waiting for bus, originally uploaded by wvs. ]]> http://worldgaze.wordpress.com/?p=3787 Sun, 07 Sep 2008 12:11:20 +0000 worldgaze http://worldgaze.wordpress.com/?p=3787

Arctic Refuge: Golden Water, originally uploaded by c. ]]> http://kirkhille.wordpress.com/?p=212 Sun, 07 Sep 2008 11:57:07 +0000 kirkhille http://kirkhille.wordpress.com/?p=212

I been a bit quite on the blog this last week as done a heap of over time at work :( . Well know thats weeks behind me can start taking some more shots and editing them . Hope ever one else has been getting out shoting more then me . I been starting work before the sun rises and finishing work long after it has gone down . This weekend was the first day i got to see day light lol :)

I have allready started to get a back log of photos to edit , so decided to sort out my files on my computers and move the RAW images to a new externall hard drive , Took me a while to sort through the terrabits of stuff on my computer , but while in the process of doing so I found this image I had stitched together and never finished editing . I think it was an eight image stitch , I took this one morning when I was down in Dunsbrough for Christian Fletchers workshop . Im pretty sure it was Castle Rock Bay but I could be mistaken . I love these rock formation down south , these beachs are a photographers dream .

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Healthy Leg Care:

Beauty is an innate and emotional perception of life's affirmative aspects — vitality, health, fertility, happiness, and goodness — within objects in the perceived world. In its most profound sense, the beauty engenders a sense of positive reflection on the meaning of one's own being within nature.

Leg care should be an important part of your overall health regime. Our legs help us get to work; play with our children, and exercise. Without them life is a lot more difficult. It's not hard to practice healthy leg care. Follow these steps and you'll have healthy and happy legs.

- Exercise regularly. Engaging in a regular exercise program is one of the best things you can do to ensure healthy legs. Exercise gets the blood pumping and flowing properly which is very important for circulation. Poor circulation can lead to varicose veins and other more serious problems.

- Move around more often. Sitting in the same position for long periods of time can lead to blood clots. Practicing healthy leg care by moving around when working at your desk or taking long trips is the easiest way to avoid blood clots in the legs.

- Eat a healthy diet. Plaque can build up in arteries and veins when you eat too much fat and cholesterol. Eating a healthy diet is a very important step in healthy leg care. Getting plaque buildup in an artery or vein in the leg is another cause of blood clots. Eating right and exercising will ward off plaque buildup and keep your legs healthy.

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Black Tea and Its Benefits:

Black tea is a variety of tea that is more oxidized than the green, oolong and white tea varieties. Black Tea contains many antioxidants. These antioxidants help the body in many ways. In recent studies, black tea has been found to cut down on artery clogging which in turn can help with heart disease and high blood pressure. One recent study has shown black tea to help blood vessel functionality as much as 50%. This is pretty significant for anyone who is dealing with heart disease or artery problems of any sort.

Black tea has also shown to aid in weight loss in a few studies. The studies have shown that black tea drinkers had higher metabolism rates. This was only a slight increase, but every calorie counts if you are trying to lose weight. Most studies found about a 4% increase over a 24 hour period. Mixing black or green tea consumptions along with a healthy diet and exercise can really help anyone to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight.

The Benefits of Drinking Water:

Water is a vital element for life. Plants, animals and humans need water in order to survive. Around 60 percent of the human body is made up of water. Humans can live a few weeks without food but only a few days without water. The average human needs about 5 gallons a day to survive, although the average American uses about 100 gallons a day to live. Water is one of the most important elements of life and yet we seem to treat it with a common disregard.

The average healthful adult should be drinking at least one eight ounce cup an hour, in order to replace fluids lost through exercise and work. The consumption of certain foods and drinks will increase your need for water. Milk, salty foods and sugary drinks can actually dehydrate you causing your body to need more water. If you are a physically active athlete, you may need more water than the average person. On hot days, you will need more, as well. However, it is important to remember, your kidneys can only work so fast so it is important not to overload them with too much water all at once because drinking too much water at once can have fatal consequences. It is called hyponatremia. As with anything, moderation is the key.

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Choosing a Good Water Bottle With Filter:

A good water bottle with filter would be a boon to any outdoor enthusiast. Portable plastic water bottles with filters have been something that runners, bikers, and hikers thought should have come out a long time ago. Everyone can benefit from having filtered water on the go.

