A Decade of Greenpeace in India

Although Greenpeace has been actively campaigning in India since 1995, it was only in 2001 that the international non-governmental environmental organization was formally registered in Chennai, India. Greenpeace has offices in over 40 countries and is run by an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Greenpeace first stretched its wings in India in 1996 with a campaign against toxic waste trade imports, pressuring the Government of India to sign and ratify the Basel Convention and to ban the movement of hazardous toxic waste from developed industrialized nations to developing countries. In 1997, Greenpeace attempted to register itself in India but failed. Recent Greenpeace campaigns, most memorably the organization’s strident and colorful protest against genetically modified BT Brinjal, have gained much visibility and compelled the government to reverse its initial decision. This exclusive slideshow chronicles the significant campaigns carried out by Greenpeace during its eventful decade in India.

Blowing hot over nuclear disarmament
A Greenpeace balloon with the slogan ‘Nuclear Disarmament Now!’ floats above the Taj Mahal in a protest against nuclear testing in India in 1997. Greenpeace was denied entry into India following this protest.
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No promise from PM, Telangana agitation to intensify: TRS

New Delhi/Hyderabad, Oct 3 (IANS) After failing to get any assurance from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over a separate Telangana state, Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao Monday rejected his appeal to call off the strike and decided to intensify the agitation.

KCR, as Rao is popularly known, told reporters that he may also go on a 'fast unto death' to intensify the movement for a separate state.

'The strike will not be called off under any circumstances,' he told reporters after meeting the prime minister in New Delhi. 'The strike would continue till there is a roadmap for separate Telangana,' he added.

The public agitation called by Telangana Joint Action Committee (JAC) to press for a Telangana state in Andhra Pradesh entered its 21st day Monday.

'We are not satisfied. The prime minister did not give any assurance. We will continue to fight,' said the MP, who was leading a delegation of JAC leaders.

The delegation urged the prime minister to direct the state government to pay salaries to striking employees on humanitarian grounds. It also complained that the government was deliberately resorting to power blackouts for farmers in Telangana and using repressive methods against the leaders of Telangana movement.

The TRS chief, who also met Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj and Communist Party of India general secretary A. B. Bardhan, accused Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy of misleading the people on the issue.

The prime minister's meeting with the TRS chief comes amidst talk in political circles that the Congress is diluting its position on the half-century old dispute and may move towards a solution without losing political face.

Earlier, the prime minister met a delegation of Congress MPs and legislators from the Andhra Pradesh region but did not give any assurance to them.

During the 30-minute meeting, the Congress delegation told the prime minister that the central government should announce a time-frame for arriving at a decision on the issue, an MP, who was in the delegation, told IANS.

Manmohan Singh told the Congress MPs that his government will make all efforts to find a solution to the long-standing demand.

He said that he would talk to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and place their demands before the Congress core committee.

The delegation is also learnt to have complained against Andhra Pradesh chief minister's hostile stand to the Telangana demand.

Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, who is in charge of Congress affairs in Andhra Pradesh, had Friday submitted a detailed report on the volatile situation in the state to Sonia Gandhi.

The report had recommended further consultations on the Telangana issue. That was endorsed by the Congress core group, which met Friday.

The TRS chief, who has been camping in Delhi, Sunday held a sit-in at Rajghat here in support of his party's demand for the creation of a new Telangana state.

He also questioned the government's stance to hold 'further consultations' on the issue

In Andhra Pradesh, pro-Telangana activists forcibly stopped vehicles moving from coastal Andhra towards Hyderabad and hurled stones at private buses, damaging at least 20 of them in Nalgonda district, police said.

Some activists were injured when police hit them with batons at Nakrekal while one police official sustained critical injuries in stone pelting by the mobs. There were no reports of injuries to the passengers. Demanding separate statehood to Telangana, activists also damaged a police vehicle.

Meanwhile, the chief minister warned that the leaders of the Telangana movement would be responsible for any crop damage due to electricity shortage, citing the ongoing general strike for a separate Telangana.

The chief minister singled out the TRS chief and Telangana JAC convener M. Kodandaram for his attack.

'If crops are damaged, Kodandaram and KCR will be responsible,' he said, urging the people of Telangana to strongly oppose them.

The indefinite strike in coal mines of state-owned Singareni Collieries as part of the general strike in Telangana has affected coal production and hit electricity generation at thermal power stations.

