased out plan for water sharing of the common rivers at the soonest  is all the more imperative on the face of  increasing  crisis for sweet water all over the globe and one need not be terribly upset if the next world war is flashed not by oil but by demands for sweet water. How can we possibly forget that Bangladesh is essentially product of its 230 or so rivers, the total length of all these rivers would cover fifteen thousand miles and yet, there is a gradual dying of all the rivers every day? How can we possibly ignore the fact that existence of at least twenty rivers of Bangladesh are at a stake and out of these, fifteen have already dried up. They exist on the map only but in reality, we have lost them forever. How can we possibly ignore the fact that due to frequent change in course and other causes, we have already lost thousand of acres land to India[30]. Hence, the team/ teams of Parliament members and of experts supposed to visit the Tipaimukh dam site, as recently declared by a cabinet member, should ask their Indian counterparts for design/survey data, drawings/maps etc, and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report prepared by the dam authority to check-up if the Dam Break Study and EIA study have been made properly.

 All these are admittedly reasonable propositions and there is no harm in attempting them. The JRC can be given a new lease of life and even the proposal to approach and stand up before the UN to voice our rightful claim in no uncertain terms, can also be ventured by our foreign ministry. But what worries most is the bitter experience that we have from past quixotic grand pronouncements and half-hearted attempts ending the initial bangs in small whimpers. How can we possibly forget the reality that the complex web of hydro-politics inexorably leads to an inextricable interdependence, particularly between two asymmetric neighbors allowing little scope to voice its inconveniences?

 

 

11.0 We may conclude with the observation that Nature does not respect man-made political orders and the history of human civilization is also history of rivers. We can claim to control them but at the end of the day, any such vainglorious attempt is doomed to relics of the dead as the artifacts and the very name of MoenzoDaro literally suggests. As observed by Arundhati Roy, big multipurpose hydro-electric projects are big contradictions and building them in earthquake-prone areas like Tipaimukh, is too big a mistake to be resolved by the god of small things like livelihood of the common men.

 

10.2 It is said that "The frog does not drink up the pond in which he lives. India, with third largest number of dams in the world, is precisely sowing in the wind to reap the whirlwind. In one hand, with blessings of the sole global super power, she desires to play an increasingly pivotal role in the comity of nations, and on the other, brazenly disowning to be her brothers keeper as well by manifest indifference towards an equitable and just sharing of the common water courses, numbering almost 300, and about 40% of the global people's living depends around them.

10.3 Given the condition what course can we possibly seek to solve, if not to dissolve the issue? It seems that the most unique character of the people of Bangladesh is that, in their heart of hearts, there is an indomitable spirit that can be ignored by any only at his/her own peril. That spirit was once manifest in 1947, 1952-54, in 1970—7, over and over again, during every watershed of the national history. That is the spirit that once flickered during the different peasant revolts against a visibly incomparably superior adversary. That is the spirit that keeps life surviving after devastating surges and cyclones that periodically visit us with all their fury. In the circumstances, the very least that we can do is to sensitize the people about urgency of the issue, to kindle once again that promethean spirit, transforming them to what the in science is termed a singular soliton  If a grain of faith can move a mountain, as the scriptures assure us, a united, solid  phalanx of 150 million can surely bring a goliath to its knees and hopefully, to  its senses; reduce the mountain to a mole hill. In other words, the challenge is not so much of diplomatic adroit maneuverings and outwitting chessmanship as of arousing the nation from its slumber by taking into folds people of all strains of political convictions and motivate them to stand up against the diabolical design to obliterate the very existence as a nation. Is it too much to expect that the leadership should come from the daughter of the very architect of the nation? This is a real challenge for both the Water and the Foreign Affairs Ministry and above all, for both the leaders of Position and the Opposition to rise above party tribalism and present a united front for the sake of the singular objective: survival of the nation.  

 

Seismic map of the eastern India, indicative of intense tectonic activity in the region around the Tipaimukh dam site.



[1] Manipur 'land of jewels' as the name suggests, is with nine administrative districts including Churachandpur  (area 4570 sq. km, population of 2,27,905.site of the Tipaimukh dam),  and a total population of 23,800,000 (2001 census)  in an area of 8,628  sq mile (22,347 km²) is  one of the eight states of  NE India. During the WWII, Manipur and particularly its capital Imphal, an oval-shaped valley of approximately 700 square miles surrounded by Blue Mountains at an elevation of 790 meters above the sea level, was the scene of many fierce battles between the Allied forces and the Azad Hind Fouz of Netaji Subah Bose backed by the Japanese. There has been an separatists movement in Manipur since Indian independence by several groups, currently estimated to number 34 including non-violent ones, of which at least seven prominent ones are active. These include the United National Liberation Front (UNLF with some 2500 active militants), Peoples Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK), and Peoples Liberation Army (PLA, perhaps with 1500 militants).. The presence of the mountain ranges not only prevents the cold winds from the north from reaching the valley but also acts as a barrier to the cyclonic storms originating from the Bay of Bengal. The South Westerly Monsoon picks up moisture from the Bay of Bengal and heads towards Manipur, hits the eastern Himalayan Ranges and produces a massive amount of rain in the state.