How do you choose a good water bottle with filter? It depends primarily on where you are going. In the deep woods, hikers need to take special precautions. Those springs that were at one time safe to drink from are no longer "pristine". You may need a device that removes giardia or cryptosporidium cysts.

In the home, we can easily remove those hazards with the right purification device. But, until recently there was nothing to help a hiker. Now, there are solutions. They may be relatively expensive, but to avoid the risk of illness on your hike, it's probably worth it.

The haze of thickened heat was like a blanket wrapped tightly around his body. No longer able to sweat, his body not allowing him to loose of any of the precious moisture it still held, feelings of surreal peace and calm -a dizzy lightness- enclosed him in a half stupor.

He pushed his legs out in front of him and inspected the skin closely. It had turned hard and scaly, all moisture having been evaporated out of the pores long ago. The skin flaked off in small chunk, which he rubbed between his fingers into small balls, lining them up on the slab of concrete he was sitting on. He had fourteen rows of sixty. His left leg was raw and red. He didn’t feel pain, just the heat. He pulled off another scale, rubbed it, and placed it amongst his collection, then lay down on the burning concrete and looked up. He instantly felt dizzy, like the world was spinning and he was drunk. He wished this were true. A cloudless sky, the sun burned in every direction from every angle. There was no escaping but he didn’t care, he was beyond all that. All he could think about was water. He realised now how much of an advantage he took of the precious liquid before. Bottles of it, squirted all over windscreens, with the soapy mixture that never left streaks. An honest living, though most thought he was a bum out for a buck.  Everyone’s a bum out for a buck, that’s life. His method didn’t involve and office from 9-5. The only setback was the rain. Oh, the fucking rain.

No one wanted his service, and quite understandably, the rain was doing it for free. He used to thank god it never rained much. Maybe his prayer meant something after all. Soaking the sponge in the bucket, the sun beating down on his tanned and shirtless body, sweating, he darted between cars holding up the sponge. Drivers would nod and he’d lift up the wipers and rhythmically move the sponge back and forth across the smooth windscreens, wiping the excess water off after. Replacing the wipers, he’d lean down to the window and receive his pay.  The satisfaction of turning windscreens into shimmering, transparent pieces of glass was almost an addiction.

His body had dried out, cracked, long ago. He rolled his tired body over to his front, and the pain created from the burning concrete was replaced with the burning heat of the sun. The backs of his legs were agony, the hairs pricking up in their pores, stretching towards the sun. Brittle. Everything was burnt. Every sensation was heightened by his bodies’ deterioration. Itchy, and without fingernails to scratch, he gently moved his body up and down the concrete, the small pebbles rubbing away at his skin, but the harsh exfoliation relieved the itch for the time being. Lying face down, his head straight out in front of him, adams apple touching flat, he concentrated his eyes on the ant in front of him. It walked past completely unaffected by the drought and surroundings. He focused his eyes, and then focused to another ant slightly further away. He tried to smile at this accomplishment. His eyes slid out of focus again and the itch returned.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California's state government is forming a "water bank" to buy water for local water agencies at risk of shortages next year should a current drought persist, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said on Thursday.

Schwarzenegger in June declared the most populous U.S. state to officially be in drought and declared nine counties in its farm-rich Central Valley to be in a state of emergency because water supplies were so low after two years of below-average rainfall.

California's water shortages have been compounded by a federal court order to limit pumping water from the state's San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta to protect a species of fish.

The delta area east of San Francisco is the state's fresh water hub. Its water is conveyed across the state, including as far away as Southern California.

California's 2009 Drought Water Bank will buy water primarily from local water agencies and farmers upstream of the delta and make it available for sale to public and private water systems expecting to run short of water next year.

The last time California's Department of Water Resources set up a water bank was in the early 1990s and the agency plans much more strict guidelines for its new effort, said Wendy Martin, the statewide drought coordinator for the agency.

"We will be paying closer attention to ... making sure water is being used for the greatest and highest public service. We're not going to let people take water and use it for frivolous reasons," Martin told Reuters by telephone.

She noted that agencies buying water through the bank will have to commit to a 20 percent reduction in overall water use.

Schwarzenegger said the program will help ease water shortages if California's drought presses on and he once again urged lawmakers to agree on a bond bill for financing an expansion of the state's water storage and delivery infrastructure.

"California's drought is impacting our economy, our agriculture and our families, and an end to these dry conditions is nowhere in sight," he said.

