----- Original Message -----
From: "Anthra" <anthra@...>
To: <andamanicobar@...>
Sent: Friday, January 28, 2005 11:33 AM
Subject: Re: [andamanicobar] help in getting useful info


>
> Dear All,
>
> I was just at a meeting of NGO's ,&journalists with Prof Ram Kapse Lt Gov
of
> Andamans and Nicobar . I asked him about the situation of native livestock
> breeds ( pig and poultry ) and  any adverse effects on tehm because of the
> Tsunami . He claimed all was well with tehse species including the Andaman
> Goat . Is this true that these species are not affected ?
>
> Further it appears BAIF is active in relief work and has been invited by
the
> Governor .. Mr. . Hegde the president of BAIF was talking abount
introducing
> cows and calves and saline tolerant new varieties to boost agriculture ,
> increase employment opportunities etcetc . From an environmental and
social
> point of view are these interventions necessary ??
> Regards
>
> Nitya Ghotge
> Director
> ANTHRA
> Pune
> 28.1.2005
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Roy Laifungbam" <laifungbam@...>
> To: <andamanicobar@...>
> Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2005 7:04 PM
> Subject: Re: [andamanicobar] help in getting useful info
>
>
> >
> > I agree with Abraham George. A lot of this group chatter is not getting
us
> the really important update from the ground we all need to muster our
> solidarity and help. Can we have this sorted out asap. I guess, Pankaj and
> SANE should know of some groups that can monitor independently.
> >
> > Roy
> >   ----- Original Message -----
> >   From: Abraham M. George
> >   To: andamanicobar@...
> >   Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2005 8:31 AM
> >   Subject: [andamanicobar] help in getting useful info
> >
> >
> >   Friends,
> >
> >
> >
> >   Does anyone know of major independent NGOs (not affiliated with the
> >   government) doing relief work in the remote islands of Andamans and
> Nicobar?
> >   If so, do we have their current reports on the status of relief
> operations?
> >
> >
> >
> >   Separately, what is the true count of dead or missing in the islands?
> How
> >   many are dead or missing in the mainland? The official total (around
> 11,000
> >   in the mainland and the islands combined) do not seem to add up
> correctly.
> >   Can anyone clarify these figures accurately?
> >
> >
> >
> >   How many people have suffered serious injuries and/or property
> damage/loss,
> >   both in the mainland and the islands? This figure would give us an
idea
> of
> >   the funds needed to rehabilitate them, and help them with their
> livelihood -
> >   a several years of effort.
> >
> >
> >
> >   Abraham
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >   [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >
> >
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----
> >   Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >     a.. To visit your group on the web, go to:
> >     http://in.groups.yahoo.com/group/andamanicobar/
> >
> >     b.. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> >     andamanicobar-unsubscribe@...
> >
> >     c.. Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of
> Service.
> >
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>

Dear Shekhar

Thanks for E-mailing your text. You are a rather severe critic of your
own work -  ease up! there is nothing wrong with it. You tackle a
subject of considerable long-term importance to the islands and one
that is hardly ever mentioned in the press.

I'd like to put your article initially into the A&N News section (later
into the more permanent "reprints" section). Do I have your permission
to do so? Or do I need Businessworld's permission? If I get permission,
when can I put it up? Does it need to be after 7 Feb when Businessworld
comes out? Or is that a nominal date?

Incidentally, what is your full name? "Shekhar" can't be all of it, and
the "Mraj" in your E-mail address sounds like an abbreviation.

I look forward to hearing from you!

George Weber
President
THE ANDAMAN ASSOCIATION
Hon.Sec.
THE NICOBAR ASSOCIATION
www.andaman.org

Waldstrasse 6
CH-4410 Liestal
Switzerland

________________

Am Freitag, 28.01.05 um 11:10 Uhr schrieb mrajshekhar:

