India’s dirty laundry: The murder tearing Indian society apart. The murder of a teenage girl in Delhi, unjustly blamed on a domestic servant, has heightened hatred and suspicion at the heart of Asia’s most class-riven society.

Andrew Buncombe reports from Delhi for The Independent.

Monday, 16 June 2008

When 14-year-old Aarushi Talwar was found murdered the police made no effort to examine the crime scene and assumed the killer was the family’s servant, Hemraj. A day later it was found that Hemraj had also been murdered. Aarushi’s father, Rajesh Talwar, is now a suspect. For police in the eastern suburbs of Delhi it seemed like an open and shut case.

When the body of 14-year-old Aarushi Talwar was discovered in a pool of blood, her throat cut and the family’s domestic servant nowhere to be found, detectives had only one suspect. Senior officers said they even had clues as to where the 45-year-old Nepali servant might be hiding and said that a team of officers was being dispatched to Nepal to track him down. The police saw no reason to bring in sniffer dogs, photograph the crime scene or even force open a locked door that led to a terrace despite the presence of drops of blood on the steps.

An immediate media frenzy erupted. The TV channels and newspapers were full of lurid details and unquestioningly blamed Yam Prasad Banjade, also known as Hemraj, the missing servant, for the grisly killing of the teenager. And then one day later, someone opened the terrace door and discovered Hemraj’s decomposing body lying on the floor. He too had been murdered, in the same way as Aarushi. Police were forced to reopen the murder mystery.

The authorities’ handling of the high-profile case – Aarushi’s father, Rajesh Talwar, a dentist, is currently the police’s latest suspect – resulted in angry demonstrations by Nepali labourers, outraged that one of their countrymen had been blamed unfairly for such a horrible crime. But the case has focused fresh attention on the uneasy relationship between India’s middle classes and the ubiquitous servants who wash, cook, shop, drive, garden and clean for them. It has highlighted too, the deep anxiety of many Indians who live in perpetual fear that their servants will rob them, poison them or worse. A constant source of conversation among Indians who employ domestic staff, such fear has now even found its way into a popular new Indian novel that tells the story of a bitter and disenchanted chauffeur in Delhi who slits his employer’s throat.

“We always get our staff verified by the police and we also try and get people who are recommended to us. Only then do we let them in our house,” said Rosie Kapoor, a businesswoman from south Delhi, who employs one full-time and two part-time maids. “But even after all this I am still very careful.”

While in the West servants largely belong to an earlier generation, in India they remain commonplace. Even families with a modest income will employ one or two maids; however industrious middle-class Indians may be in other respects, most have a loathing of domestic chores. In Delhi alone, it is estimated there are at least 60,000 domestic servants, of which perhaps just a third are registered with the police.

The maids, cleaners, drivers and cooks usually earn pitifully little and often live in miserable conditions. Often they are migrants from Nepal or else impoverished Indian states such as Orissa or Bihar. A full-time maid can earn as little as 2,000 rupees (£24) a month, supplemented with a meagre diet and perhaps some cheap clothes given to them by their employer. For this, the servant will usually work 12 to 14 hours a day, perhaps with one day off a week. Usually, servants will live in a simple one-roof shack or shed, often built on the roof of the house – swelteringly warm during the long, hot summers and bone-chilling in northern India’s brief but cold winters. Most servants’ bathroom facilities are probably best left undescribed.

And the relationship between domestic staff and the families they work for can have additional complications above and beyond the obvious financial disparity. Often staff will be from a lower caste than their employer, adding to possible mistrust and resentment.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that some employers treat their staff well, even almost considering them members of the family. On holidays such as Diwali and Holi, the staff will get a generous bonus or gift, they will receive their meals and clothes and time off to go back to their village or town if a family member is ill.

But there are numerous reports of employers treating their staff as little more than slaves. An 18-year-old who works as the live-in cook for a businessman in the Safdarjang area of south Delhi said that his every move was followed by CCTV monitors that his employer had installed in the house. The cook, Sushil, said that if he was caught leaving the house during working hours he was punished. He said that he, and two teenage girls employed as maids, were often beaten.

“If anyone makes a mistake, the boss beats them. He is dangerous,” said Sushil, who came to Delhi from the Sultanpur district of Uttar Pradesh. “He hits the girls as well. He is a really bad man.”

Sushil said that he earned 4,500 rupees a month but that he had to pay for his own food and clothes from this. In the three years he had worked at the house, his employer had never given him a holiday bonus.

Given the wretched, impoverished conditions in which India’s domestic servants live it would perhaps not be surprising if servants were to turn to opportunistic crimes. “The class difference of employers and the employed is so big and that tempted them to commit crimes,” a Delhi police spokesman, Rajan Bhagat, told the Associated Press.