There are four major river basins in Manipur State, including the Barak river basin (Barak valley) to the west. The Barak rive,, the largest river of Manipur, originates in the Manipur Hills and is joined by a number of tributaries including Tuivai. After its junction with the Tuivai, the Barak River turns north and forms the border with Assam State, and then enters the Cachar District of Assam.. The rivers draining the Manipur Hills are comparatively young, due to the hilly terrain. These rivers are corrosive in nature and assume turbulent form in the rainy season. The total water resources of the Barak and Manipur basins have been estimated to be 18.487 cubic kilometers .The soil contains substantial iron  in the hill area and the  alluvium in the valley, containing  loam, small rock fragments, sand and sandy clay, etc. On the plains, especially flood plains and deltas, the soil is quite thick. The top soil on the steep slopes is very thin. Soil on the steep hill slopes is subject to high erosion, resulting in gullies and barren rock slopes. Manipur enjoys a generally amiable climate, largely due to its surrounding hilly location 790 meters above sea level. 41.1% of the population is in the hill areas and are divided in to at least 29 different tribes including Meitei Muslims known as Meitei Pangal.or simply Pangals

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[2] Mizoram, literally meaning land of the highlanders, is with  at least 21 major rolling hills, valleys, rivers and lakes.  The hills are steep (avg. height 1000 meters) and separated by rivers , gradually rise up to 1,300 meters to the east at places, go up to a height of over 2,000 meters like the Phawangpui Tlang ( the Blue Mountain), the highest peak situated south-eastern part of the state. Its tropical location combined with the high altitude gives it a mild climate all year round. The earliest Mizos (Mi= People, Zo= Hill), also known as Kukis were possibly from banks of the Yalung River in China, if not from Mongolia. The Mizos are divided into numerous tribes, like Lusais (People who play with heads) /Luseis (Long-Headed people), the Chakmas, originally from Arakan and now also in Bangladesh and the Hmers- inhabitants of the Tipaimukh dam. In 1959, the Mizo Hills was devastated by a great famine known in Mizo history as 'Mautam Famine', attributed to flowering of bamboos (30% of Mizoram is covered with wild bamboo forests. Flowing of bamboo is an event which takes place once every 48 years and further, according to some experts it has an effect on rat fertility, causing boom in the rat population devouring the crops and setting the famine condition. .Anti-famine movements eventually resulted in formation of the political organization Mizo National Front (MNF) for achieving sovereign independence of Greater Mizoram. The Government of India used its air force, the first ever to quell a movement of any kind among its citizens. Eventually, the union government turned the Mizo Hills into a Union Territory (U.T.) in 1971 and a state in 1987.. One of the most important and useful river is the Tuivawl /Tuivai which flow through the northern territory and eventually join the Bareak River in Cachar District The western part is drained by Karnaphuli (Khawthlang tuipui) that flows skirting Chittagong of Bangladesh .

 

[3]  From its source in the Manipur Hills of India, near Mao Songsang, the river Barak (average depth 282 feet /86 meter with maximum depth of 550 feet/170 meter.) flows west through Manipur, then southwest leaving Manipur and entering Mizoram where it flows southwest then veers abruptly north joining a north flowing stream and then flows into Assam where again, it turns and flows west past the Silchar town ,bifurcating into the Surma (northern branch ) and the Kushiyara (southern branch) before entering  the Sylhet Depression forming  the Surma Basin. From the point of bifurcation, the Kushiyara flows westwards to Bangladesh forming the northern boundary of the Karimganj.  Bangladesh, the river is again divided near Moulavi Bazar, the northern branch assuming the name Bibiyana and the southern branch, Shakha Barak. The Bibiyana later merges with the Surma near Markuli in Habiganj and assumes the name Kalni. Their combined stream eventually merges with the Meghna. The southern stream of Kushiyara resumes the original name Barak / Shakha Barak and flows in a south-westerly direction through Habiganj and finally falls into the old bed of the Brahmaputra near Bhairab Bazar. Kishoreganj, the terminus for the Surma-Kushiyara streams to give rise to the mighty Meghna. The Surma-Kushiyara-Meghna-River System (SKM) system flows a total of 946 km major part (669 km) of which, because of the Meghna, belongs to Bangladesh. Meghna, originating within Bangladesh, eventually flows to the Bay of Bengal, skirting Bhola with giving in route such off shoots like the 1.5 km width Safipur, one of the main rivers of the South Bengal.