"While we are taking action to address the state's drought situation, there remains an urgent need for Californians to step up conservation efforts and for the legislature to pass a comprehensive water plan that will ensure California has the water it needs to keep our economy strong and our people working," Schwarzenegger added.

The Republican governor has threatened the Democrat-led legislature he will not sign any of its bills until it crafts a state budget -- now more than two months overdue -- but he will make an exception for legislation approving state debt for water infrastructure, which he wants to put to voters as a ballot measure, said spokeswoman Lisa Page.

Schwarzenegger and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, have teamed up to promote a $9.3 billion plan to lawmakers that would address the delta's environmental problems while expanding the state's water works.

Their plan and rival plans have been sidelined in the legislature as lawmakers haggle over a state budget.

"Right now the No. 1 priority is passing a responsible budget. No talks are taking place on water," said Alicia Trost, a spokeswoman for Senate President pro Tem Don Perata.

Juice accounted for about 1000 of the calories that I was taking in !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I know)  No wonde I gained 20 ponds back.  I shutter to even think about the amount of sugar that I was putting into my body.  I could add the calories into my diet, but that sugar.  Man.  I am not ignorant about the sugar's interaction with the body and how it turns into fat.  Now , I just have to keep reminding myself.

Almost Horizontal

बिठूर, दिसंबर, 2005

Bithur, December, 2005

New hurricane menaces Caribbean

Caribbean nations are bracing for another major storm, Hurricane Ike, coming just days after Tropical Storm Hanna passed through the region.

Ike has regained strength after weakening, with winds of up to 135mph (215km/h) as it nears the Turks and Caicos islands and the Bahamas.

Cuba has issued a hurricane watch for its eastern provinces.

Haitian officials have said that at least 500 people have been found dead as floodwater's caused by Hanna recede.

That storm has hit the US south-east coast and is dropping torrential rain on North and South Carolina.

Storm warnings are in force along the Atlantic coast from Georgia to New Jersey.

'Major hurricane'

Hurricane Ike gained strength to Category Four on the Saffir Simpson scale - an "extremely dangerous hurricane" - after weakening slightly earlier on Saturday, said the Florida-based National Hurricane Center (NHC).

As of 2100 GMT, Ike was tracking west south-west, moving at 15mph about 90 miles (145km) east of Grand Turk Island.

SAFFIR-SIMPSON SCALE Cat 1: Winds 74-95mph (119-153km/h). No real damage to buildings Cat 2: Winds 96-110mph (154-177km/h). Storm surge 6-8 feet (1.8-2.8 metres) above normal Cat 3: Winds 111-130mph (178-209km/h). Major hurricane. Coastal flooding destroys smaller structures Cat 4: Winds 131-155mph (210-249km/h). Large storm surge and widespread damage to smaller buildings Cat 5: Winds greater than 155mph (249km/h). Small buildings blown away, roofs on large buildings destroyed. All trees and signs knocked down. Widespread coastal flooding. Source: US National Hurricane Center

The NHC said the storm was expected to pass near or over the Turks and Caicos islands and the south-eastern Bahamas late on Saturday or early Sunday.

After Hanna pummeled the low-lying Turks and Caicos, a British territory to the north of Haiti, earlier in the week, many residents and visitors decided to leave.

Authorities decided to close the airport in Providenciales at mid-day on Saturday.

Ike should hit the northern coast of eastern Cuba by late Sunday or early Monday, according to the NHC forecast.

If it stays on its projected course, Ike will cut across the island from east to west, putting the crumbling colonial buildings of the capital, Havana, at risk.

A storm surge of up to 12ft (3.6m) is expected along with "large and dangerous battering waves" and heavy rainfall, the NHC said.

The center of the hurricane is forecast to pass to the north of Haiti, which shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic.

But Haiti, already reeling from three major storms in as many weeks, will not be spared, with up to 12in (30cm) of rain due to fall.

As floodwaters caused by Tropical Storm Hanna receded, Haitian officials said more than 500 people had been killed.

Hurricane Gustav last week and Tropical Storm Fay two weeks ago killed about 120 people.

Hardest hit by Hanna was the city of Gonaives, which was flooded with up to 16ft of water that has only now begun to recede.

The devastation there has been described as catastrophic.

Police said 500 people were confirmed dead but that others are still missing and the number could rise higher.

The UN's World Food Program (WFP) said hundreds of thousands of people had been displaced by the flooding.