But despite the widespread stories of chauffeurs routinely siphoning off petrol from their employers’ cars, maids rustling through jewellery boxes when they should be sweeping the floor and newspaper cartoons showing Nepali servants chasing terrified elderly women, to what extent is the middle-class fear of their staff justified and how much of it is urban myth?

“I think it is real and I think we are hearing a lot less than actually takes place,” said an expatriate living in Delhi who employs domestic staff and asked not to be named. “It’s getting worse. [Domestic servants] can see the light. They know that money will give them a way out. It’s something new. And people have to be careful.”

While the media attention devoted to Aarushi’s murder was exceptional, even the family’s lawyer believes such servants are often responsible for crimes. Pinaki Mishra said there were many factors behind the phenomenon – increasing economic disparity, the increasing influx of rural people into India’s cities and even mafia-style groups that force domestic servants to steal from their employers.

“India is an entire society in transformation,” he said. “You have a middle class of up to 300 million people and below that you have an aspirational class of up to 300 million … All the values are breaking down. No one wants to do menial work.”

This view was shared by the family of an east Delhi businessman killed 10 days ago in his home. In this case too, the family’s Nepali servant – employed for less than a year – has gone missing and police say he is a suspect. The businessman’s hands had been tied behind his back and he had been strangled by a bed-sheet.

“Globalisation is the problem. Everybody wants a television, everybody wants the luxury. If they cannot get it by hook then they get it by crook,” said the businessman’s sister, her eyes red with tears. “We want to catch the person who did this to stop it happening again. We know we are not going to get our brother back but we are not going to lose our humanity.”

Yet while such killings made big headlines, official figures suggest that the problem is not as great as some may believe. Mr Bhagat, the Delhi police spokesman, said that five people in the city with a population of more than 16 million had been robbed or killed by their servants so far this year. Last year the total was six.

Domestic servants say they are often blamed unfairly by their employers, the first in line to be accused if something goes missing. In the aftermath of Aarushi’s death and the accusations that were made by police about the alleged guilt of the family’s servant, dozens of other domestic workers gathered outside the local police station to complain. “We become prime suspects every time there is a crime in the house or the neighbourhood we work in,” Ram Bahadur, a labourer, told journalists. “We are poor people trying to earn a living with dignity. Is it fair to suspect us without evidence?”

Sushil, the cook, said that he too was often accused of things, even though he insisted that thoughts of committing a crime had never entered his head. He said he was shocked by the murder of the businessman in east Delhi. “This is not something I think about,” he said. “How can anyone do this sort of thing if he is a servant?”

The family of the murdered businessman said that they will no longer employ a live-in servant, even if it means they will have to perform the chores that their domestic help have traditionally carried out. “The culture can change. People can learn to adapt,” said one of his sons, standing outside his father’s store, talking with friends and relatives who had come to pay their respects. “They will have to change.”

But are other Indians ready to give up their domestic staff and get down to scrubbing the dishes? Nishant Singh, a lawyer who works in Gurgaon, Delhi’s Westernised satellite city, said the flurry of recent headlines would certainly encourage more people to think carefully about the staff they hire, about getting them verified by police and perhaps opting for part-time help rather than live-in servants.

But he doubted that Indians would forgo employing servants altogether. With the upper part of India’s economy booming, more people had money to spend on help and with increasing numbers of women entering the workplace there was more demand for people to carry out the household tasks traditionally performed by women. “There has long been this concept of having staff,” he said. “It’s part of the culture.”

NEPAL’s RECENT ELECTIONS ONLY ONE MILESTONE IN PEACE PROCESS - Ban Ki-moon

16 May 2008 – Despite last month’s landmark Constituent Assembly elections in Nepal, the South Asian nation still has a long way to go in completing the peace process, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a new report made public today.
Characterizing the polls as historic, Mr. Ban said that “the desire and commitment of the people of Nepal for peace and change was the driving force behind this success.”
But he warned that “the election is only a milestone in the peace process,” noting that “the real work of addressing the nation’s deeper socio-economic difficulties and drafting a constitution that reflects the will of the entire nation only begins now.”
The Secretary-General wrote that he is encouraged by the commitment and cooperation that the Maoists, who performed well at the elections, and called on the other political parties to remain focused on Nepal’s long-term interests.
“Short-term differences should not distract them from governing by consensus and from cooperating in the vital task of constitution-making,” he said.
Although Mr. Ban noted that he does not anticipate the extension of the mandate of the UN Mission in Nepal (UNMIN), he said the UN is prepared to offer continued support for the conclusion of the peace process and for the country’s lasting development.
Additionally, he wrote that both his Special Representative and Resident Coordinator will provide whatever the new government, once formed, may request.
“These are critical times for long-term stability in Nepal, and the United Nations will remain by the side of the people and leaders of Nepal in the historic tasks of political and social transformation on which they have embarked.”