[4] Surma River, a major river in Bangladesh, is part of the SKM system, starts as the Barak River from northeast India divides at the Bangladesh border into the Surma and the Kushiyara rivers. It ends in the Kishoreganj , where the two rivers Surma and Kushiyara rejoin to form the Meghna River, ultimately flowing into the Bay of Bengal. The average depth of river is 282 feet and maximum depth is 550 feet The Surma is fed by tributaries from the Meghalaya Hills to the north, and is also known as the Baulai River after it is joined by the south-flowing Someswari River. The Kushiyara receives tributaries from the Sylhet Hills and Tripura Hills to the south, the principal one from the Tripura Hills being the Manu. The Kushiyara is also known as the Kalni River after it is joined by a major offshoot (distributary) from the Surma.

[5] The Meghna River , one of the three that forms the Ganges Delta, the largest on earth fanning out to the Bay of Bengal. The Meghna is formed inside Bangladesh by the joining of different rivers originating from the hilly regions of eastern India. The Upper Meghna meets Padma near Chandpur wherefrom it flows as the Lower Meghna into the Bay of Bengal. Lower Meghna is also reinforced by the Dhaleswari before reaching Chandpur as well. When the Padma, the largest distributary of the Ganges in Bangladesh joins with the Jamuna river- the largest distributary of the Brahmaputra, and the further join with the Meghna in Chandpur, the  brown and hazy water of the Padma mix with the clear water of the Upper Meghna and, the two distinct streams  flow side by side between the same common banks making half of the river clear and the other half brown and flow almost in a straight line down to the Bay of Bengal leaving  braids of  little rivers , all of which  rejoin  Meghna at downstream. With an average depth is 1,012 feet and a maximum depth is 1,620 feet, The Meghna is the widest river (near Bhola, it is 12 km wide) among those that flow completely inside the boundaries of Bangladesh. Meanwhile at Ghatalpur of Brahmanbaria, the river Titas emerges from Meghna and after circling two large bends of 240 km, falls into the Meghna again near Nabinagar of Habiganj. In Daudkandi, Comilla, again, Meghna is joined by the great river Gomti, created by the combination of many streams. Bridges over Meghna and Gomoti are two of the country's largest bridges. Further down, near Muladhuli in Barisal  district, the Safipur river , a 1.5 km wide offshoot of the Meghna  creates one of the main rivers in South Bengal. Finally, near Bhola, just before flowing into the Bay of Bengal, the river divides into two main streams in the Ganges delta and separates an island from both sides of the mainland. The western stream is called Ilsha and the eastern one is called Bamni. Thus the Surma-Meghna River System is a river complex that flows a  total of 946 km (669 km within Bangladesh.

[6]6] Padma, the main distributor of the Ganges from which about one third of the Bangladeshis draw their sustenance, enters Bangladesh at Shibganj, ChapaiNawabganj. Just west of Shibganj, the distributory Bhagirathi emerges and flows southwards taking the name Ganga as well as the Hoogly River. While in Bangladesh, it flows as Padma and near former goalando (present Rajbari) 2200 km from the Himalayan source, joins Jamuna-the lower Brahmaputra and still further down at Chandpur, meets Meghna.

 

[7] The mighty river Brahmaputra, a paleo-river is older than the Himalayas. The river with steep gorges and rapids in Arunachal Pradesh enters Assam and turns into a braided river with at places, 16 km wide and with tributaries, creating a flood plain called the Brahmaputra Valley which is /80-100 km wide and 1000 km long characterized by ox-bow lakes with a unique hydro- geomorphic environment.

 

[8] Hydroelectricity is electricity generated by hydropower i.e., the production of power through use of the gravitational force of falling or flowing water, the most widely used form of renewable energy. Worldwide, hydroelectricity supplied approximately 20% of the world's electricity, and accounts for about 88% of electricity from renewable sources. A hydel project utilizes natural water course for generating electricity, much like a gas turbine, the prime mover and, a generator to transfer mechanical (kinetic) energy of water to electrical energy, mostly from the potential energy of dammed water driving the turbine. The energy extracted from the water depends on the volume and on the difference in height between the source and the water's outflow and this height difference, called the head, is critical as the potential energy in water is proportional to the head. To obtain very high head, water for a hydraulic turbine may be run through a large pipe called a penstock. Thus the idea is to build a dam on a large river that has a large drop in elevation. The dam stores lots of water behind it in the reservoir. Near the bottom of the dam wall there is the water intake. Gravity causes it to fall through the penstock inside the dam. At the end of the penstock there is the turbine propeller, turned by the moving water. The shaft from the turbine goes up into the generator, which produces the power. Finally, power lines are connected to the generator that carries electricity. The water continues past the propeller through the tailrace into the river past the dam Thus the hydraulic turbine converts the energy of flowing water into mechanical energy and the generator converts the mechanical energy into electricity. The operation of a generator is based on the principles that when a magnet is moved past a conductor, it causes electricity to flow. In a large generator, electromagnets are made by circulating direct current through loops of wire wound around stacks of magnetic steel. A simple formula for approximating electric power production at a hydroelectric plant is: P = hrgk, where P is Power in kilowatts, h is height in meters, r is flow rate in cubic meters per second, g is acceleration due to  gravity of 9.8 m/s2, and k is a coefficient of efficiency ranging from 0 to 1.