The WFP has begun distributing food aid but a spokesperson said the scale of the disaster was putting their resources to the test.

Other aid workers say people's spirits are running low after the successive storms.

"Food supplies and water are scarce and the price of the food that's left is rising," said Parnell Denis from Oxfam in Gonaives.

"The morale of people staying in the shelters is so very low; I am afraid to tell them that another storm is on its way."

More bad weather will hamper the aid effort even further.

In the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, there have been no reports of major damage.

However, preparations are under way for the arrival of Hurricane Ike.

"The ground is saturated and some of the dams in the south-east region are fairly close to their maximum capacity," said meteorological official Gloria Ceballos.

Civil defense director Colonel Juan Manuel Mendez said Dominican troops had been put on alert.

	சூறாவளியினால் சின்னாபின்னமான ஹெய்தி

ஹெய்தியில் வெள்ள நீர் வடிந்து வரும் நிலையில் ஹன்னா சூறாவளியினால் சுமார் 500 பேர் பலியாகியுள்ளதாக பொலிஸார் தெரிவித்துள்ளனர். ஆனால் இன்னும் ஏராளமானவர்கள் காணாமல் போயிருப்பதால், எண்ணிக்கை அதிகரிக்க கூடும்.

ஹெய்தியில் இருக்கும் ஐ.நா மனிதாபிமான பணிகள் ஒருங்கிணைப்பாளரான ஜோயல் போட்ரூ, மிகவும் பாதிக்கப்பட்ட இடங்களுக்கு சென்று நிவாரண உதவிகளை கொடுப்பதில் சிரமங்கள் ஏற்பட்டுள்ளதாக பிபிசியிடம் தெரிவித்தார்.

இந்த சூறாவளி தற்போது அமெரிக்காவின் கிழக்கு கடற்பகுதியை தாக்கியுள்ளது.

இதற்கிடையே இன்னும் வலுவான சூறாவளியான எல்க்கி டர்க்ஸ்,காய்கோஸ் மற்றும் தெற்கு பஹாமாஸ் பகுதியை தாக்கும் வாய்ப்புகள் உள்ளதால், அங்குள்ளவர்கள் இடம்பெயர்கின்றனர்.

Flickr

(September sunrise in the Bogs.  September 2008.  © Robin)

Drink your tea slowly and reverently,
as if it is the axis
on which the world earth revolves
-- slowly, evenly, without
rushing toward the future;
Live the actual moment.
Only this moment is life.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

I thought it time for the long face to go.  It was depressing.  Plus I think it was unfair to the sunflower.  I've rather enjoyed following the sunflowers from seeds to, well, back to seeds.  I found them beautiful in all their phases.

This sunrise from home (the photo doesn't do it justice) was so beautiful, so peaceful, and so still that I want to be reminded of it when I occasionally drop in to check up on things.  Being a smart blogger, I uploaded the photo before leaving home.  The stillness of this sunrise was something I wanted to carry with me.

We waded through the rains of Tropical Storm Hanna today.  The winds are just starting to kick up now.  It's nice to take a moment just to enjoy some quiet.  The pounding rains of Hanna resulted in a pounding headache for me.  The wind is almost a refreshing change.

Thank you to everyone who has stopped by and offered good thoughts and wishes.  I feel lucky to have such lovely blogmates.  :)

This health tip is fr om HomeChoice Network

It rained today and when it stopped for a little while, I walked down the path behind the house to the beaver pond and took some pictures. Everything is still very green because of the regular (but not excessive) rain we've had in August. Here is the path.

I noticed that the deep greens of August are giving way to a touch of yellow.

This is the prefect time of year - no bugs, warm days and cool nights.

The crickets are singing - night and day. A few leaves are starting to turn too.

Summer will soon transform into fall.

It's a nice time of year to have a visit from Dianne and we sure aren't going to let any September rains get in the way.

Dianne loves lakes and oceans and swimming, so yesterday we drove down to Mavillette Beach on the French Shore of Nova Scotia, just as a BIG FOG was rolling in. We could hear the fog horn and somewhere in the distance, the sounds of ocean waves. I think of Dianne as a daring person--she has riden the steppes of Mongolia on a horse and treked through the jungles of Hawaii and hosteled in Bejing- and that's just this year!

So, I wasn't terribly surprised that she would want to plunge into the frigid, churning waters of the Atlantic in fog conditions.