Nepal still faces challenges after successful election, UN envoy stresses

Ian Martin, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Nepal
22 May 2008 – The political parties in Nepal will have to reach agreement on how to form a new government and then successfully draft a new constitution to give the country a chance of lasting stability and economic development, according to the United Nations’ top envoy to the country.
The Secretary-General’s Special Representative to Nepal Ian Martin briefed the Security Council on the situation in the country today and afterwards told reporters that Nepal still faces “very considerable challenges” following the elections for a new Constituent Assembly last month.
“The most immediate challenge is to reach agreement among the political parties on the basis for forming a new government, which ideally should provide stability and economic development while the new constitution is drafted,” Mr. Martin said, adding that it was widely accepted that the Maoists would lead the new administration.
The Constituent Assembly will hold its first meeting next week, but the UN envoy said that drafting a new constitution would be a “profound challenge” since “the positions that the political parties put before the electorate are far apart,” especially on the question of what kind of federalism the country should adopt.
Mr. Martin also said that the peace process in Nepal remains incomplete, noting that there are still two armies in the country and that there has been no agreement so far on “what is referred to in the peace agreement as the integration of the Maoist army and the democratization of the Nepal army.” He added that other political parties were insistent that they would not join a Maoist-led Government unless violent attacks from the Maoist Young Communist League were halted.
The UN envoy listed a number of important commitments of the peace process that have not yet been implemented: compensation for victims of the conflict, investigation of disappearances and the return of property and of displaced persons to their homes. “When you combine those with some of the fresh wounds of election violence, they require an active process of local reconciliation,” Mr. Martin stressed.
“Public security, which is one of the deepest wishes of people throughout the country, is not going to prevail until Nepal’s consistent pattern of impunity is brought to an end,” he added, saying there has not been a single prosecution in civilian courts of even the most egregious human rights violations on either side of the armed conflict, or of many killings since.
Mr. Martin deplored the recent beating to death of businessman Ram Hari Shrestha by members of the Maoist army.
In a related development today, the Maoist army’s Vice-Chairman said that the army would cooperate fully with the police and a Government commission of inquiry into the businessman’s death.
The United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) is due to wrap up its operations in the country in July. Mr. Martin said he would be engaging with political leaders on his return to the country to see whether there was a continuing need for a UN role beyond the normal activities of world body’s agencies in Nepal.
After today’s briefing, Ambassador John Sawers of the United Kingdom, which holds the rotating Council presidency this month, said it was clear that UNMIN had contributed significantly to helping Nepal end its long-standing conflict and enter a democratic transition.
Mr. Sawers said the mission’s future remains to be considered, given its mandate is due to expire so soon.
“We’ll need to consider whether there is a role for the UN after that, but we will first look to the Government of Nepal to let us have their views and their requests for a role for the UN in that country well in advance of the 23 July date for the end of the mandate,” he said.
“If there is no request, then the mandate for the UN Mission in Nepal would come to an end, but there may be scope for a scaled-down role for the United Nations there.”

We have here the UN release of May 16, 2008 in which the UNSG says that he does not anticipate an extension of UNMIN. The the Statement by the UNSG specia representative in Nepal, Mr. Ian Martin
as per the UN News of May 22, 2008, but we also have our own impressions from what Mr. Martin said at the Asia Society a day earlier, and the Q&A exchange with the audience.

The two armies in Nepal - the regular and the Maoist - are both restricted to their baracks. The State will have to see the democratization of the two armies and to form a future sustainable army.No progress was made during the previous provisional government and on the subject of the constitution. They will also have to investigate disappearances and private compensation for the victims and the property lost in the period of the conflict. There was a single prosecution and there was not a single conviction ina criminal case yet. There are still many minors in the army despite UN efforts to get them out.

There is a fuel crisis - it is self imposed - and it is because they do not subsidize anymore the fuel they import from India. The elections was the easy part - now people want to se results.

The Maoists contend they want to move Nepal from feudalism to capitalism. They have a commitment to land-reform. They will move fast to talk to bussiness people.

Both armies have high percentage of minors in the cantonments.

The first question was about the withdrawal of the UN troops - if it will not be too early like it was in Cambodia.

A federation may be in the cards as suggested by NGOs.

Our question was he fact that Nepal is one of the largest suppliers of troops to the UN - that was done previously for reasons of creating an income for the State - an export - will the UN now lose these troops?
Also we wanted to know were did the 13 members of Parliament from among the Dalits come from - the Mao or Dalit parties? Also, with the Maoists the leading party to create a government, how will this impact the two neighboring States - China and the West Bengal State of India?