 

[9]The efficiency of a hydel project is not difficult to calculate. For a plant with water flow rate say 1.25m3/sec, a head of 254meter the efficiency, assuming the water inlet and discharge ducts having the same area and further, no heat is transferred to or absorbed from the surroundings, the Potential Energy of the water would be = water mass flow/sec (1.25m3 /sec) density of water in kg/meter (.998g/cm2=998kg/m2) x gravitational force (g=9.81 m/sec2) x height of the discharge head (254 m) or 3,108 kJ. From this, the energy lost as heat is to be subtracted. Since heat capacity of water is 4.17 Jouls, the total energy lost as heat would be 4.17 (heat capacity)x 1.25 (water flow rate)x 998  (water density in kg/m3)x 0.4 (the coefficient, say )=2082 kJ. Subtracting (3108-2082) we get 1026 as the energy gained .and the efficiency as 1026/3108=33%.

 

[10] In a recent seminar on 'Regional Connectivity: Potential for Infrastructure Development and Energy in South Asia' the Commerce Minister (Faruk Khan), underscoring potential of the water and energy resource potential of the region, bemoaned that those who were talking excessively on the issue are actually not in the know of the fact' and hinted about possibility of sharing of the generated energy and  declaring at the same time that' If the Tipaimukh dam is not beneficial for Bangladesh, then it will not be put in place. Bangladesh will not give its clearance for the project.' (Emphasis is in the original). Only an irresponsible fetus, under hallucination can nurture the illusion and delusion that the fate of a project in a neighboring state can be altered by mere words words and words and no action, innocent about the actual progress of the project as is evident from the statement that 'The PM will send a team of parliamentary members and experts to the Tipaimukh-dam site.. for a first hand view'. (The Independent, 27 May, 2009, p-1, 2). Such flabbergasting, presumably meant for the hoi-polloi, only invokes parable of the legendary futile command of king Caniute to the advancing sea waves not to proceed further.

 

[11] The Seven Sister States are Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur,Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripua, with a total population of 38.6 million ( 2000), about 3.8 percent of India's total.

 Arunachal Pradesh, "land of the dawn lit mountains /of the rising sun"  is historically related with Tibet, is divided into sixteen districts with a population around a million in an area of 32,333 sq mile. It is with a large percent of India's untapped hydropower potential. In Simla Conference (1913-1914) Sir Henry McMahon, drew up the 550 mile international border line named after him, disputed by China .

Assam with evidences of human settlements from all the periods of the Stone ages, is in the eastern-most projection of the Indian Plate, where the plate is thrusting underneath the Eurasian Plate creating a subduction zone giving  a unique geomorphic environment, a  land of high rainfall and at the same time , one of the most the flood –prone and frequently  affected with  mild earthquakes place in the world. Assam, supplying of up to 25% of India's petroleum needs is also known for Assam tea, silk, and its rich biodiversity .The meandering Bramaputra, and the Barak rivers form  valleys, equivalent to the size of Ireland and Austria and. In the south, the Barak, originating in the Assam-Nagaland border, flows through the Cachar district with a 40-50 km wide valley and enters Bangladesh with the name Surma.The hills were popular habitats probably due to availability of exposed doleritic basalt useful for tool-making. Divided into 27 administrative districts and  49 "Sub-divisions"  with a total  population  estimated at 28.67 million in 2006 and as many as 115 ethnic groups speaking forty-five dialects, Assam has given a hybrid culture with assimilation of the Kamrupa-Kingdom  for almost 700 years , Ahom dynasty  of  the 13th century for next 600 years, Kachari  and Koch Kingdom 12th-18th century and  many of the cultural-systems are still surviving as an important part of Assamese way of life.

 Census    %±

1951    606,000      

1961    769,000       26.9%

1971    1,012,000       31.6%

1981    1,336,000       32.0%

1991    1,775,000       32.9%

2001    2,319,000       30.6%

Source:Census of India[1]

Meghalaya ( "The Abode of Clouds") also known as the "Meghalaya Platue", with 7 districts, mainly of archean rock formations, containing rich deposits of valuable minerals including coal, uranium and has  many rivers, some creating deep gorges mostly rainfed and therefore seasonal. and several beautiful waterfalls , is a hilly strip about 300 km long (east-west) and 100 km wide, with a total area of about 8,700 sq. mile and a  population of d 2,175,000 in 2000. It is bounded by Assam and Bangladesh .The capital Shillong has a population of 260,000.Meghalaya was formed by carving out two districts of the state of Assam. Tribal people make up the majority of Meghalaya's population. The Khasis are the largest group, Jaintias, Garos etc. One of the unique features of the State is that a majority of the tribal population in Meghalaya follows a matrilineal system where lineage and inheritance are traced through women and may be the world's largest surviving matrilineal culture wherein the "Kha Khadduh" (or the youngest daughter) inherits all the property and acts as the caretaker of aged parents and any unmarried siblings Meghalaya is the wettest state of India. The town of Cherapunji in the Khasi Hills south of capital Shillong holds the world record for most rain in a calendar month, while the village of Mawsynram, near the town of Cherrapunji, holds the distinction of seeing the heaviest yearly rains It is predominantly an agrarian economy but with a rich base of natural resources and, yet nearly one-third the total population of the state in 2000 were below the poverty line , mostly in the rural areas. Meghalaya is a land locked state and roads are the main links amongst a large number of small settlements in remote areas. The Meghalayan subtropical forests have been considered among the richest botanical habitats of Asia.