 I was a little worried about things like rogue waves and undertows when suddenly, the clouds parted and to allow enough sunshine to clear out some fog.

I watched her so intently that I forgot to take a picture of her in the water.

Next winter when we are loading wood into the wood furnace, I'll remember September rains and fog and watching Dianne taking the plunge. I'll smile to myself and I might even wish I'd braved those waters with her.

The eastern part of the Tarai (plain) area of Nepal and northern part of Bihar State of India have been badly affected by the Sapta Koshi flood. Hundred of thousands people are now homeless, thousands of acres of land are submerged. Many people lost their lives. Since this, being a man made disaster, one country blames another. In view of this is an excerpt from Deepak Gyawali's interview with The Kathmandu Post.

INTERVIEW WITH DIPAK GYAWALI
Dipak Gyawali, former Minister for Water Resources, heads Nepal Water Conservation Foundation and is a hydropower expert.

Excerpts

Q: Why did the Koshi breach its embankment? Who was responsible for the repair work-- India or Nepal?

DipakG: It is important to step back a bit to realize that this catastrophe happened because of the unholy confluence of three things: wrong technological choice for this kind of a hydro-ecological regime, wrong institutional arrangements resulting from the Koshi Treaty that are not right for managing this kind of a trans-boundary river system, and wrong conduct in public service over the last half-century, which includes aspects of corruption ... But let us start with the technological aspect, when the lateral, left-bank embankment (not the barrage across the river) collapsed on 18th August: it was not a natural disaster, but a man-made tragedy. The river flow at the time was lower than the minimum average flow for the month of August, and hence not even close to a normal flood, which had not even begun during this monsoon. In the Koshi, it generally occurs from mid-August to mid-September, and when this natural stress is added to a man-made tragedy, together they have all the potential to become a major calamity of a generation.

Q: Why is this project the wrong technological choice?

DipakG: Koshi is one of the most violent rivers in the world because it is not just a river with water in it but also a massive conveyor belt of sediment from the Himalaya to the Bay of Bengal. This is a natural geological process that is responsible for creating not just Bangladesh but also much of Bihar out of the ancient Tethys Sea. Some one hundred million cubic meters of gravel, sand and mud flow out of Chatara every year. Lest we forget, all the collected water and matter brought by Tamor, Arun and Sun Kosi rivers, all the way from Kanchenjunga in the east, through Makalu and Everest to Langtang in the west have to pass through this one gorge at Chatara. And as the river slows down in the flat Tarai plains, the sediment settles down raising the river bed and forcing the river to overflow its bank before finding a new course.

This process has essentially created the inland delta over which the Koshi has swung from Supaul in the west to Katihar in the east, like a pendulum suspended at Chatara. In the last half century, this process has been arrested by “jacketing” the Koshi within embankments at the western extreme of the delta; but this has only forced the river to deposit all the sediment within this narrow “jacket”, raised the river bed, perching the river some four meters above the surrounding land. It was a recipe ripe for this kind of catastrophe to eventually happen, as it has now.

You have to be extremely careful when you start fooling around with such awesome forces of nature. What happens when you do so without proper understanding can be easily studied on the Tinau, south of Butwal: in 1961, India built the Hattisunde barrage on the Tinau's inland delta to supply irrigation water to Marchawar in the south, but the river changed course in the following year and the barrage has been standing high and dry since then, a tribute to man's stupidity, and an equally great tribute to his incapacity to learn from mistakes. You don't build such hydro-technical structures on an unstable delta fan, and the Koshi today is just Tinau repeated at a more massive scale.

Q: What do we know of the science behind these things?

DipakG: We have been studying the Tinau and its problems since the mid-1990s, which is just the same as the Koshi except at a much smaller scale. For the Koshi, the best example is the comparison of current river flow conditions of the lower Ganga with the map prepared in 1779 by Colonel Rennel for Governor General Warren Hastings. His map shows us that the Koshi actually joined the Mechi-Mahananda, which joined the Teesta. While the Koshi has swung west, the Teesta itself has swung east to meet the Brahmaputra, while the Brahmaputra has swung from meeting the Megna to meeting the Ganga. This shows how extremely volatile the dynamically shifting pattern of this region's hydro-ecological is.