A detailed answer assured us that the UN will not lose Nepal troops from its peacekeeping missions because sending these troops will reduce the number of troops in containment. There was no Dalit party as such - most came from the ranks of the Maoists. Also, Dalits came from the tribal regions. We understand that in those regions, on the India border, there is little difference between Nepal and India. People sort of move around freely. In the end there will probably be some form of federation within Nepal that will allow for autonomy for the regions - even though these regions are not pure anymore when it comes to ethnicity - the people mingled. As of now, there does not seem to be a reaction from the neighbors in regard to the Nepal Maoists. It seems as if they are regarded as different from the other Maoists. In effect, one of the participants in the Asia Society breakfast told me that the West Bengal State leadership - Maoist - did extend an invitation to capitalists to come and invest. They are business oriented. Eventually the same will happen in Nepal. The tradition in West Bengal is not really of Maoism as it was practiced in China, but as Communism of the old Indian Communist party that was not a militant party. We found all of this very interesting and are not convinced at all that changes in Nepal will not have impact on development beyond its borders.
Whatever - Nepal is a work in progress. Will the UN drop it now as they dropped Cambodja, and later see a much worse situation?

——————

In Nepal, Killing in Cantonment Site Called Criminal by UK, Child Soldiers “Put to the Side.”

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, May 22 — Protests have shut down Kathmandu following the killing of businessman Ram Hari Shrestha in a Maoist cantonment site in Nepal. These sites are monitored by the UN Mission in Nepal, but UNMIN chief Ian Martin on Thursday said that all the UN is monitoring is the weapons storage facilities, not those who wielded and may wield the weapons.

When Inner City Press asked Security Council President John Sawers about the protests and the killing, he said it is not surprising that in Nepal there is “occasional violence, criminal violence.” But abduction and killing in a military camp overseen by the UN is not the ordinary crime. Martin says the Maoist are cooperating with the investigation.

            Inner City Press asked Martin about the UN’s own investigation of the deadly crash of its helicopter earlier this year, and UN personnel’s blocking of journalists from filming, and seizure of their film. Martin said this was only to stop the photographing of remains before they were covered, and that the work of the UN Board of Inquiry is still ongoing. He stated that an earlier emergency landing which Inner City Press asked about had been “minor,” and had been reported to Nepal’s Minister of Civilian Aviation. Video here, from Minute 38:10.

UN copter in Nepal: this photo survives, investigations pend

            Asked about UN reports of continued failure to release child soldiers, Martin acknowledged that the issue had been “put on one side during the election” in Nepal. But now UNMIN is winding down. Who will follow up? Inner City Press asked Amb. Sawers about child soldiers in Nepal, but this part of the question was not answered. Video here, from Minute 3:45.

            Martin said that consideration of Nepal by the UN Peacebuilding Fund will have to await the formation of the new government. Video here, from Minute 42:33.  If Nepal, as UK Ambassador Sawer said, is to be a UN success story, the funds and proper investigations better be forthcoming. We’ll see.

From: Ron Barness, Founder and CEO Ph: (801) 355-6555
Steve Pastorino, Vice President / Marketing Email: Media@ snowlion.com

Snow Lion Expeditions Extends an all-expenses-paid invitation to U.S. National Security Advisor, Stephen Hadley, on one of their Fall Journey to Nepal and Tibet departures.

This is a natural proposition following Mr. Hadley’s TV appearance on which www.SustainabiliTank.info posted on April 13, 2008: http://www.sustainabilitank.info/2008/04…

We consider this proposal by Snow Lion Expedition Totally Brilliant. It is also in the US National Interest - as it is important for policy makers to have good knowledge of the counties they are talking about.

The Snow Lion e-mail follows:

(Salt Lake City, Utah – April 15, 2008). Utah-based adventure travel company Snow Lion Expeditions today issued an all-expenses-paid invitation to U.S. National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley for one of its fall departures to Tibet and Nepal.

On a Sunday appearance on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Hadley referred to Nepal at least six times during a discussion of President George W. Bush’s visit to the 2008 Summer Olympics. Hadley said the ongoing situation in Nepal had “nothing to do” with heads of state decisions to attend the Games’ Opening Ceremonies.

He was right! China’s policy towards the region of Tibet, however, is causing several global leaders much consternation.

In a letter sent to the National Security Advisor today, Snow Lion president Ron Barness suggested, “It was probably a slip of tongue, but why don’t you let Snow Lion give you a quick tour of the Himalayas to make sure you don’t confuse the two again? By the way, since Mr. Stephanopoulos didn’t correct you, we’ve invited him as well.”