Nagaland, originally referred to as Chingmee (Hill People), is a mountainous state with hills rising  from the Brahamaputra Valley in Assam with a population of nearly two million people, it has a total area of 6,401 sq.mile - is  one of the smallest states of India with eleven districts is  probably' the most populated Baptist state in the world'  with 60 different dialects of  Sino-Tibetan family. During World War I, the British recruited several hundred Nagas and sent them to France to work as laborers at the front. Returning home, they initiated the Naga nationalist movement with intermittent violence which ultimately resulted in an agreed upon cease-fire or cessation of operations in 1997 which continues till date.

Tripura,. the second Rubber Capital of India after Kerala, the third smallest but second most densely populated state (population: 31 million within a stretch of land 184 km from north to south to and 113 km from east to west giving a density of 304 persons per square kilometer) the state is surrounded by Bangladesh on all sides save the east where Karimganj of Assam and Aizwal, capital of Mizoram connect with India. Thus a landlocked state, but with many rivers including the Manu and  a history of over 2500 years and 186 kings and therefore plethora of legends including origin of the state name itself which in all probability, is a  corruption of Twi-bupra( twi is water , bupra confluence) as names of several villages would testify.

 

[12] Although large hydroelectric installations generate most of the world's hydroelectricity, some situations require small hydro plants. These are defined as plants producing up to 10- megawatts in our country or up to 30 megawatts in USA. A small hydro plant may be connected to a distribution grid or may provide power only to an isolated community Small hydro can be of even one MW in size, but in our country, the Small Hydropower projects (SHP) are generally classified as Mini (10-99MW), Micro (100-999MW) and Small (1000-25,000 MW), each of either low head (below 3 meters), medium head (30-75 meter) or of high head (75 plus meter), SHPs are particularly  popular in  China, having over 50% of world's SHPs.The estimated potential of SMH in India is 15,000MW and there are 4250 potential sites with aggregate capacity of 10,000. So far, 466 projects in 29 states with a total capacity of 1530 MW have been installed and a further 610MW of SMH projects are in the pipeline. All these SMH are mainly to bring electricity in 15,000 villages in India and they operate mainly under the run-off in the hilly areas

 

[13] It is true that late Nehru had an obsessive dream for building of such mega facilities as modern temples for a modern India. It is also true that for the villagers displaced by the Hirakund Dam in 1948, he had the sermon:' If you are to suffer you should suffer in the interest of the society'. But it is also true that in a speech  given before the 29th Annual  Meeting of the Central  Board of Irrigation  and Power (17 November, 1958) said he: For some time past, however, I have  been beginning to think that we are suffering from what we may call 'the disease of gigantism'. We want to show that we can build big dams and do big things. This is a dangerous outlook developing  in India…the idea  of big- having  big undertakings and doing big things for the sake of  showing that  we can do big things-is not good  outlook at all.' And 'It is …small irrigation projects, the small industries and the small plants for electric power, which will change the face of the country far more than half –a-dozen big projects in half-a- dozen place' (Quoted by Arundhati Roy in her article on Narmada:'The Greater Common Good', compiled in the book 'The Algebra of Infinite Justice', Penguin Books, 2002, p-305).

Was it a subconscious paradigm shift on the part of Nehru, obsessed with the romantic paternal protective morality of socialistic sentiments shifting to his mentor Gandhi's nurturing morality of an equally romantic Ram Rajyya?

 

[14] The  Loktak Lake, 48 km from Imphal, Manipur is the largest fresh water lake in the North East India, a veritable miniature inland of the central plain. The total area occupied by all the lakes is about 600 km The Manipur river basin has eight major rivers all originating from the surrounding hills deposit their sediment load in the Loktak Lake

 