This disaster was waiting to happen because the intervention into the natural regime through the Koshi project was bad science that ignored the problem of sediment in the river. As regards science, we should also remember that deforestation has really no significant linkage with Koshi sedimentation: we have more forest cover in the Koshi catchment today, thanks also to community forestry, than we ever did in our past history; and the Myth of Himalayan Degradation (that floods in Bangladesh are due to poor farmers in Nepal cutting trees) has been scientifically debunked over two decades ago. It is Himalayan geo-tectonics coupled with the monsoon regime that is the cause of Koshi sedimentation and floods, and that cannot be battled against with bad science and even worse policy prescriptions of indiscriminate embankment building following from such bad science.

Q: Can we repair the breach once the monsoon is over?

DipakG: I doubt it, simply because the breach now is no longer a rupture in the side embankment that can be plugged once the water level goes down and the Koshi starts flowing along its original main channel. What we are seeing is the main stem of the river itself flowing through it, capturing centuries' old channel and changing its course. To change it back is like damming the Koshi anew with a new barrage, in addition to making the river do a “high jump” of at least four meters to flow along its recently abandoned bed.

Believe me, it won't be too happy doing that now or in the coming years, and will find some way to continuously breach the embankment in other weak spots, and no engineer can guarantee that this won't happen, although they will have lots of fun playing with all kinds of expensive toys “to tame the Koshi”.
The problem now is no longer just the breach at Kusaha in Nepal: it is totally uncertain where the new Koshi channel will be in the middle and lower delta in Bihar. Currently, satellite pictures show that it might be moving along the Supaul channel; but I think this might just be a massive ponding that is occurring with Koshi filling every depression, canal, old oxbow lake or the space between the indiscriminately built embankments. Since the land naturally slopes eastwards, depending upon whether the coming September floods are a four lakh cusecs flood or a nine lakh one (as happened in 1968) the new Koshi could be as far east as Katihar. Even if it does not go that far this year, it is inevitable it will do so in the years to come. This river morphology dynamics has to be looked at before any new embankments or repairs of old ones can be considered.

Q: What might be correct technology then?

DipakG: First, let us put to rest another wrong technology, a high dam on the Koshi. It is wrong because it would take two or more decades to construct, thus failing to address problems of current and immediate future concerns, is extremely expensive, does not address the primary problem of sedimentation (the reservoir will fill up too soon with Himalayan muck), has no convincing answer regarding the cost of attending to high seismicity in the region as well as diversion of peak instantaneous flood during construction (it is a major engineering challenge with no easy solution), and will create more social problems when indigenous population in Nepal have to be evicted from their ancestral homes. A Koshi high dam would be tantamount to Nepal importing downstream seasonal floods as permanent features of its landscape for questionable benefits to it. I think neither India nor Nepal is in a position to afford the technical, economic and social costs associated with it.

The immediate requirements of Nepal and Bihar (and by immediate I mean from now till ten or so years) will have to be met by new and alternative technologies suited to an unstable but very fertile flood plain. Such adaptive technologies with strong social components have been traditionally used by people in the form of houses on stilts and building villages with raised plinth levels that keep life and property safe but allow the flood to easily pass by leaving fertile silt behind. It will also call into serious question the current design practices in the transportation, housing, agriculture and other sectors, forcing the adopting of new approaches that look not so much to the watershed but to the 'problemshed' for answers. There is nothing called a permanent solution (how 'permanent' is a permanent concrete dam, after all?); but building houses on stilts is a cheaper, more 'doable' and thus a better solution.

Q: Why do you say that the current management setup of the Koshi barrage and embankments was a wrong institutional arrangement?

DipakG: The answer to that question can come from looking at the highly undiplomatic and breathtakingly ill-informed statement that came out from the Indian embassy in the immediate aftermath of the breach by blaming Nepal for it. When forcing the Koshi Treaty on Nepal in the 1950s, India took upon itself all responsibility for design, construction, operation and maintenance of the Koshi project, leaving Nepal absolutely no room to do anything except allow India to quarry all the boulders they like (which incidentally are rarely used in the Koshi but find themselves black marketed to all the aggregate crushers from Muzzafferpur to Siliguri!!)