>
> hi.
> businessworld's latest issue, dated 7 feb, 2005, has this story on the
> islands. it is a bit rushed in the beginning but settles down to a more
> sober pace about ten paras later. also, this is the first time i have
> written an article on development. i will be grateful for feedback.
> suggestions on how it could have been better will be highly
> appreciated.
> regds
> shekhar
>
> headline - the overloaded archipelago
> intro - the andaman and nicobar islands were in a bad shape even before
> the tsunami struck. as rebuilding begins, old mistakes should not be
> repeated.
>
> natter begins - Over the past month, reams have been written about the
> crisis facing the Andaman and Nicobar islands. However, the coverage
> missed an important point. Even if the tsunami hadn't lashed it, this
> sun-soaked, rain-drenched archipelago, recommended by the <I>Lonely
> Planet<I> for its "unique fauna, lush forests, white sandy beaches and
> exquisite coral", would have faced a bleak future.
>
> Unlike the tsunami, this is a man-made catastrophe. Over the past 54
> years, the population on the islands has soared. Rising from just
> 30,000
> in 1951 to a staggering 480,000 now. As the population has grown, the
> island's water problem has worsened. Today, households in Port Blair
> get
> water once every two days, for thirty minutes. Three summers ago, water
> supplies ran so low that the local administration, the largest employer
> by far in this Union Territory, took the unprecedented step of granting
> mass leave to its staff, hoping they would return to the mainland,
> leaving more water for those who stayed back.
>
> In the middle of December, I spent a week in the Andamans. What I found
> was that the ills of the islands went beyond a simple water shortage.
> In
> this third most bio-diverse region in the country after the Himalayas
> and the Western Ghats, forests are receding, fish catches are falling,
> croplands are going barren faster. As for the tribals, the less said,
> the better. It is simplistic to blame all on overpopulation.
> Ultimately,
> the islands are in trouble because of poor development.
>
> In the weeks and months ahead, the local administration will rebuild
> the
> islands. This is, perhaps, a second chance. A chance when old mistakes
> must not be repeated.
>
> <dropcase>The Andamans have historically been sparsely populated. In
> the
> beginning, there were only the native aborigines. Even after the
> British
> colonised the islands in 1858, the population did not surge
> immediately.
> The 1901 Census counted 24,649 people there. By 1941, there were just
> about 9,000 more. During the Second World War, Japan annexed the
> islands. After Independence, aware of the islands' immense strategic
> value, the Indian government began settling mainlanders in the islands.
> And the population started expanding fast.
>
> The government gave land to ex-servicemen and emigrants from East
> Pakistan. To help in administration, it exported bureaucrats and clerks
> from the mainland. Mind you, it was not easy to lure people to the
> islands. Tropical paradise or not, even today, the isles are two to
> four
> sea-tossed days away from the mainland. The government had to dole out
> goodies. Transport to the islands was subsidised. Education and
> healthcare were free. The settlers were promised that in an emergency
> they would be airlifted to the mainland, gratis. Around the same time,
> local contractors brought in cheaper migrant labourers. Most of them
> never went back because it made economic sense for them.
>
> While waiting to board the <I>MV Akbar<I>, one of the ships plying
> between Kolkata and Port Blair, I chatted with a fellow passenger, an
> electrician from Behrampore in West Bengal. He had been working in the
> islands for 10 years. At Blair, he was making Rs 180 a day. Back home,
> he could scrape in about Rs 70 a day. Once on the islands, many such
> labourers would get themselves registered as locals and eventually
> hunker down.
>
> By 1961, the population had reached 63,548. Three decades later, it had
> increased more than fourfold to 280,661. And then, in the last decade,
> it moved into overdrive. A senior official at the Planning Commission's
> Island Development Authority (IDA) pegs the islands' population at
> 480,000 now. In effect, the influx that happened over three decades
> earlier happened in just one decade. And this overloaded mass is
> huddled
> into just 38 of the 500 islands dotting this lazily-curving
> archipelago.
>
> The local administration says there aren't as many people on the
> island.
> We'll come to that contradiction later.
>
> The administration has a reason to fret about the number - a lot hinges
> on it. In the mid-1980s, the IDA, whose recommendations weigh in when
> the Centre gives out the subsidies, pegged the archipelago's carrying
> capacity at 450,000. (The carrying capacity of a land mass estimates
> the
> supply of resources like water and cropland, and divides that by the
> desired per capita consumption to arrive at a sustainable population.)
> And it suggested that the build-up be gradual. "The islands were
> supposed to hit that number by 2011," says the IDA official.
>
> The islands have crossed that mark seven years in advance. And its
> impact on the land has been jarring.
>
> <dropcase>In 2004, three students, Reshmi Nair from Kolkata's Indian
> Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management, and Venkat
> Ramanujam Ramani and Yachna Srivastava from Mumbai's Tata Institute of
> Social Sciences (TISS) studied the impact of human habitation on Neil,
> a
> small island 37 km north-east of Blair.
>
> Till 1967, Neil was uninhabited, covered by virgin forest. That year,
> the first settlers arrived. Seeing the size of the island, the
> administration settled just 98 families of about 650 people here. But
> then, when the settlers were left to themselves, they pulled their
> relatives from the mainland. The 2001 Census counted 2,868 people on
> the
> islands, but the local police outpost estimated the population even
> higher, at 4,450. Whichever the correct number, they were living on a
> land no larger than that capable of housing 650.
>
> With most of these people involved in agriculture, the settlers'
> villages and cropland grew to cover 1,216 hectares out of the island's
> 1,890 hectares, up from 750 in 1967. Continuous cultivation robbed the
> land of its nutrients. Farming, the students found, was no longer
> possible without fertilisers. Due to demand for more farmland, forests
> were cut down. Since it was the forests that recharged the groundwater,
> the two natural streams and the groundwater in the island dried up.
> Contractors dredged up from among the most extensive and diverse coral
> reefs in the country and used it in road construction. "Since fishes
> are
> found in the highest density in the shallows, around the corals, their
> numbers dwindled. So the fishermen's catch has fallen," says Sarang
> Kulkarni, a marine biologist studying corals on the islands.
>
> This story is being repeated on every inhabited island in the
> archipelago. A couple of years ago, while conducting a survey on the
> islands' biodiversity, Samir Acharya, the chain-smoking, cynical
> convenor of the leading local NGO, SANE (Saving Andaman and Nicobar
> Ecology), was surprised when he couldn't find any rice field that was
> over 25-30 years old. With the soil of their older fields spent,
> farmers
> had hacked out new ones from the forest.
>
> Overpopulation isn't the only thing to be blamed here; other factors
> are
> at play. The first is inappropriate development coloured by a
> continental mindset. The other is the hijacking of development goals by
> corruption and petty politics.
>
> Take the first one. Farmers started growing vegetables and paddy. Both
> the crops made heavy demands that the tropical soil couldn't bear. It's
> only now that farmers on Neil have started switching to less
> water-intensive crops like areca nuts and coconuts.The mainlanders'
> mindset also favoured big projects - like dams and the use of building
> materials better suited for the mainland. Concrete trumped timber as
> the
> chief construction material on the islands. Both were terrible calls.
> The first, because this area lies on a faultline. The second, because
> concrete needs sand, which in this case, was dug up from the local
> beaches. And that triggered another unhappy chain reaction.
>
> To see the impact of the sand mining, I travelled one noon to the
> gateway of the Mahatma Gandhi Marine National Park in Wandoor, one and
> a
> half hours west of Blair. At first glance, the beach here will score
> high on any parameter. The colours are striking. The sand is an
> impossible shade of white. The exposed corals are dark enough to pass
> for rocks. At regular intervals lie tree trunks, bleached white by a
> long exposure to sun and tide. The sky itself is a rich blue. In the
> distance, dark green islands float on an azure sea. Wandoor is a
> rhapsodic vision of a tropical paradise.
>
> But first impressions can mislead. The story this beach in South
> Andaman
> had to tell was more cautionary than hymnal to nature. Right till the
> 1990s, sand was trucked away from here for use in construction. That
> resulted in unintended effects. The first to go were the trees. Washing
> higher up the shore, the waves toppled them. When the waves also
> threatened the beachfront road, the administration erected a wall -
> using, ironically, sand from the same beach. But this stopped the waves
> from depositing the sediments they carried, sand particles and the
> like,
> at the end of their glide up the beach. These particles drifted down,
> settled on the corals, and killed them. The fish population fell. Local
> fishermen are now sailing out for 3-4 hours to net their daily catch;
> they used to catch all they wanted within 30 minutes earlier.
>
> By the way, this sand should not even be used for construction. Unlike
> sand from the mainland, the one from these islands is just 45 per cent
> silica. The rest is crushed coral, seashells and the like. Also, being
> saline, it corrodes the steel scaffolding of buildings. No wonder
> buildings in the Andamans die within an average of 30 years of
> construction.
>
> But the starkest example of mainland thinking is the Andaman Trunk Road
> (ATR). The ATR's 340-odd kilometres connect four islands - winding
> northwards from South Andaman, it links Baratang, Middle Andaman and
> North Andaman. Before it came up, locals used to rely on steamers. It
> was an imperfect arrangement, insist the ATR's supporters. According to
> them, the road connects the towns regardless of the weather.
>
> Early one morning, I took a bus ride on the most disputed stretch of
> the
> ATR - the part connecting Port Blair to Baratang. This is the stretch
> that cuts through the Jarawa Tribal Reserve. The only primary forest in
> the South Andaman, primeval dense tropical forests that have been never
> logged, was inside the Jarawa reserve. Till we reached the reserve,