[15] The New Delhi based Centre for Science and Environment in a study 'Floods, Floodplains and Environmental Myths in 1999 criticized the embankment mode of managing floods, which, creates problems rather than of ameliorating them. Many Himalayan rivers are embanked all the way and as a result at many places the river beds are higher than the surrounding areas on the banks. Moderate rainfall causes inundation, as seen in West Bengal and Bihar. Rivers in the Himalayas, an erosion-prone mountainous region, carry a lot of silt. The question is whether to resort to flood management or learn how to live with floods. Indeed, Human behavior is teleological, and thus not governed proximally by straight physics. But that is first an illusion, because it is only a proximal illusion. Second, we must not pretend, especially to ourselves, that the laws of nature are known to any significant extent. And finally, who says Homo sapiens is exogenous? We are part of the system, and we survive, like every one else by the natures consent As observed by Arundhati Roy, 'Big Dams are obsolete. They're uncool. They're undemocratic, they're Undemocratic. They're Government's way of accumulating authority (deciding who will get how much water and who will grow what where). They're a guaranteed way of taking a farmer's wisdom away from him.. They're a brazen means of taking water, land and irrigation away from the poor and gifting it to the rich. Their reservoirs displace huge populations of people, leaving them homeless and destitute. Ecologically too, they 're in the dog house….Big Dams haven't  really lived up to their role as the monuments of Modern Civilization…Monuments are supposed to be timeless , but dams have an all too finite time.  They last only as long as it takes Nature to fill them with silt ( as we are  already witnessing with the  29 year-old 700 sq kilometer Kaptai lake of the Kaptai dam, one of the largest artificially and inhumanly constructed lake in the region) …. Over the last fifty years, India has spent Rs 87,000 crore on irrigation sector alone to become the third largest dam builder in the world with 3600 big dams, 3300 of which have been built after 1947 and 695 mega dams are under construction. 'Yet there are more drought-prone areas and more flood-prone areas today than there were in 1947. …. (And ) Government has not commissioned a post-project evaluation of a single one of its 3,600 dams. … According to a detailed study of fifty-four Large Dams… the average number of people displaced by a Large Dam in India is 44,182…. N.C. Saxena, Secretary to the Planning Commission, said he thought the number (of displaced persons, mostly by dams) was in the region of fifty million which is more than the population of Gujarat. Almost three times the population of Australia. More than three times the number of refugees the Partition created in India. Ten times the number of Palestinian refugees'

Blasting the myth that dams contribute significantly to boost food production, Ms Roy quoted findings of the World Commission on Dams that 'Big Dams account for only twelve percent of India's total food grain production.' And added further:' According  to the Ministry of Food and Civil Supplies, ten percent of India's total food grain production, that is twenty million tons  is lost  to rodents and insects because of bad and inadequate storage  facilities. We must be the only country in the world that builds dams, uproots communities and submerges forests; in order to feed rats….Our leaders say that we must have nuclear missiles to protect us from the threat of China and Pakistan. But who will protect us from ourselves?.. India does not live in her villages. India dies in her villages. There is hole in the flag and it's bleeding. The article concludes with the observation:' to slow a beast, you break its limbs. To slow a nation, you break its people. You rob them of volition…. Day by day, river by river, forest by forest, mountain by mountain… almost without our knowing it- we are being broken.  Big Dams are to a nation's 'Development 'what Nuclear Bombs are to its Military Arsenal. They're both weapons of mass destruction' (Arundhati Roy: The Algebra of Infinite Justice: Penguin Books, 2002, p-47-136.)

 

[16] Naya Diganta, 20 May,2009, p-7

 

[17] Farraka on a tributary of the River Ganga, is a barrage or low-height 4.5-kilometer  irrigation dam, -the longest in the world, is 257 km down stream of this Ganga-turned Padma and a mere eleven miles upstream from Chapai Nawabganj. It was originally intended to divert water from the Ganges into the Hooghly River during the dry season and rescue the Kolkata port 257 km downstream. Commissioned on 4 April, 1974 'experimentally' for 41 days to test the feeder canal, and since then, is in operation without any interruption. The barrage is now raising the possibility that of the Ganges' major tributaries, the Padma and the Bhagirathi, some 20 km downstream from the barrage, while were almost three kms from each other a decade ago, are now fewer than 750 meters apart, thanks to the "engineers' racket," a term coined by the Indian geographer Sunil K Munshi, on the part of irresponsible state and federal governments. It now appears that India will seek to undo the damage with a mammoth US120 billion plan to interlink its rivers, which originate in the Himalaya Mountains, with 30 interlink canal systems that would deliver water to so-called Peninsular India.  Farakka thus has become the tip of the ice berg of a vast irrigation plan of India under which 37 rivers of total length 9 thousand km to be interlinked with cannels to irrigate 150 million hectares of cultivable land.

The adverse effects for both the countries are enormous: a large village, (Akheriganj of Bhagabangola,) has already disappeared from the map, with the destruction of 2,766 houses, leaving 23,394 villagers homeless. The changing river channel, which forms the border between India and Bangladesh, has resulted in tension as more than 10,000 hectares of land have shifted from the Bangladesh side to India. The interference with the natural flow of the Padma has already led to anthropogenic and natural upsets in Bangladesh. On
the contrary, the Damodar and Roopnayayan Rivers as a part of the DamodarValleyCorporation hydro project cost the rivers their ability to flush the Hooghly River The Farraka Barrage, thus intended to correct that problem, ended up causing a bigger one .Kapil Bhattacharya, then chief engineer for the West Bengal government, said that the plan to  deliver 40,000 cubic fee of water per second to flush the harbor was absurd, and that  the designed capacity of the barrage would seldom rise above 27,000 cu.ft/sec. He also warned that the new distribution of silt loads after the construction of the barrage would result in huge floods in West Bengal and Bihar. His prediction came true almost immediately after the barrage began functioning.

