News Wrap
AGD
The Jharia coal-fields in
Jharkhand state of India, is a
region first exploited by the British in the late 19th century. Fed by the coal the excavators were after, archaic mining methods triggered fires. The raging underground fires burn on to this day, trapping nearly 1.5 billion tons of India’s best coking coal. India required coal to realize ambitious plans to increase steel production from 80 million tons a year to 200 million tons by 2020. An energy crisis engulfs India. Even though India has the world’s fifth largest coal reserves (286 billion tons), an acute energy shortage persists, with a cumbersome mining permission process, combined with an inefficient government near monopoly in coal production and distribution. Nearly 28% of coal reserves lie in Jharkhand state. India has imported nearly 200 million tons of coal in 2012-13. All towns including those in the heart of coal belts like Jharia, experience frequent power cuts.
In the villages of Jharia coal fields, fires burn in craters, amid the ruins of abandoned homes. The fires are each of the size of a dump track, and the fire ruptered earth pitches forward perilously, in the abandoned first phase of open cast mines. The vast mining region of Jharia coughs up clouds of coal dust, smog and pollution. There is no respite from the heat, as all around fires burn unchecked above and below ground in the coal fields. Scores of underground fires make day to day life almost unbearable for Jharia town’s population of 100,000 and the swelling area’s population of 500,000. The Union Government’s over a decade ago decision, to convert from underground mining to mainly open cast mining, accelerated the fires by exposing more coal to more oxygen. At temperatures as low as 104°F, coal exposed to oxygen can ignite. Coal is a necessity from domestic sources, and the waste caused by allowing precious coal reserves to burn is a grave concern. Barely 2% of the affected families have been relocated to places, out of reach of the fires. Even though fires are no longer erupting in flames, smoke still leaks through blacked cracks in dry rock beds, as do streams and clouds of methane, nitrous oxide, sulphur oxide, selenium and arsenic. The toxic gases are causing bronchial asthma, pulmonary diseases and tuberculosis of the lungs. Besides the Jharia region is plagued by a violent coal Mafia, whose many rackets include extracting coal from abandoned mines. The poverty afflicted coal mine workers are paid even less than meagre legitimate wages.
Stir against toll barriers
Agitating farmers of Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) have been laying siege to toll plazas in districts of Meerut, Saharanpur, Ghaziabad and Hapur. Farmers allege that toll plazas have been constructed in violation of the rules laid down by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), which stipulate that a toll plaza cannot be constructed within a 10 km radius of any municipal body. Free passage on toll roads is being enforced by agitating farmers. It is alleged that contracts for toll collection have been awarded at low prices, while the actual collection is much higher. With the siege of the Dasna Toll Plaza (Ghaziabad), the farmers are pushing for an exemption from toll charges, for using all highways in Uttar Pradesh.
Attacks of Istanbul’s Heritage
Taksim Square with its monument of Ataturk and his revolutionaries, remains a symbol of Turkey’s Secular Republic, in the heart of the old European quarter of Istanbul. Since 1996, a few Islamist Prime Ministers have been vowing to put a mosque in Istanbul’s main square. Bulldozers have moved in, and hundreds of trees are being felled. A replica of the Ottoman army barracks, demolished by Ataturk’s successor, Ismet Inonu, is being constructed. Istanbul’s mayor, Kadir Topbas, of the ruling Justice and Development (AK) party claims that the complex will house art galleries and cafes. But secularists insist that this is just window dressing for the new mosque. The project was pushed through without any public debate. Secular outbursts tend to bolster Prime Minister Erdogan’s pious base. There are fears that the project will trap motorists in long tunnels, full of toxic fumes. By decree, neither revellers nor demonstrators will be able to mass around the square. There is growing meddling in Turkey’s social and cultural fabric. Calls to criminalize adultery and abortion have been shelved. Giant statues of an Armenian and a Turk in Kars have been destroyed. Legal action has been initiated against a television series that depicts Seleiman the magnificent less than a warrior, and more as a seducer. Mr Erdogan plans to build a giant mosque with six minarets, on Istanbul’s tallest hill Camlica, on the Asian side of the city.
Frontier
Vol. 45, No. 28, January 20-26, 2013
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