> signs of mankind were never too far away. We passed farmlands,
> secondary
> forests, and new buildings made of cement. A few dozen shacks were
> selling cigarettes, food and coconuts, a line houses were straggled
> along the ATR. And then, the road was alone again.
>
> The ATR is where the debate on development gets interesting. At
> Baratang, thanks to the road, an unorganised tourism industry had
> cropped up. Tamilian immigrants were running tours to the local beach,
> a
> local 'mud volcano', and limestone caves. It was a good business, the
> driver informed. He and his brothers were earning Rs 100 a day.
>
> On the islands, development has involved tradeoffs. The road had been
> good for these Tamil immigrants, but catastrophic for the Jarawas and
> their jungle. Jarawa youngsters have begun begging by the roadside for
> biscuits, alcohol, gutka and other stuff. Eventually, worried about the
> impact of the road, Acharya and Kalpvriksh, a Pune-based NGO
> campaigning
> for the rights of native dwellers, filed a Public Interest Litigation.
> In May 2002, the Supreme Court instructed the Union Territory
> government
> to close down this stretch of the ATR within three months. It's, of
> course, still open.
>
> Two years after the ruling, the territory's government appealed to the
> court to reconsider the order. V.V. Bhat, chief secretary, Andaman and
> Nicobar, says: "That petition is yet to come up for hearing. In the
> meantime, we have set regulations in place to regulate the traffic.
> Traffic is now allowed to run only between certain times of the day and
> vehicles run as convoys."
>
> It's not clear how the territory's government avoided implementing the
> order in the two intervening years. I am not even sure if the road is
> needed. A couple of years ago, another TISS student, Richa Dhanju,
> studied the traffic on the ATR. She found two things. One, most of the
> locals still preferred the steamers, as they were cheaper and faster.
> Two, nearly 65 per cent of the people using the road were bureaucrats
> and tourists. During the recent relief operations, supplies were
> despatched by boats because the road had cracked. Bad weather or not,
> there haven't been any accidents with the steamers in all these years,
> comments Acharya of SANE.
>
> In the bus, a fellow passenger is not convinced of overpopulation in
> the
> islands. How can there be overpopulation in an area with so much
> forest?
> True, we are too anthropocentric in our outlook, even at the cost of
> the
> sustainability of development itself. Having to choose between the
> livelihood of a family and the extinction of, say, a turtle species, is
> a no-brainer for some. And that same logic seemingly extends to
> tug-of-land between the settlers and the so-called uncivilised local
> tribesmen and the area's flora and fauna.
>
> Yet, excessive anthorpocentrism might be fatal. As Neil and Wandoor
> show, islands are very fragile. Given their finite resources,
> everything
> exists in a delicate equilibrium. When that is disrupted, the results
> are quick to show. When the tsunami struck, the islands fringed with
> intact corals and mangroves were not as severely affected as the ones
> without. This fragility makes the need for sustainable development all
> the more important. How does one ensure that the threshold stocks of
> soil quality, forestland, etc. are maintained even in the face of
> rising
> numbers and affluence?
>
> It's not that the government, which employs 86 per cent of those
> working
> in the organised sector, isn't fighting the perils of unplanned
> development at its own doorstep. The per capita economic output of this
> Union Territory has stagnated - what, at Rs 12,901, was twice the
> national average in 1981-82, was just 20 per cent higher (at Rs 15,703)
> in 2001-02. A visit to the Employment Exchange revealed that between
> 3,000 and 4,000 people submit their resumes every year. Of them, just
> 600-700 land a job.
>
> To address the unemployment problem, the government has identified
> three
> industries it wants to boost - tourism, high-value agriculture and
> fisheries. The first two of these three, ironically, are going to be
> hobbled by the water shortage.
>
> The water problem, the Andaman Public Works Department told me, would
> be
> fixed once the height of the dam on Dhanikari Creek was upped by 5
> metres. The forest cover, the administration insisted, was still 86 per
> cent. Aerial photographs of the islands by the National Remote Sensing
> Agency, however, show that it's much lower, at 66 per cent. But to the
> island authorities, what we see is apparently not what they have.
>
> But the authorities were at their dodgiest when quizzed on the issue of
> overpopulation.
>
> <dropcase>I began to understand why, when, a few days after coming to
> Blair, I met the former BJP MP from the islands, Bishnu Pada Ray.
> According to him, there is no need to curb migration yet. He said:
> "Migrants are not coming to the islands any more; people are leaving."
> He added that the islands could easily accommodate another 100,000.
>
> Oddly, the local Census department supports Ray's claim. The 2001
> Census
> counted 356,152 people living on the islands. That was a shock - the
> IDA
> figure was a good third higher. And other data corroborated the IDA
> view
> as well. The local office of the Shipping Corporation agreed that their
> ships were always coming in full, and going out half empty. Numbers
> from
> the port authority corroborated this.
>
> To resolve the matter, I called the local civil supplies department. In
> 2001, how many people had their names on ration cards? About 370,000,
> the department informed. There, it was clear! Every settler doesn't
> have
> a ration card. Many migrant workers would not have ration cards. The
> actual population was bound to be higher than 370,000. It was just what
> the three students had found at Neil. There, too, the Census numbers
> were lower than what the local police maintained.
>
> Evidently, there is a lot of political opposition to stopping the
> influx. So much so that it has managed to derail a Supreme Court order.
> As a part of the same 2002 ruling on the ATR, the Court had ordered the
> administration to introduce an inner line permit regime. But migration
> continues unabated to this day.
>
> The reasons aren't too difficult to fathom. Both Ray and the current
> MP,
> Manoranjan Bhakta of the Congress, hail from Bengal. Between them, they
> account for roughly equal amounts of vote. It is the DMK's support that
> decides who becomes the MP. And so, between them, the three parties
> encourage migration from West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.
>
> On this overloaded archipelago, development has being repeatedly
> hijacked by selfish considerations. It's as if development has been
> evolving by chance, as the stepchild of decisions made for private
> gain.
>
> Take the water problem. To resolve it, the APWD plans to increase the
> Dhanikari dam's height. By doing that, said G.C. Khattar, chief
> engineer
> of the APWD, water needs for the next 10-15 years would be met. On a
> longer term, the APWD was mulling an ambitious project. It would build
> a
> giant wall at Flat Bay, where the Dhanikari Creek meets the sea, to
> keep
> seawater out. Over time, this would become an artificial fresh water
> lake in the sea. The cost for raising the dam's height: Rs 100 crore;
> that for the Flat Bay scheme: Rs 350 crore.
>
> There was a cheaper alternative the APWD wasn't considering. The
> islands
> get rainfall around the year - from the south-west and the north-east
> monsoons. On my way back from Wandoor, I stopped at a <I>diggi<I>, a
> traditional rainwater harvesting structure. Its water was clean and
> clear. In contrast, the water being piped by the APWD to my guesthouse
> was rust brown in colour. And yet, the organisation had not even
> studied
> the potential for rainwater harvesting in the islands.
>
> It's now superfluous to add that given a sufficiently large quake, even
> the stoutest of sea walls will crumble. In the days after the tsunami,
> South Andaman was rocked by a series of aftershocks, ranging between
> 5.5
> to 6 on the Richter scale. Ironically, this brought down even more
> concrete structures, while traditional wood structures stayed up. Hope
> the administration would heed the wisdom while reconstructing.
>
> Development is for the long term; but the logic driving it in the
> Andamans has been short-term. The results have been predictable.
> Musharraf Ahmed, an auto-rickshaw driver, remembers the summer of 2002
> vividly. That year, the rains came late. And water levels behind the
> Dhanikari dam dwindled. For two months that year, Ahmed's family got
> 6-8
> buckets of water - once every three days.
>
> <dropcase>After returning to delhi, I met M.N. Murty, professor at the
> Institute of Economic Growth. He wasn't too worried about the water
> situation. Answers could be found, he said. What concerned him more was
> the outlook for sustainable development. Was it possible to make the
> people better off while ensuring that threshold stocks of resources are
> maintained?
>
> There is nothing unique about what the islands are going through. As
> population rises, everyone places more demands on the land. Nor are the
> islands facing anything unique in terms of short-sighted development.
> The outlook for sustainable development is dim across India.
>
> This hasn't come about for want of proper regulation. India, said
> Murthy, has comprehensive legislation encouraging sustainability. And
> yet, we are unable to make a headway. That's partly because monitoring
> and enforcement costs are very high, and partly because of corruption.
> Tax disincentives push companies towards cleaner technology. They can
> either pay tax for polluting, or install cleaner technology. But
> corruption offers another alternative. Formal regulation founders
> between these two.
>
> One tiny ray of hope comes from the fact that informal regulation is,
> however, working. Local communities are getting more active -
> protesting, lobbying, filing PILs. This has also been visible in the
> islands. Four months ago, a forest department team went to Mannarghat,
> a
> village in South Andaman, to harvest wood. The villagers did not let
> them. This is our water resource, they said, you cannot touch the
> forest.
>
> But even that can only go so far. The administration needs to act on
> the
> orders passed and the wisdom that's staring them in the face.
>
> I remember the first island I saw as <I>MV Akbar<I> neared the
> Andamans.
> Densely forested, they seemed to hang low over the sea. On one side, a
> flat lick of land, lower than the rest of the island, jutted out. On it
> grew three palms. It made a striking silhouette. On that darkening
> evening, as the islands floated by, they seemed small and fragile.
>
> I hope we remember that. And that we don't always get a second chance.
>
> ends
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Andaman quakes leave seismologists worried