 

In case of Farakka, initially there was a five-year water sharing treaty in 1977 which stipulated that Bangladesh would receive at least 63% of the water flow during the dry season which would be more or less 34 thousand cusec. This agreement was arrived at as the water level at the Hardinge Bridge point came down to 65 thousand cusec in 1975 and in the next year (23 March) only to 23,200 cusec. There was a guarantee clause in the 1975 agreement to ensure a minimum quantum of flow. In 1982, the agreement was renewed but without the provision of the guarantee clause. Further, attempts were there for an equitable sharing of water in 1984 and in 1989 but with no tangible result. On 12 December, 1996 Bangladesh PM and her Indian counterpart  signed a  30-year treaty that stipulated  at least sharing of half of the water flow during the lean season, estimated to around 50,000 cusec . According to the this latest agreement, Bangladesh is supposed to get  at least 35,000 cusec water in three trances (11-22 March, 1-10 April, and 21-30 April) while India  would get  a minimum of 35,000 cusec of water in a similar three trance of  ten –days each (21-31 March, 11-31April and 1-10 May).  In reality, Bangladesh got about 22.5 thousand cusec less in January, 2009, 19 thousand cusec less in February, about 8.5 thousand cusec less in April, about 25 thousand cusec less in May and, thus in the last 12 installments, she has been deprived of a total of 96 thousand plus cusec, say one lakh cusec of water, by India, consistently failing short in each of the installments. (Naya Diganta, June7, 2009 , p-1, 10)  Such is the outcome of the agreement on a single river with India  so far , not to speak of  the rest  53  still kept out of any agreement, save promises, promises and promises!

Because of Farakka, thousand of hectares of cultivable land under the  G-K project too has been affected adversely..

 

Unlike Farakka barrage, however, Tipaimukh will be a mega earth dam, rock-filled with central impervious core. (Dam is the general term for blocking the flow of a river. A barrage is a smaller dam Both create lake/ ponds, may be not more than a few meters deep .Larger projects have built-in turbines to generate electricity. Barrages have sluice gates to control water level of the lake, the excess water in the lake /pond usually flows over the top spill line and, it may be to control the tides also. A weir, is a still lesser fry usually on small rivers and unlike a dam /barrage is bereft of any rear water- hold. Thus dams and barrages/ wiers are essentially the same thing. Thus dams and barrages /weirs are barriers constructed across a river or natural water course for regulated water supply, energy production, irrigation, flood control, etc. In case of barrage, the entire length across the width of the river is provided with gates having their bottom sill near the river bed, building storage behind with height of the gates. Dams have spill way gates near its top level and the water storage in dam are maintained partly by the concrete structure and partly by the gate height. In cases, the number and size of gates is kept adequate to pass their designed food level during the monsoons

 

[18] Karimganj District (area: 1809 Sq.km of which 30% is forest) is located in the Southern tip of Assam and together with Cachar and Hailakandi constitutes the Barak Valley zone in Southern Assam.. Strategically located, the district shares 92 km. of International Border with Bangladesh. Of which 41 km is demarcated by Kushiyara. Karimganj, along with the neighboring district of Cachar demarcates the frontier between the plains of the Padma-Meghna basin and the hilly North-east India. The old name of the Kushiyara near Karimganj town (Bagali) smacks once predominance of Bengali settlements, particularly of Muslims in the area, a fact conveniently ignored during the Radcliff award in 1947.

 

[19] The Daily Inquilab, May 23, 2009.  

[20] There are already open security posts at seven kilometers intervals along the 99 km stretch on the road to be used for movement of materials required for the construction of the controversial dam. A total of 15 posts of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF) and Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB) are to provide initial security for the dam officials of NEEPCO, the implementing agency. The Union Government is going to spend had Rs 400 crore on security cover, choosing the highest point of the  hill for a military station, likely to escalate the present conflict in the region.