Since 1992, Snow Lion Expeditions has  www.snowlion.com) offered multiple trips per year to Nepal and Tibet, in addition to dozens of other Asian destinations. Mr. Hadley and his wife, Ann, were offered two of the last remaining spots on the Journey to the Roof of the World expedition, which departs September 30 from Kathmandu, Nepal.

Tibet and Nepal are historic, distinct, neighboring Himalayan kingdoms. Tibet was largely independent from the 17th century to its occupation by China in 1951, which led to the exile of its spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, in 1959. Nepal, on the other hand, has maintained its independent status for more than 200 years, despite its tenuous position in Asia between China and India.

“Being keenly tuned in to the Tibet situation is of paramount importance to us every day at Snow Lion,” Barness said. “We hope the National Security Advisor will come away from our trip with us with the same awareness.”

Since 1992, Snow Lion Expeditions has been a pioneer in Asian travel, creating enchanting itineraries to 15 Asian nations. Snow Lion now offers more than 40 different itineraries include World Heritage Sites like the Kathmandu Valley, Mt. Everest and Angkor, plus less-traveled spots like Burma and North Korea.

Snow Lion Corporation • 404 North 300 West • Salt Lake City, UT 84103
Tel: 801-355-6555 • Fax: 801-355-6566 • www.snowlion.com

signed:
Steve Pastorino
Vice President, Marketing
Snow Lion Expeditions

404 N 300 West
Salt Lake City, UT 84103
Ph: 801-355-6555

From Lotus Flower to the Fierce One: the story of the Maoist who took power in Nepal

AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Rebel leader Prachanda was said to be shocked at his victory

By Andrew Buncombe, Asia Correspondent, The Independent

Tuesday, 15 April 2008

When Pushpa Kamal Dahal was a schoolteacher in the mountains of Nepal he was nicknamed “Lotus Flower” as a result of his soft and gentle manners. Not surprisingly, when he gave up teaching to lead a rebel army he adopted the more martial nom de guerre of Prachanda, or “the Fierce One”.

Now, as the Maoist party he leads surges towards a landslide election victory, the 52-year-old is preparing to adopt yet another new title, that of president. He says it is a position he is ready for “if the masses want to give me the responsibility”.

It appears they do. The latest results from last week’s vote to select a new national assembly give the Maoists 101 out of the 178 seats counted so far. With the first scheduled task of the new assembly to draft a new constitution and abolish the country’s monarchy, it appears Prachanda will become the first president of a republican Nepal.

This latest twist in the remarkable journey of a man who spent a quarter of a century operating underground and a full 10 years heading a rebel army in the jungles has come about because of the stunning success of the Maoists in last week’s vote. Before polling, most analysts questioned the depth of the Maoists’ support and suggested that at best they might come third. Now everyone is rapidly having to get used to the idea of a government headed by a party still designated a terrorist group by the US.

“The person most surprised was Prachanda himself. He never expected it either,” said Kunda Dixit, editor in chief of the Nepali Times. “Anyone who says they predicted this result doesn’t know what they are talking about.”

Prachanda was born into a high caste but poor farming family in the Chitwan district and secured a degree in agriculture from a college in Rampur. But moved by the extreme poverty he saw in rural Nepal, he became interested in politics and by the late 1960s, when monarchy banned political parties, he became involved with the country’s Communists.

He left his job as a science teacher in his home village for full-time politics and in 1986 became leader of the grouping that would become the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists). Already operating on the fringes, in 1996, Prachanda in effect declared a civil war by handing the government a list of 40 demands and threatening conflict if they were not met.

For a decade, Prachanda headed the rebels’ military operations, though he was never personally involved in combat. During the 10 years of fighting that ended with a ceasefire agreement in the spring of 2006, at least 13,000 people were killed. “How he became a revolutionary is surprising,” Raj Krishna Kandel, a schoolteacher who taught Prachanda English, told Reuters. “He was polite, sincere and kind to others. But he was ambitious.”

One thing he apparently never lost was his sensitivity. Mr Dixit said that when Prachandra was military leader he broke down and wept several times, most infamously after a Maoist bomb attack on a bus believed to be carrying troops killed more than 30 civilians. “He told his guerillas they should not torture,” Mr Dixit added. He said that if they needed to execute someone it should be done with a bullet to the forehead, not by torture.”

Originally inspired by the Cultural Revolution in China and the Shining Path movement of Peru, Pra-chanda and his Maoist colleagues now appear much more mainstream. His victory speech at the weekend when he won his seat in Kathmandu was conciliatory and inclusive. “I thank all Nepalese people for giving us the responsibility to make a new Nepal,” said Prachanda, who is married and has three children. “I will remain fully committed to the peace process and multi-party democracy.”

Indeed, where once he talked the rhetoric of Marx, Prachanda now talks of turning Nepal into “the Switzerland of Asia”. He says globalisation is unavoidable and he wants to encourage millions of tourists to his impoverished country.