       Friday, 28 January , 2005, 17:54

       Mumbai: Unusual events "unheard of in the history of seismology" have been
recorded in the Andaman and Nicobar islands, with more than 120 such events
being recorded in the last one month, according to seismologists.

       The seismology department of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and the
Earth Sciences Department of the Indian Institute of Technology here have
recorded over 120 such unusual events in the islands following the December 26
earthquake measuring 8.9 on the Richter scale that triggered tsunamis which
wreaked havoc in several parts of the country.

       Of these events recorded at BARC's Gouribidnur station in Karnataka, at
least over 33 events were above 5 on the Richter scale, they said, adding "this
is unusual and alarming as large amount of energy is being released so
frequently."



       Eleven events with surface wave of magnitude 5, indicating large amount of
energy close to Nicobar Islands was also recorded, the seismologists said.

       "Since yesterday, 16 events which range from 5.2 to 5.8 on the Richter
scale have been recorded," they said.

       "Whether these events are foreshocks or aftershocks - it is not clear, and
has to be taken up seriously and the data analysed as fast as possible," the
scientists said.

       "Both `strike slip and `dip slip are taking place simultaneously and these
factors have to be taken very seriously both by scientists and authorities,"
they added.

      
http://headlines.sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=13658319&headline=Andaman~quakes\
~leave~experts~worried


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------------------
Debi Goenka
Bombay Environmental Action Group

e-mails: debi@... & debi@...

If you are sending huge files, please send to debigoenka@... (but please
send me a mail to inform me at any of the other email ids - thanks! )

Environmental Education Office

Kalbadevi Municipal School
# 54, 2nd floor, Mumbai 400002
Tel:91-22-22423126 Tfax:91-22-22426385

Residence

B 502 Glengate, Hiran. Gardens
Powai Mumbai 400076          Tel:91-22-25701459   Tfax:91-22-25700638


Cell - +91 98200 86404
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------------------
This e-mail may contain confidential and/or privileged information. If you are
not the intended recipient (or have received this e-mail in error) please notify
the sender immediately and destroy this e-mail. Any unauthorised copying,
disclosure or distribution of the material in this e-mail is strictly forbidden.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

hi.
businessworld's latest issue, dated 7 feb, 2005, has this story on the
islands. it is a bit rushed in the beginning but settles down to a more
sober pace about ten paras later. also, this is the first time i have
written an article on development. i will be grateful for feedback.
suggestions on how it could have been better will be highly appreciated.
regds
shekhar

headline - the overloaded archipelago
intro - the andaman and nicobar islands were in a bad shape even before
the tsunami struck. as rebuilding begins, old mistakes should not be
repeated.

natter begins - Over the past month, reams have been written about the
crisis facing the Andaman and Nicobar islands. However, the coverage
missed an important point. Even if the tsunami hadn't lashed it, this
sun-soaked, rain-drenched archipelago, recommended by the <I>Lonely
Planet<I> for its "unique fauna, lush forests, white sandy beaches and
exquisite coral", would have faced a bleak future.

Unlike the tsunami, this is a man-made catastrophe. Over the past 54
years, the population on the islands has soared. Rising from just 30,000
in 1951 to a staggering 480,000 now. As the population has grown, the
island's water problem has worsened. Today, households in Port Blair get
water once every two days, for thirty minutes. Three summers ago, water
supplies ran so low that the local administration, the largest employer
by far in this Union Territory, took the unprecedented step of granting
mass leave to its staff, hoping they would return to the mainland,
leaving more water for those who stayed back.

In the middle of December, I spent a week in the Andamans. What I found
was that the ills of the islands went beyond a simple water shortage. In
this third most bio-diverse region in the country after the Himalayas
and the Western Ghats, forests are receding, fish catches are falling,
croplands are going barren faster. As for the tribals, the less said,
the better. It is simplistic to blame all on overpopulation. Ultimately,
the islands are in trouble because of poor development.

In the weeks and months ahead, the local administration will rebuild the
islands. This is, perhaps, a second chance. A chance when old mistakes
must not be repeated.

<dropcase>The Andamans have historically been sparsely populated. In the
beginning, there were only the native aborigines. Even after the British
colonised the islands in 1858, the population did not surge immediately.
The 1901 Census counted 24,649 people there. By 1941, there were just
about 9,000 more. During the Second World War, Japan annexed the
islands. After Independence, aware of the islands' immense strategic
value, the Indian government began settling mainlanders in the islands.
And the population started expanding fast.

The government gave land to ex-servicemen and emigrants from East
Pakistan. To help in administration, it exported bureaucrats and clerks
from the mainland. Mind you, it was not easy to lure people to the
islands. Tropical paradise or not, even today, the isles are two to four
sea-tossed days away from the mainland. The government had to dole out
goodies. Transport to the islands was subsidised. Education and
healthcare were free. The settlers were promised that in an emergency
they would be airlifted to the mainland, gratis. Around the same time,
local contractors brought in cheaper migrant labourers. Most of them
never went back because it made economic sense for them.

While waiting to board the <I>MV Akbar<I>, one of the ships plying
between Kolkata and Port Blair, I chatted with a fellow passenger, an
electrician from Behrampore in West Bengal. He had been working in the
islands for 10 years. At Blair, he was making Rs 180 a day. Back home,
he could scrape in about Rs 70 a day. Once on the islands, many such
labourers would get themselves registered as locals and eventually
hunker down.

By 1961, the population had reached 63,548. Three decades later, it had
increased more than fourfold to 280,661. And then, in the last decade,
it moved into overdrive. A senior official at the Planning Commission's
Island Development Authority (IDA) pegs the islands' population at
480,000 now. In effect, the influx that happened over three decades
earlier happened in just one decade. And this overloaded mass is huddled
into just 38 of the 500 islands dotting this lazily-curving archipelago.