The Koshi Treaty has been criticized very often for many reasons, but the reason some of us from the socio-environmental solidarity to criticize it is because of the neo-colonial mode that is built into its institutional make-up. Instead of a proper bi-national management arrangement, Nepal can only be a by-stander even for matters within its own territory: it can't order the opening of gates during floods or the supply of irrigation waters to its fields during the dry season. Everything is in the hands of the Delhi hydrocracy, which has conveniently (and to my mind, illegitimately) washed its hands off it by hiving it off to the Bihar hydrocracy. There is institutional irresponsibility built into the treaty at every level, which was seen at the time of its signing as a “construction” treaty rather than a management one, hence you can never get sustainable and scientific management out of it. In a tragic and perverse way, the current catastrophe has washed away the very foundations of that treaty and calls for revisiting the management of the Koshi in a more sane and equitable manner.

Q: What exactly did you mean by “bad conduct”, then?

DipakG: Even if you had a wrong institutional arrangement, right conduct could have still got things done more than semi-right. What happened here was that the entire Koshi project has become a synonym for the corruption that goes by the name of Bihari politics, which “New Nepal” seems to be importing with glee.

Consider the following quote  from an Indian scholar studying the problem.
Such is the racket of breaches that out of the 2.5 to 3 billion rupees spent annually by the Bihar government on construction and repair works, as much as 60 percent used to be pocketed by the politician-contractors-engineers nexus. There is a perfect system of percentages in which there is a share for everyone who matters, right from the minister to the junior engineer. The actual expenditure never exceeds 30 percent of the budgeted cost and after doling out the fixed percentages, the contractors are able to pocket as much as 25 percent of the sanctioned amount. A part of this they use to finance the political activities of their pet politicians and to get further projects sanctioned. Thus the cycle goes on. [The result is that...] the contractor's bills are paid without verifying them. The same lot for boulders and craters are shown as freshly purchased year after year and the government exchequer is duped of tens of millions. Many of the desiltation and repair and maintenance works shown to have been completed are never done at all and yet payments are made....So much is the income of the engineers from the percentages that the engineers do not bother to collect their salaries.

(Fighting the Irrigation Mafia in Bihar, by Indu Bharati in the Economic and Political Weekly from Bombay in 1991, quoted by Dipak Gyawali in his book Water in Nepal/Rivers, Technology and Society, Zed Books, London and Himal Books, Kathmandu, 2001.)

This is what I mean by “wrong conduct”. My understanding, based on information filtering out of Saptari and Sunsari and on local FM channels, is that local cadres of ruling political parties got wise to the corruption practiced from across the border and began to demand a share, which was difficult for the Bihari contractors to agree to because of the high rake-in demanded by their traditional political and civil servant bosses in Patna and higher up. There were, it seems, tough negotiations going on before the start of the monsoon season, but no agreement could be reached. No formal approach was made by the Koshi officials to the most India-friendly government in power in Nepal because the issue to be resolved was not doing the work but sharing the booty. Which is why the complaint that the contractors had come on August 8 to strengthen the embankment but were not allowed to, itself begs the question: how come you come to do the repair works (if that is what you wanted to do) in the middle of the monsoon and not in January?

Q: What should be the priority now?

DipakG:  There are three things needed to be done on a war footing in order of priority:
First, this is a major humanitarian tragedy of global proportions, and it should be attended to with an open heart, generous pockets and caring hands. If Biharis are coming into Nepal because that is where the only high ground is, they should be welcomed, all relief should be provided to them too, but a record should be kept and they must be handed over to the Indian government soon after the monsoon. It must be recognized that the displaced fifty thousand or so Nepalis are in all probability permanently displaced (over their village, the new Koshi probably runs and will do so for the forseeable future) and need to be housed in camps before a permanent settlement is found. Perhaps the now emptying Bhutanese refugee camps should be used for the purpose.

Second, a bridge should be constructed over the Koshi at Chatara on a war footing and the traffic along the Mahendra highway restored to connect east Nepal with the rest of the country as soon as possible. The current Kosi barrage bridge will in all probability remain as the Hattisunde barrage on the Tinau, a defunct monument of interest to future archaeologists; but even if restored, we will need a ferry system over the new Koshi channel before we can get to it.

Third, a serious public review and debate must ensue over the Koshi project and the treaty that brought about this catastrophe. The investigations and debate must be conducted jointly by civic movements in Nepal and India so that a sane path forward can be charted. Hydrocracies of both countries can contribute to this exercise, but their judgment and legitimacy are now in question, as is their hitherto unchallenged policy hegemony.

I posed the brunette in front of a book with the page open to Golden Gate Bridge to get this backdrop.

My friend Lisa loved this photo (and bought it) since she is a brunette from the Bay Area.

Thing to smile about #7:   Getting just the right shot.