Authorities have imposed power cuts on domestic, agriculture and industrial sectors. A one-hour blackout has been imposed on farmers, who earlier got seven hours of free electricity every day.

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India debuts world's cheapest tablet computer at $35 tomorrow

NEW DELHI: The world's cheapest tablet computer, which will be unwrapped on Wednesday, will go on sale in India starting December, the maker of the device has said.

Created for use by students, the tablet will first be made available to colleges at Rs 1,750 apiece ($35) although it costs Rs 3,000 to produce. The difference will be subsidised by the government as part of an ambitious plan to make information and communication technologies an integral part of education.

The tablet, will run on Google's Android platform, with WiFi connectivity for internet access and cloud storage. It will have 256 MB of RAM, a 2GB SD memory card, a 32 GB expandable memory slot and two USB ports.

A Canadian of Indian descent, Suneet Singh Tuli, the chief executive of the company making the device, declined to disclose its retail price, but said it will cost as much as "a vegetarian meal for two at a five-star hotel in Delhi".

Tuli is the founder of Datawind, a UK-based company which also makes the PocketSurfer, a handheld device to surf the web.

"We wanted to show the world when China can break price points, India can do it better," Tuli said.

The cheapest tablets available globally are at about $99 for an HP TouchPad and $199 for Amazon's Kindle Fire. In India, tablets currently start from $99 for Pepper, a tablet launched last month by Devraj group of companies. The Wespro ePad is available at Rs 7,000.

From Laptop to Tablet

HCL Pad based on Android sells for about 10,000. Bharti Airtel and Reliance have also launched tablets priced about 10,000 and 13,000, respectively.

The so-called $35 tablet being made by Datawind is a brainchild of human resources minister Kapil Sibal and a team of technologists from IIT Rajasthan.

The device is being launched two years after it showed off a $10 computer, which turned out to be little more than a storage device.

The $35 device was earlier slated to be a laptop, but it changed its form over the three years it was being created.

The tablet will be assembled in India and the government will waive duties to help minimise the cost of production. One lakh tablets have been ordered initially and about a million pieces will be produced in the next stage if the pilot works well.

The low internal memory, at 256MB, may make the tablet slow in accessing the already slow speeds of internet in Indian colleges. Only about half the 25,000 colleges have been linked to the internet under the government's National Mission of Education. Out of these, less than 15% of the colleges have broadband with speeds of at least 512 kbps.

Earlier, the government had invited an expression of interest from Indian companies, but the tender was issued afresh as earlier vendors were not being able to deliver at the price point which the government wanted.

Gartner analyst Vishal Tripathi said it will be difficult for others to meet the price of $35 for retail sales. "The tablet is largely subsidised. We will wait till launch to give a verdict," he said.

HCL Infosystems first won the tender to make the tablets, but the deal fell through after the company realised that it could not meet the price expectations of the government. India debuts world's cheapest tablet computer at $35 tomorrowCheck out Brand Equity's Most Trusted Brands List 2011


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Russia vows to scrap chemical weapons soon

"The Russian Federation puts the highest priority on disarmament and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction...We will continue to put maximum effort into the fulfillment of this labour-intensive and technically complex task in as short time as possible," the ministry said in a statement.

Russia signed the Chemical Weapons Convention banning the development, production, stockpiling, transfer, and use of chemical arms in 1993, and ratified it in 1997. The country has so far destroyed about half of its chemical weapons arsenal, which totals 40,000 tonnes.

"At the same time, there is still a large amount of work on destruction of remaining chemical weapons arsenals ahead of us, and for that purpose we are continuing to increase the capacity of existing destruction facilities...and search for additional resources," the statement said.

Moscow has allocated $7.18 billion from the federal budget for the implementation of the programme, and has built six chemical weapon destruction plants across the country.

According to previous reports, Russia aims to finish all the remaining work under the project, including decontamination and equipment dismantlement, by 2016-2017.


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Pak is major source of makeshift bombs in Afghanistan: report

Washington, Oct 4 (PTI) Pakistan is a major source of makeshift bombs being used by terrorists in Afghanistan, a media report said.

More than 80 per cent of the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are homemade explosives using calcium ammonium nitrate fertilizer produced in Pakistan, according to Navy Captain Douglas Borrebach, Deputy Director (Resources and Requirements) at Pentagon''s Joint IED Defeat Organization, ''The USA Today'' reported.