The local administration says there aren't as many people on the island.
We'll come to that contradiction later.

The administration has a reason to fret about the number - a lot hinges
on it. In the mid-1980s, the IDA, whose recommendations weigh in when
the Centre gives out the subsidies, pegged the archipelago's carrying
capacity at 450,000. (The carrying capacity of a land mass estimates the
supply of resources like water and cropland, and divides that by the
desired per capita consumption to arrive at a sustainable population.)
And it suggested that the build-up be gradual. "The islands were
supposed to hit that number by 2011," says the IDA official.

The islands have crossed that mark seven years in advance. And its
impact on the land has been jarring.

<dropcase>In 2004, three students, Reshmi Nair from Kolkata's Indian
Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management, and Venkat
Ramanujam Ramani and Yachna Srivastava from Mumbai's Tata Institute of
Social Sciences (TISS) studied the impact of human habitation on Neil, a
small island 37 km north-east of Blair.

Till 1967, Neil was uninhabited, covered by virgin forest. That year,
the first settlers arrived. Seeing the size of the island, the
administration settled just 98 families of about 650 people here. But
then, when the settlers were left to themselves, they pulled their
relatives from the mainland. The 2001 Census counted 2,868 people on the
islands, but the local police outpost estimated the population even
higher, at 4,450. Whichever the correct number, they were living on a
land no larger than that capable of housing 650.

With most of these people involved in agriculture, the settlers'
villages and cropland grew to cover 1,216 hectares out of the island's
1,890 hectares, up from 750 in 1967. Continuous cultivation robbed the
land of its nutrients. Farming, the students found, was no longer
possible without fertilisers. Due to demand for more farmland, forests
were cut down. Since it was the forests that recharged the groundwater,
the two natural streams and the groundwater in the island dried up.
Contractors dredged up from among the most extensive and diverse coral
reefs in the country and used it in road construction. "Since fishes are
found in the highest density in the shallows, around the corals, their
numbers dwindled. So the fishermen's catch has fallen," says Sarang
Kulkarni, a marine biologist studying corals on the islands.

This story is being repeated on every inhabited island in the
archipelago. A couple of years ago, while conducting a survey on the
islands' biodiversity, Samir Acharya, the chain-smoking, cynical
convenor of the leading local NGO, SANE (Saving Andaman and Nicobar
Ecology), was surprised when he couldn't find any rice field that was
over 25-30 years old. With the soil of their older fields spent, farmers
had hacked out new ones from the forest.

Overpopulation isn't the only thing to be blamed here; other factors are
at play. The first is inappropriate development coloured by a
continental mindset. The other is the hijacking of development goals by
corruption and petty politics.

Take the first one. Farmers started growing vegetables and paddy. Both
the crops made heavy demands that the tropical soil couldn't bear. It's
only now that farmers on Neil have started switching to less
water-intensive crops like areca nuts and coconuts.The mainlanders'
mindset also favoured big projects - like dams and the use of building
materials better suited for the mainland. Concrete trumped timber as the
chief construction material on the islands. Both were terrible calls.
The first, because this area lies on a faultline. The second, because
concrete needs sand, which in this case, was dug up from the local
beaches. And that triggered another unhappy chain reaction.

To see the impact of the sand mining, I travelled one noon to the
gateway of the Mahatma Gandhi Marine National Park in Wandoor, one and a
half hours west of Blair. At first glance, the beach here will score
high on any parameter. The colours are striking. The sand is an
impossible shade of white. The exposed corals are dark enough to pass
for rocks. At regular intervals lie tree trunks, bleached white by a
long exposure to sun and tide. The sky itself is a rich blue. In the
distance, dark green islands float on an azure sea. Wandoor is a
rhapsodic vision of a tropical paradise.

But first impressions can mislead. The story this beach in South Andaman
had to tell was more cautionary than hymnal to nature. Right till the
1990s, sand was trucked away from here for use in construction. That
resulted in unintended effects. The first to go were the trees. Washing
higher up the shore, the waves toppled them. When the waves also
threatened the beachfront road, the administration erected a wall -
using, ironically, sand from the same beach. But this stopped the waves
from depositing the sediments they carried, sand particles and the like,
at the end of their glide up the beach. These particles drifted down,
settled on the corals, and killed them. The fish population fell. Local
fishermen are now sailing out for 3-4 hours to net their daily catch;
they used to catch all they wanted within 30 minutes earlier.

By the way, this sand should not even be used for construction. Unlike
sand from the mainland, the one from these islands is just 45 per cent
silica. The rest is crushed coral, seashells and the like. Also, being
saline, it corrodes the steel scaffolding of buildings. No wonder
buildings in the Andamans die within an average of 30 years of
construction.

But the starkest example of mainland thinking is the Andaman Trunk Road
(ATR). The ATR's 340-odd kilometres connect four islands - winding
northwards from South Andaman, it links Baratang, Middle Andaman and
North Andaman. Before it came up, locals used to rely on steamers. It
was an imperfect arrangement, insist the ATR's supporters. According to
them, the road connects the towns regardless of the weather.

Early one morning, I took a bus ride on the most disputed stretch of the
ATR - the part connecting Port Blair to Baratang. This is the stretch
that cuts through the Jarawa Tribal Reserve. The only primary forest in
the South Andaman, primeval dense tropical forests that have been never
logged, was inside the Jarawa reserve. Till we reached the reserve,
signs of mankind were never too far away. We passed farmlands, secondary
forests, and new buildings made of cement. A few dozen shacks were
selling cigarettes, food and coconuts, a line houses were straggled
along the ATR. And then, the road was alone again.

The ATR is where the debate on development gets interesting. At
Baratang, thanks to the road, an unorganised tourism industry had
cropped up. Tamilian immigrants were running tours to the local beach, a
local 'mud volcano', and limestone caves. It was a good business, the
driver informed. He and his brothers were earning Rs 100 a day.

On the islands, development has involved tradeoffs. The road had been
good for these Tamil immigrants, but catastrophic for the Jarawas and
their jungle. Jarawa youngsters have begun begging by the roadside for
biscuits, alcohol, gutka and other stuff. Eventually, worried about the
impact of the road, Acharya and Kalpvriksh, a Pune-based NGO campaigning
for the rights of native dwellers, filed a Public Interest Litigation.
In May 2002, the Supreme Court instructed the Union Territory government
to close down this stretch of the ATR within three months. It's, of
course, still open.

Two years after the ruling, the territory's government appealed to the
court to reconsider the order. V.V. Bhat, chief secretary, Andaman and
Nicobar, says: "That petition is yet to come up for hearing. In the
meantime, we have set regulations in place to regulate the traffic.
Traffic is now allowed to run only between certain times of the day and
vehicles run as convoys."

It's not clear how the territory's government avoided implementing the
order in the two intervening years. I am not even sure if the road is
needed. A couple of years ago, another TISS student, Richa Dhanju,
studied the traffic on the ATR. She found two things. One, most of the
locals still preferred the steamers, as they were cheaper and faster.
Two, nearly 65 per cent of the people using the road were bureaucrats
and tourists. During the recent relief operations, supplies were
despatched by boats because the road had cracked. Bad weather or not,
there haven't been any accidents with the steamers in all these years,
comments Acharya of SANE.