The election also means Nepal’s 239-year-old monarchy will be abolished. Although the palace massacre of 2001 – which left nine of the royal family dead – and parliament’s dismissal by the new king in 2005 cost the monarchy public support, there are still those who would wish to keep a constitutional monarchy.

But Prachanda believes Nepal is ready to leap forward. “I feel it is a new life and new situation,” he said. “Everything looks different than at the time of the conflict; really fantastic.”

It was fascinating! Steven Hadley interviewed by Stephanopolous on TV this Sunday kept repeating half a dozen times “Nepal” as the site of conflict on human rights that puts The Dalai Lama in opposition to China’s Government and Stephanopolous just said nothing. Was I just dumb? Ever heard of Tibet?

Hadley, the man in charge of foreign policy at the White House also refused stubbornly to answer the simple question if President Bush will copy Germany and France and skip the August 8, 2008 opening of the Olympics in Beijing. The question was not if the President will go to support the American athletes during the games - this is accepted that he will do indeed. The OPENING is the political event, and the question kept back about that particular date.

On the McLaughlan Show, pointed out that the Administration holds back on the threat of boycoting the opening but likes to hear the question floated. With a couple of Trillion Dollars owed to China, the US, that could not allow Bear Sterns to fail, will surely do no harm to China. John McLaughlin himself, at the end, in the section about PREDICTIONS - said that the US President will attend the Beijing Opening of the Games ceremony. Will he pronounce the word Tibet? That is now our question. A yes - we remembered - he will see the Dalai Lama of India at the White House in the near future.

Also, Elinor Clift said that the real issue the US will have with China is about climate change. So diplomacy will come handy on this issue. This is to be continued by next President. But also, with well over 100,000 amputees and heavy injured, and pushing 4,500 War-in-Iraq dead Americans, the figures being now 92,962 and 4,032 respectively, the incoming President may have other things on his first course plate when he/she reaches the White House.

April 4, 2008

New from Policy Innovations… a publication of the Carnegie Council

OLYMPIC TRIALS special issue

COMMENTARY: Damming Public Opinion

By Devin Stewart

China’s approach to dealing with global public opinion, be it over Tibet or Darfur, carries risks.

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BRIEFINGS: A Wolf in Monk’s Clothing?

By Matthew Hennessey

He has reverent followers around the world, but inside China the Dalai Lama is not universally loved. I sat down recently with a number of young Chinese-American students to investigate these attitudes.

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BRIEFINGS: One World, Many Slogans

By Christina Madden

Just as China is using the Olympic Games to improve its image, some companies are using the Games to improve their corporate responsibility profiles.

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BRIEFINGS: Moral Medals

By Sacha Tessier-Stall and Nin-Hai Tseng

With violence in Darfur and Tibet, competition at the Olympics this summer will be political as well as athletic.

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COMMENTARY: Tibet’s Peace of the Grave

By Václav Havel, André Glucksmann, Yohei Sasakawa, El Hassan Bin Talal, Frederik Willem de Klerk, and Karel Schwarzenberg

China’s rulers are trying to reassure the world that peace, quiet, and “harmony” have again prevailed in Tibet, but it is a graveyard peace. Merely urging the Chinese government to exercise “utmost restraint” is far too weak a response for the international community.
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Devin Stewart, Editor
Evan O’Neil, Managing Editor
Matthew Hennessey, Assistant Editor

“‘More than 120 million people from India and Bangladesh alone will become homeless by the end of this century,’ [a Greenpeace report on climate change] says. It estimates that 75 million people from Bangladesh will lose their homes. It predicts that about 45 million people in India will also become ‘climate migrants’… ‘Most of these people will be forced to leave their homes because of the sea-level rise and drought associated with shrinking water supplies and monsoon variability. The bulk… will come from Bangladesh as most of the parts of that country will be inundated,’ Dr. Sudhir Chella Rajan, a climate expert and author of the study, told the BBC.”

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/73…

South Asia in climate change crisis.
By Amitabha Bhattasali
March 25, 2008, BBC News, Calcutta
.

The Indian coastline is ‘extremely vulnerable’

A Greenpeace report on climate change says that if greenhouse gas emissions grow at their present rate, South Asia could face a major human crisis.

“More than 120 million people from India and Bangladesh alone will become homeless by the end of this century,” the report says.

It estimates that 75 million people from Bangladesh will lose their homes.

It predicts that about 45 million people in India will also become “climate migrants”.

Intense cyclones:

The report says that the number of people who could be affected by climate change is almost 10 times greater than the number of people who migrated during and after the partition of India in 1947.

Around 130 million people now live in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh in what are called low elevation coastal zones, which comprise coastal regions that are less than 10m above average sea level.