"The border is a sieve. You can do your checkpoints, but that''s not going to help stem the supply," Borrebach told The USA Today.

Top American Senator Robert Casey, who travelled to Pakistan in Afghanistan, has met top Pentagon officials in this regard, urging them to press Pakistan take action against such IEDs.

"From June through August, US troops detected or were hit by 5,088 improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the most for any three-month period since the war began in 2001," the report said.

Choking off the source of fertilizer is critical, Borrebach said.

"How do we work with Pakistan to be able to reduce the amount of calcium ammonium nitrate coming across the border? That''s the key to this," Borrebach said.


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Festive beat begins with people flocking to pandals

JAIPUR: The four days of Durga Puja began on Sunday -- the sixth day of the full moon that follows Mahalaya and ends with the Vijaya Dashami. According to Hindu scriptures, Durga, wife of Lord Shiva, emerged when evil forces threatened the very existence of Creation.

Durga killed the powerful demon Mahishasur. Durga Puja is celebrated with joy all over the nation especially in eastern India. Pink City joined the celebration of triumph of good over evil with pomp and splendour on Sunday -- blending seamlessly into the local Navratri celebrations at various pandals.

Artisans from distant Paschim Banga (West Bengal) have come to this city to make the images or idols - the focus of worship for the four days.

One such artisan is Amit Pal who has been in the profession of making idols for past 25 years. He is the second generation in his family involved with this art. After rendering his services to many famous clubs in Kolkata he moved to Jaipur and has been coming regularly since 2002.

"Sawapanda, who is now president of Durga Bari Association, sent someone to Kolkata to find a good artisan. I was chosen as the lucky one and was blessed with the opportunity to make the pratima (idol) in Jaipur for the association," recalls Amit.

Today, Amit Pal and his team have earned a name and now are making idols for many clubs in the state capital, including Raja Park and Vaishali Nagar.

"It is the blessing of the Almighty my association with this city, which started with one club and has now reached four. It's not just about numbers, but the trust that Bengali community in Jaipur has shown me and my colleagues and that teaches us to be humble," says Amit.

Idol-making is an intensive art and involves many stages till the complete "statue" is prepared. Every year Amit along with his team comes to Jaipur two months ahead of the Puja. Pinto Pal, younger brother of Amit, says "It takes at least a month to complete an idol. First, we make a structure of bamboo which is then filled with dry grass. Once it is done we start pasting it with wet clay. After it is dry we paste it with another layer of fine clay followed by painting and decoration. To complete on deadline we even have to work for 15-16 hours a day".

Interestingly, to make idols for clubs in Jaipur everything, from clay to paint comes from Kolkata. Amit says, "This year we brought 1,200 kg of fine clay from the banks of Ganga. Even paint and decorating materials are brought from kolkata. It helps us as we are used to that type of soil and also that it has special properties which other clay lacks".

In times of competition, when every pandal works hard to attract crowds, making idols for more than once club in the same city demands lot of creativity. "We have not repeated a single design in our work in the past eight years and every 'statute' made by us is different from the other. Thinking for the next year's design will start just after two or three months. All clubs now leave everything on us to decide," says a proud Amit.

Talking about this year's theme at Durga Bari, Amit said it is based on the Dokra art which originated some 300 years ago at a place between Bardhaman and Bankura district in West Bengal. "Dokra art is known for its metallic finish though it started with making sculptures from bamboo. With time artisan innovated and started using clay".

When artisans all over India are going global and making money, Amit feels the real satisfaction is in when art gets appreciated. "Everyone wants money to survive and we are no exception. However, the real joy is when people like our work and appreciate our concept. With work we have build a faith and I feel Durga Bari is my second home. I consider this to be my greatest reward".

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Andhra on boil

As TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao brought the Telangana issue to New Delhi, holding a sit-in at Rajghat, and as the shutdown in Andhra Pradesh entered the 20th day, the Congress was veering around to the idea of bifurcating the state.

While it was earlier not willing to consider anything more than the Srikrishna Committee’s suggestion of a statutory Regional Council, it now believes “things have gone much beyond”. Even making Hyderabad a joint capital for 10 years or more is reportedly on the table.

As per the party’s assessment, if Telangana is denied, the legislators who have quit, along with Jagan Mohan Reddy loyalists, could force the Kiran Reddy regime out.

On the other hand, if Andhra is bifurcated, the Congress believes, Reddy could survive and the party could also come to power in the new state with the TRS.

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