In the bus, a fellow passenger is not convinced of overpopulation in the
islands. How can there be overpopulation in an area with so much forest?
True, we are too anthropocentric in our outlook, even at the cost of the
sustainability of development itself. Having to choose between the
livelihood of a family and the extinction of, say, a turtle species, is
a no-brainer for some. And that same logic seemingly extends to
tug-of-land between the settlers and the so-called uncivilised local
tribesmen and the area's flora and fauna.

Yet, excessive anthorpocentrism might be fatal. As Neil and Wandoor
show, islands are very fragile. Given their finite resources, everything
exists in a delicate equilibrium. When that is disrupted, the results
are quick to show. When the tsunami struck, the islands fringed with
intact corals and mangroves were not as severely affected as the ones
without. This fragility makes the need for sustainable development all
the more important. How does one ensure that the threshold stocks of
soil quality, forestland, etc. are maintained even in the face of rising
numbers and affluence?

It's not that the government, which employs 86 per cent of those working
in the organised sector, isn't fighting the perils of unplanned
development at its own doorstep. The per capita economic output of this
Union Territory has stagnated - what, at Rs 12,901, was twice the
national average in 1981-82, was just 20 per cent higher (at Rs 15,703)
in 2001-02. A visit to the Employment Exchange revealed that between
3,000 and 4,000 people submit their resumes every year. Of them, just
600-700 land a job.

To address the unemployment problem, the government has identified three
industries it wants to boost - tourism, high-value agriculture and
fisheries. The first two of these three, ironically, are going to be
hobbled by the water shortage.

The water problem, the Andaman Public Works Department told me, would be
fixed once the height of the dam on Dhanikari Creek was upped by 5
metres. The forest cover, the administration insisted, was still 86 per
cent. Aerial photographs of the islands by the National Remote Sensing
Agency, however, show that it's much lower, at 66 per cent. But to the
island authorities, what we see is apparently not what they have.

But the authorities were at their dodgiest when quizzed on the issue of
overpopulation.

<dropcase>I began to understand why, when, a few days after coming to
Blair, I met the former BJP MP from the islands, Bishnu Pada Ray.
According to him, there is no need to curb migration yet. He said:
"Migrants are not coming to the islands any more; people are leaving."
He added that the islands could easily accommodate another 100,000.

Oddly, the local Census department supports Ray's claim. The 2001 Census
counted 356,152 people living on the islands. That was a shock - the IDA
figure was a good third higher. And other data corroborated the IDA view
as well. The local office of the Shipping Corporation agreed that their
ships were always coming in full, and going out half empty. Numbers from
the port authority corroborated this.

To resolve the matter, I called the local civil supplies department. In
2001, how many people had their names on ration cards? About 370,000,
the department informed. There, it was clear! Every settler doesn't have
a ration card. Many migrant workers would not have ration cards. The
actual population was bound to be higher than 370,000. It was just what
the three students had found at Neil. There, too, the Census numbers
were lower than what the local police maintained.

Evidently, there is a lot of political opposition to stopping the
influx. So much so that it has managed to derail a Supreme Court order.
As a part of the same 2002 ruling on the ATR, the Court had ordered the
administration to introduce an inner line permit regime. But migration
continues unabated to this day.

The reasons aren't too difficult to fathom. Both Ray and the current MP,
Manoranjan Bhakta of the Congress, hail from Bengal. Between them, they
account for roughly equal amounts of vote. It is the DMK's support that
decides who becomes the MP. And so, between them, the three parties
encourage migration from West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.

On this overloaded archipelago, development has being repeatedly
hijacked by selfish considerations. It's as if development has been
evolving by chance, as the stepchild of decisions made for private gain.

Take the water problem. To resolve it, the APWD plans to increase the
Dhanikari dam's height. By doing that, said G.C. Khattar, chief engineer
of the APWD, water needs for the next 10-15 years would be met. On a
longer term, the APWD was mulling an ambitious project. It would build a
giant wall at Flat Bay, where the Dhanikari Creek meets the sea, to keep
seawater out. Over time, this would become an artificial fresh water
lake in the sea. The cost for raising the dam's height: Rs 100 crore;
that for the Flat Bay scheme: Rs 350 crore.

There was a cheaper alternative the APWD wasn't considering. The islands
get rainfall around the year - from the south-west and the north-east
monsoons. On my way back from Wandoor, I stopped at a <I>diggi<I>, a
traditional rainwater harvesting structure. Its water was clean and
clear. In contrast, the water being piped by the APWD to my guesthouse
was rust brown in colour. And yet, the organisation had not even studied
the potential for rainwater harvesting in the islands.

It's now superfluous to add that given a sufficiently large quake, even
the stoutest of sea walls will crumble. In the days after the tsunami,
South Andaman was rocked by a series of aftershocks, ranging between 5.5
to 6 on the Richter scale. Ironically, this brought down even more
concrete structures, while traditional wood structures stayed up. Hope
the administration would heed the wisdom while reconstructing.

Development is for the long term; but the logic driving it in the
Andamans has been short-term. The results have been predictable.
Musharraf Ahmed, an auto-rickshaw driver, remembers the summer of 2002
vividly. That year, the rains came late. And water levels behind the
Dhanikari dam dwindled. For two months that year, Ahmed's family got 6-8
buckets of water - once every three days.

<dropcase>After returning to delhi, I met M.N. Murty, professor at the
Institute of Economic Growth. He wasn't too worried about the water
situation. Answers could be found, he said. What concerned him more was
the outlook for sustainable development. Was it possible to make the
people better off while ensuring that threshold stocks of resources are
maintained?

There is nothing unique about what the islands are going through. As
population rises, everyone places more demands on the land. Nor are the
islands facing anything unique in terms of short-sighted development.
The outlook for sustainable development is dim across India.

This hasn't come about for want of proper regulation. India, said
Murthy, has comprehensive legislation encouraging sustainability. And
yet, we are unable to make a headway. That's partly because monitoring
and enforcement costs are very high, and partly because of corruption.
Tax disincentives push companies towards cleaner technology. They can
either pay tax for polluting, or install cleaner technology. But
corruption offers another alternative. Formal regulation founders
between these two.

One tiny ray of hope comes from the fact that informal regulation is,
however, working. Local communities are getting more active -
protesting, lobbying, filing PILs. This has also been visible in the
islands. Four months ago, a forest department team went to Mannarghat, a
village in South Andaman, to harvest wood. The villagers did not let
them. This is our water resource, they said, you cannot touch the forest.

But even that can only go so far. The administration needs to act on the
orders passed and the wisdom that's staring them in the face.

I remember the first island I saw as <I>MV Akbar<I> neared the Andamans.
Densely forested, they seemed to hang low over the sea. On one side, a
flat lick of land, lower than the rest of the island, jutted out. On it
grew three palms. It made a striking silhouette. On that darkening
evening, as the islands floated by, they seemed small and fragile.