“There is already plenty of evidence to suggest that the average global temperature rise we have already experienced is associated with substantial changes in weather patterns over recent decades,” the Greenpeace report says.

“Droughts have become more common since the 1970s. The frequency of intense tropical cyclones has also increased and there has been widespread retreat of mountain glaciers.”

It is argued that India’s weather is becoming less predictable

The study says that “if global temperatures rise by about 4-5C in the course of the century - as they are projected to - the South Asian region could face a wave of migrants displaced by the impact of climate change”.

“Most of these people will be forced to leave their homes because of the sea-level rise and drought associated with shrinking water supplies and monsoon variability. The bulk of them will come from Bangladesh as most of the parts of that country will be inundated,” Dr Sudhir Chella Rajan, a climate expert and author of the study, told the BBC.

“And Bangladesh is already experiencing the migration,” says an activist from Bangladesh, Mohon Kumar Mondol.

“Though Bangladesh is hardly responsible for the global warming and climate change, the Bangladeshi people are paying the price for it - they have never heard of these terms but are suffering from them.”

The report says the Indian coastline is also extremely vulnerable.

Greenpeace has long campaigned in India

Several large cities within the low elevation coastal zone like Bombay (Mumbai) and Madras will go under the sea if the present growth rate of greenhouse emissions continue.

The report says that while huge investment is being made along the coast line of India, most of these projects are in the danger zone.

“This isn’t going to happen gradually. What we are going to see is a series of coastal surges, you will see inundation, salt water intrusion - which will cause lots of harm and devastate a lot of these infrastructures,” said Dr Rajan.

According to the Greenpeace report, major population movement from the coastal cities to other large urban centres like Delhi, Bangalore and Ahmedabad will take place.

“These cities will have serious resource constraints of their own by the middle of the century, but will have to be prepared to accommodate enormous numbers of migrants from the coasts.”

When receiving the Nobel Price, Al Gore Hit On The US anc China As the Major Culprits - We thought to bring up that old BBC material also.

Gore climate plea to US and China.
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website

Al Gore’s acceptance speech was a powerful piece of rhetoric
Former US Vice-President Al Gore has urged the world’s two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, the US and China, to work together on climate change.

Receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Mr Gore referred to climate change as a “planetary emergency”.

He said he hoped for a positive outcome from the UN climate talks in Bali.

The chairman of Mr Gore’s co-laureate, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said climate change threatened human security.

“Societies have a long record of adapting to the impacts of weather and climate,” said Rajendra Pachauri, the Indian engineer who has chaired the IPCC since 2002.

“But climate change poses novel risks often outside the range of experience.”

 ”In every land the truth, once known, has the power to set us free”
Al Gore

Climate goes to the movies

The IPCC’s fourth major assessment of climate science, impacts and economics, released over the course of 2007, forecasts increases in droughts, declining crop yields, and scarcity of fresh water over large areas of the planet.

Dr Pachauri paid tribute to the thousands of scientists whose work had contributed to the IPCC assessments, notably its inaugural chairman Bert Bolin, who was unable to attend the ceremony as a result of ill-health.

Rhetorical power

As befits the cinematographic auteur of An Inconvenient Truth, Mr Gore’s speech was a rhetorical tour de force.

“We, the human race, are confronting a planetary emergency - a threat to the survival of our civilisation that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here,” he said.

“The Earth has a fever, and the fever is rising. The experts have told us it is not a passing affliction that will heal by itself.

Why the IPCC and Gore won
“We are what is wrong, and we must make it right.”

The former vice-president painted a gloomy picture of the climate impacts that might lie ahead. But he was more upbeat in his assessment that carbon emissions could be tackled.

“In every land the truth, once known, has the power to set us free,” he said.

Essential steps, he said, included the universal ratification of the Kyoto Protocol - a reference to the US which is now alone among industrialised countries in its rejection of the 1997 treaty - a moratorium on conventional coal-fired power stations, widespread taxation of carbon, and the mobilisation of entrepreneurial initiative worldwide.

His warm words for the efforts that Europe and Japan have made in recent years contrasted with his assessment of “two nations that are now failing to do enough” - China and the US.

“Both countries should stop using the others’ behaviour as an excuse for stalemate and instead develop an agenda for mutual survival in a shared global environment.”

Bali heat

Mr Gore and Dr Pachauri now travel to the UN talks in Bali, which have just entered their second week.

Delegates there have also heard stern messages about the potential impacts of climate change.

No unity yet in Bali
Climate goal ‘unreachable’

On the fringes of the conference, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that rising temperatures were already taking malaria into regions where it had previously been too cold, such as Bhutan and Nepal.

The negotiators’ main task is to initiate a process that will result in targets for greenhouse emission reductions when the current Kyoto Protocol targets expire in 2012.