[21] (Eastern Himalayan Collision Zone with two major earthquakes in 1941, 1947, Indo-Myanmar Subduction zone with 10 earth quakes in 100 years, Upper- Assam-Arunachal zone that made the Assam earthquake of 1950, Shillong Platue and Anam Valley zones that made the Shillong earthquake in 1897 and the Bengal Basin and Tripura-Mizoram Fold belt with two earthquakes: one in 1918 and the other at Catcher in 1980). There have been at least two major earthquakes of 8+ in the Richter scale occurred during the past 50 years. The epicenter of the last earthquake (1957), with a magnitude of 8 was at about 80 km from the dam site in an east-northeast direction.(Debabrata Roy Laifungbham/ Dr. Solbam Ibotomi, Global Bangladesh May 24, 2009 http :// www.Coremasnipur. Org/

[22] The Joint River Commission is a bilateral working group established by India and Bangladesh in the Indo-Bangladeshi Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Peace that was signed on March 19, 1972 and came into being in November, 1972. As per the treaty, the two nations established the commission to work for the common interests and sharing of water resources, irrigation, floods and cyclones control. The studies and reports of the commission contributed to the efforts of  resolving the dispute over the Sharing of Ganges Waters, facilitating bilateral agreements in 1975 and 1978 at least to some extent

 

[23] A dam break is a catastrophic failure of a dam which results in the sudden draining of the reservoir and a severe flood wave that causes destruction and in many cases death downstream. While such failures are rare and are not planned they have happened to dams, large and small, from time to time. The International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD) has identified 164 major dam failures in the period from 1900 to 1965.)

 

[24] Prof. M .Abdur Rab, Bhorer Dak, 24 May, 2009

 

[25] Ganges-Kobadak Irrigation Project better known as (G-K Project, started in 1954-55, is a large surface irrigation system  set up on the right bank of the Ganga covering an area of 197,500 ha, of which 142,000 ha are net irrigable, under 13 upazilas in  2  greater districts: Kushtia, Jessore . Water is pumped from the river Ganges and distributed to the field by gravity. The total lifting capacity of these 15 pumps is 153 cusec. But operations to extract water from the Ganges are made difficult because dry-season water levels are significantly below the level for which the pumps were designed, and up to one million cubic meters of slit has to be dredged annually from the 1,655 km canals, mainly from the main canals (193 km) .The river Ganges and Gorai bound the project area on the north, while Gorai and Madhumati on the east, the Nabaganga on the south, and the Mathabhanga on the west. The objectives were to increase food production, improve cropping patterns, increase cropping intensity, HYV aush and HYV aman in Kharif-I (March to June) and Kharif-II (mid-July to November) through its long canals for distributing water. The project is also aimed at improving the overall drainage system of the area with 971-km long drainage canals and has constructed 228-km long inspection roads, 39 km dam, numerous ridges and culverts to keep the area flood free. Using the irrigation facility, farmers are producing about 0.3 million tons of excess crops every year which is valued at about Tk 2,400 million.

 

[26] These are: Danube, Niger, the Nile, Zaire, Rhine, Zambezi, Amazon, Lake Chad and Mekong. Mekong flows through Laos, Thailand,, China,Campuchia,, Vietnam  and Burma (Myanmar). Even in Africa, Zambezi, the fourth largest river system  in Africa  with eight riparian states  settled at a sharing  of the water in the following proportion: Zambia 41%, Angola18%, Zimbabwe 16%, Mozambique 12% Malawi 8%, Tanzania 2%, Botswana 1.5% , Namibia 1.5% and the eight  states conjointly  supports the Zambezi Water Course Commission (ZWC) successfully  since 2004.  Zambia and Zimbabwe has the Zambezi River Authority (ZRA) primarily for joint management of the Kanta dam. It seems that if we suggest for a joint management for Farakka or Tipaimukh, heavens will fall and the topic appears to be taboo even for the Joint River Commission (JRC). Again, as regards Mekong delta river course agreement, most of the contracting parties are poles apart in so far as their political ideology and relationships are concerned. But that could not prevent them to reach  a consensus.

 

[27] The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 2007 and the International Labor Organization, Convention 1969, stipulates that indigenous and tribal peoples shall have the right to decide their own priorities for the process of development as it affects their lives, beliefs, institutions and spiritual well-being and emphasized that they shall participate in the formulation, implementation and evaluation of plans..

 

[28] Dr.Tarek Shamsur. Rehman :Water aggression by India, Amar Desh, 20 May, 2009

 

[29] Amader Somoy, quoting the Secretary, Ministry of  Water Resources, June 2, 2009)

[30] Rafiqul Azad   http//www. The Daily Star.net April 28, 2007. It has been reported that At least 30,000 acres out of which at least 3,000 acres of land from bank erosion of the Surma alone, aggravated by the construction of dams and groins at upstream of the rivers Surma (390-400 km) Borak (900km) and the Kushiyara (115 km) rivers and the Indian people are using those mainly for crop cultivation and housing purposes while the Indian government is constructing barbed-wire fence, roads and observation towers to establish their permanent control.. The Mujib-Indira Treaty of 1974, the international border at the riverside is determined at the mid-stream of the Border Rivers. There are 57 common rivers of which 54 flows from India and though Bangladesh, in accordance with the decision of the Shilchar meeting in India in 2005, requested India to take measure for a joint survey in bordering areas from January 2006 but the request is yet to be complied by the Indian side.

 e-mail : nazmul.alamt@yahoo.com

 

http://www.meghbarta.org/nws/nw_main_p01b.php?issueId=6&sectionId=18&articleId=603




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