I hope we remember that. And that we don't always get a second chance.

ends

Mild quakes continue to rock Andaman and Nicobar islands:
[India News]: New Delhi, Jan 28 : A series of moderate intensity quakes rocked
Andaman and Nicobar Islands at frequent intervals since late last night with the
strongest one recorded 5.5 on Richter scale, the Met Department today said.


Moderate intensity earthquakes were experienced at the Islands, especially
Camorta, which was hit by earthquakes at 2311 yesterday, 0023, 0215, 0328 and
0411 and 0457 in the early hours today with intensities ranging from 5.5 to 5.1,
it said.


While two quakes of moderate intensity jolted the region off the coast of Little
Nicobar Islands with a magnitude of 5.1, another temblor with the intensity of
5.2 hit Great Nicobar islands at 0140 hours.


Majority of the quakes were epicentered near the Camorta islands, while some of
them also originated from east coast of Little Nicobar Islands, the Met office
said.


The region has been experiencing frequent aftershocks since the December 26
earthquake. PTI


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1003168.cms


#######################################################################
Indiatimes Email now powered by APIC Advantage. Help!
HelpClick on the image to chat with me


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

There being so much speculation about future earthquakes and tsunamis in the
region, I want to summarize the conclusions of some reporting I did for
Scientific American. (I can't post it until it is published.)
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands sit on a long, thin tectonic plate that reaches
from the end of Myanmar all the way to Sumatra. The epicenter was right at the
southern tip of this plate. But the rupture propagated far north, and, given the
uplifting of North Sentinel, it looks like the entire western edge of that plate
shifted. It jumped onto the India plate to its west. Given this, the western
edge seems to have released all accumulated stress, and is not expected to have
an earthquake of this magnitude for another century. Aftershocks will of course
continue; these are adjustments other regions are making to the initial shock.
The eastern edge of the plate, which lies in the region of Barren Island, can,
however, sustain major earthquakes. According to one expert, Joseph Currray of
Scripps, this region is unlikely to set off a tsunami because the plates here
are rubbing lengthwise along each other. They would cause a strike-slip
earthquake which would only cause the water column above to shear, not to lift.
(Unless there is a landslide too.) Earthquakes are also possible north of the
Andamans, which has not ruptured.
Barren Island has not erupted. According to Pranab Banerjee, retired from GSI,
the volcano has a 200-year cycle and last erupted in 1994 or so. It is unlikely
to erupt again soon.
Kerry Sieh of Caltech thinks that since the rupture did not propagate southward,
that area is now under increased stress, making a tsunami-spawning earthquake
further south off Sumatra more likely than otherwise. I don't know what this
means for the Nicobars.
The dust on these matters is not going to settle for at least a few months,
after all the measurements are made and analyzed.
Madhusree


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Dear Friends,
While in the islands i can be accessed at teh following mobile phone no.
09422327579.
thanks
Pankaj
C/o Kalpavriksh
Apt. 5, Sri Dutta Krupa
908 Deccan Gymkhana,
Pune 411004
Tel: 020 - 25654239 / 25675450
Fax: 25654239

A lot of money for tsunami aid--MM

Press Contact: Kavya Rajan for IAAC.
thekavya@... / (917) 603-9139
http://www.iaac.us

Arts Auction and Fashion Show for Tsunami Aid

New York (IAAC, Inc.), January 25, 2005 - The Indo-American Arts Council and
Christie's auction house are hosting a gala benefit dinner on Friday,
February
4, 2005, at 7 p.m. for victims of the Indian Ocean Tsunami disaster with
performances by dance troupe THRESH and comedian Daniel Nainan; a fashion
show
by celebrity designer Anand Jon; and a live auction of donated art. Speakers
include author/Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations Shashi Tharoor.

The Tsunami Disaster Benefit will be held at Christie's auction house at 20
Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan.

The IAAC Tsunami Disaster Benefit will give 100 percent of proceeds to the
tsunami victims, through the America India Foundation's relief efforts. All
contributions are tax-deductible.  All space, services, food, wine, and
artwork
are donated by generous contributions from sponsors. Performances by
high-profile artists are given free-of-charge to benefit the cause. Food
will
be catered by Bukhara Grill and wine by Bilimoria Wines.

Christie's is graciously hosting the event and providing full support
without
charge. The live auction will be conducted by Hugo Weihe, International
Specialist Head of Indian and Southeast Asian Art at Christie's.

Artists include Salma Arastu, Lisa Barsumian, Natvar Bhavsar, James Brown,
Bivas Chaudhuri, Peter Dayton, April Gornik, Murali Harathi, Anand Jon,
Satish
Joshi, Reeta Karmarkar, Sohan Qadri, Krishna Reddy, Mattieu Ricard, Michelle
Suna, and Anna Walinska.

Dance troupe THRESH, led by Preeti Vasudevan, will present "Tides of the
Moon,"
a piece about the continuum of life at the threshold of death in dedication
to
lives lost in the tsunami disaster. Celebrity fashion designer Anand Jon,
whose
designs Women's Wear Daily has called "functional luxury," will showcase a
sample of his collection during the course of what promises to be an
extremely
exciting evening. His celebrity clients include Paris Hilton, Donald Trump,
Bruce & Patti Springsteen, and Alanis Morrissette. Also performing will be
part-Indian, part-Japanese standup comic Daniel Nainan (most recently seen
on
NBC's "Last Comic Standing.")

Tickets are $500 per head; tables are $5000, $10,000, and $20,000.  The goal
for the evening is to raise $500,000 to benefit tsunami victims.

The Indo-American Arts Council is a 501(c)(3), not-for-profit arts
organization
charged with the mission of promoting the awareness of Indian and
cross-cultural art forms in North America (performing, visual, literary,
folk
art).  In addition, our soul reacts to human crises and we have raised
awareness and essential funds through the arts for the Gujarat earthquake,
Maharashtra earthquake, communal riots in India, 9/11, and now the tsunami
disaster.

Founded in 1766 by James Christie, Christie's, the world's leading auction
house, is a name and a place that speaks of extraordinary art, unparalleled
service, and international glamour.  Christie's conducted the greatest
auctions
of the 18th and 19th centuries, and today remains the world's most potent
marketplace for buying and selling art, offering close to 1,000 sales
annually
in over 80 categories, including all areas of fine and decorative arts,
jewelry, photographs, collectibles, wine, cars and ^more.  Christie's has 90
offices in 30 countries and 14 salerooms around the world including in New
York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Geneva, Hong Kong.

PRESS CONTACT:
Kavya Rajan for IAAC
thekavya@... / (917) 603-9139

MORE INFORMATION:
Aroon Shivdasani, Executive Director
Indo-American Arts Council, Inc.
118 E 25th Street, Third Floor
New York, NY 10010
Tel: (212) 529-2347
Fax: (212) 477-4106
Email: aroon@...

http://www.iaac.us/tsunami.htm
http://www.christies.com

I was referring to the Sahara Group which has entered into a controversial with
the West bengal government for a high flying tourist resort complete with
floatels, golf courses and helipads and the like. What u say about the NGO by
that name is something I did not know abt. What kind of National Park is it,
could u let me know too?