A draft text proposes that industrialised countries agree to cut their emissions by 25-40% by 2020. The US is opposed to any notion of binding targets.

Dr Pachauri said that hopes remained alive for the Bali meeting, “unlike the sterile outcomes of previous sessions in recent years”.

The question, he told delegates in Oslo, was whether policymakers would listen to the voice of science and knowledge.

“If they do so at Bali and beyond, then all my colleagues in the IPCC and those thousands toiling for the cause of science would feel doubly honoured at the priviledge I am receiving today on their behalf.”

Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

The Associated Press reports from Thimpu, Bhutan, About The First Ever Democratic Parliamentary Election Held in the Kingdom. This First Parliamentary Vote Came About Upon The Wish Of The Young King Who Seems To Bring this Himalayan State Into The Global Mix. Bhutan Will Even Apply For The WTO. By Now It Has Even Access To the Internet.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 24, 2008
Filed at 12:36 a.m. ET

THIMPU, Bhutan (AP) — The secluded Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, a land that’s made promoting happiness its paramount goal, became the world newest democracy Monday when it held its first parliamentary elections.

And few, apart from the king who is giving up his power, seemed happy about the vote that will end more than a century of absolute monarchy.

In the run-up to the election, candidates proudly called themselves monarchists, party workers described the poll as ”heartbreaking,” and voters fretted about what would become of the Land of the Thunder Dragon after it traded its Precious Ruler for politicians.

Bhutan has long been a quirky holdout from modernity — a mountainous land where Buddhist kings reigned supreme, only allowing the Internet and television in 1999 and coming up with the idea of Gross National Happiness, an all-encompassing political philosophy that seeks to balance material progress with spiritual well-being.

”People were looking around at what is happening in South Asia and saying, ‘No thank you’,” said Kinley Dorji, who runs the state-owned newspaper, Kuensel.

After the election, the king, 28-year-old Jigme Keshar Namgyal Wangchuck, will remain head of state and will likely retain much influence. But elected leaders will be in charge.

The vote for the 47-seat National Assembly is the latest step in a slow engagement with the world, which Bhutan began in the early 1960s.

Back then Bhutan was a medieval society with no paved roads, no electricity and no hospitals. Goods were bartered rather than bought, and almost no foreigners were let in.

The country of about 600,000 people now has a cash economy. It’s even likely to soon join the World Trade Organization and thousands of tourists are welcomed every year, albeit on heavily supervised and expensive tours.

On Monday, voters waited patiently in three lines: one for men, one for women and a third for the elderly or women with children.

A poem posted on the wall outside one voting booth praised the king and his ability to lead.

But this dedication to preserving Bhutanese culture has a darker side.

More than 100,000 ethnic Nepalis — a Hindu minority — were forced out in the early 1990s and have been living as refugees in eastern Nepal.

Bhutan says most left voluntarily, and refugee rebel groups have set off at least nine small bomb blasts this year in an effort to disrupt the election, killing one person. Bhutan sealed its borders Sunday to head off more attacks and said it will not reopen them until after the vote.

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www.SustainabiliTank.info got interested in Bhutan in the summer of 2005 and we eventually spent two weeks in Bhutan.

Some of our postings are:

ENVIRONMENT, PEACE AND DIALOGUE AMONG CIVILIZATIONS
Wednesday, May 11th, 2005

GROSS NATIONAL HAPPINESS - GNH not just GNP!
Wednesday, August 10th, 2005

GROSS NATIONAL HAPPINESS and the New York Times!
Monday, October 24th, 2005

SEEING BHUTAN ON FOOT - A COUNTRY THAT TRIES GROSS NATIONAL HAPPINESS RATHER THEN CONSUMERISM.
Sunday, January 21st, 2007

In The US Mat Lauer from Channel 4 Spent a Day In Bhutan - It Was Great TV - Now About Some Further Reality. GLOBAL WARMING IMPACTS ON BHUTAN. WHAT WILL BE WITH GROSS NATIONAL HAPPINESS?
Friday, May 4th, 2007

WORLD BANK DECLARES BOTSWANA IS LEADING AFRICA IN DEVELOPMENT. Only African Country on a list of positives that includes also - Slovenia, Chile, Estonia, Czech Rep, Latvia, Lithuania, and Costa Rica. ON POLITICAL STABILITY BOTSWANA SCORED HIGHER THEN ALL OF THE G8 and except Finland and Luxemburg, all of the EU, and most of Asia and Latin America.
Sunday, July 15th, 2007

Bhutan, The Himalayan State That Championed The Concept Of Gross National Happiness, Started Holding Its First Democratic Elections With The Intent Of Becoming A Constitutional Monarchy.
Friday, January 4th, 2008