Rina Mukherji


ajay mahajan <ajayma@...> wrote:


Rina and others,
Share the concerns abt. eco-tourism. Am considering its potential and peril
too.   Rina, when u say cant be like large profit making 'Sahara' variety,
which Sahara are u referring to ? The Sahara Group (Industries) or Sahara
the NGO working in the GReat Himalayan National Park (GHNP) area. If the
latter, i would like to know more about it, as i'm currently looking at a
proposal concerning them.

Ajay Mahajan

   ----- Original Message -----
> From: "rina mukherji" <rina_mukherji@...>
> To: <andamanicobar@...>
> Sent: Friday, January 21, 2005 5:41 PM
> Subject: Re: [andamanicobar] Re: ecotourism
>
>
> >
> > I entirely agree with you, Pradeep. Ecotourism needs to be seriously
> explored, since many parts of the country have been totally denuded of
their
> advantages bycrass commercial interest, to the extent that locals are
devoid
> of any means of livelihood. Eco-tourism as promoted by some
> environmentally-conscious groups have managed to get the locals on their
> feet. Pankaj has himself seen it in the Sundarbans. I know of similar
> ventures having worked in North Bengal, Sikkim and the northeast.
> >
> > But when we say eco-tourism, it cannot be the large-scale profit-making
> Sahara variety. it ought to be confined to small groups of 10-15 tourists
at
> a maximum, lest we encounter the kind of ravages adventure tourists had
> wrought in places like Sandakphu and other Himalayan trekking routes.
> >
> > Perhaps, this is the only solution we can have in the Andamans too.
> >
> > Rina Mukherji
> >
> > pradeep <pradeepnarayanan@...> wrote:
> > Dear Seby,
> >
> > It was a thought provoking mail, which raised serious doubts. As you
said,
> we have to take ideological positions in our interventions.I think
> eco-tourism does fit in any movement that focusses on adverse
environmental
> impact due to tourism. However, dont we have to differentiate between
> tourism and eco-tourism (which I presume is "ecological" tourism)? More
than
> that what is the position of tourism in any ideology? Eco-tourism does
have
> space for the perspective of the vulnerable sections because it originated
> due to the adverse imp[act of tourism on ecology. Although ecology is
> generally used synonymous with 'environmental' perspective, it does need
to
> address the concerns of mortals who depend on jungle and jamin. With eco
> tourism having these components as well, cant the social activists have a
> larger space in this scheme?
> >
> > My larger question is on the place of tourism in any ideology. Today,
the
> market led development model see tourism as a potential growth enhancing
> tool. Many corporate actors see this as a potential for their profits. The
> neoliberal economic environment has no space for distributive justice, but
> it has the strength to convert all distributive policies into growth
> oriented policies. So we have to see this fronm three angles- firstly our
> stand on tourism should not in anyway perpetuate the dominance of
> neo-liberal ideology. Secondly, it should also be seen that we just not
part
> away with the sector of tourism, which in anyway is providing livelihood
> support to not to the capitalists alone but also the poor households.
> Finally, a distributive socialist welfare system will be sustainable only
if
> it enhances the growth as well, after all we need money to distribute. The
> third angle is the most problematic- because in the name of
sustainability,
> we end up supporting "profit based"
> > ideology. The disastrous component of eco-tourism has to be prohibited
by
> social action- but will it be right to say no to tourism itself? Or you
> suggest just that let market take care of tourism, and we stay away from
it?
> Or we just focus on the negative impacts of tourism, as there is alreadfy
a
> powerful lobby to promote tourism. The last one makes sense, but our
> ideology will then be reactive only.
> >
> > Thanks
> > Pradeep
> >
> >
> >
> > nest nest <ne_st@...> wrote:
> > Dear Divya sinha,
> > It is nice to know your interest and enthusiasm to work in Andamans.
> However I am at a loss to understand as to how eco-tourism fits in the
> scheme of things. Has it been clubbed together with Social Work?
> >
> > Eco-tourism is commerce. Is Social Work also being viewed as commerce?
If
> Yes then both should stay away. I know practically the disastrous
experience
> of eco-tourism in Goa where I am based. The underlying factor of
eco-tourism
> is bussiness-irrespective of the fact as to what is the type of adventures
> involved; infact eco-tourism is even more dangerous both to nature as well
> as People leaving in forest areas. Andaman MUST be defended against this
> human induced tsunami of commerce at any cost! The ultimate goal is profit
> and not the people or nature.
> >
> > Sorry for being polemical, but under no circustances eco-tourism must be
> given free rein.
> >
> > This intervention is not directed at your initiatives but only mean to
> further clarify and understand and be sensitive to the kind of ideological
> positions we take up in our interventions.
> >
> > Seby.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 divya  sinha wrote :
> > >
> > >hi everybody,
> > >my name is Divya Sinha and im a student of Master's in Social Work at
> Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS),Mumbai.i got to know about Pankaj
> and the kind of work he is involved in through some faculty members. i
have
> always had a keen interest in knowing more about the andaman and nicobar
> islands and i was thrilled to be a member of this group. its a pleasure to
> be a part of the group and it would be intresting to know if there are
NGOs
> in the area who require MSW students as full time employees. i will finish
> my term in May this year and my areas of interst are very much in
congruence
> with the nature of work done by mostof u,namely,conservation,eco-tourism,
> environmental restoration, working in the eco senstive zones of the
country
> etc.
> > >if any of u need any further details and think that i fit anywhere in
the
> scheme of things and if any of u would want to take a look at my cv id be
> glad to send it.
> > >please keep me updated on the develpments...
> > >thanks a ton
> > >divya
> > >
> > >[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >Yahoo! Groups Links
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > NATURE ENVIRONMENT SOCIETY AND TRANSFORMATIONS
> >                   (NEST)
> > DONGAR GHAR, HILLTOP RESIDENCE, CHORAO ISLANDS, TISWADI, GOA.
> PH:(0832)2492014.
> >
> > 31/A, IGREJ VADDO, MARNA, SIOLIM, BARDEZ, GOA. 403517 PH: (0832)2272164
> >
> > FOUNDER: Dr. Bikram Dasgupta.
> >
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >    To visit your group on the web, go to:
> > http://in.groups.yahoo.com/group/andamanicobar/
> >
> >    To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> > andamanicobar-unsubscribe@...
> >
> >    Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------
> > ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - all new features - even more fun!
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >    To visit your group on the web, go to:
> > http://in.groups.yahoo.com/group/andamanicobar/
> >
> >    To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> > andamanicobar-unsubscribe@...
> >
> >    Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> >  Yahoo! Search presents - Jib Jab's 'Second Term'
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>




---------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links

    To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://in.groups.yahoo.com/group/andamanicobar/

    To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
andamanicobar-unsubscribe@...

    Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.



---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
  Meet the all-new My Yahoo! – Try it today!

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I was referring to the Sahara Group which has entered into a controversial with
the West bengal government for a high flying tourist resort complete with
floatels, golf courses and helipads and the like. What u say about the NGO by
that name is something I did not know abt. What kind of National Park is it,
could u let me know too?


Rina Mukherji


ajay mahajan <ajayma@...> wrote:


Rina and others,
Share the concerns abt. eco-tourism. Am considering its potential and peril
too.   Rina, when u say cant be like large profit making 'Sahara' variety,
which Sahara are u referring to ? The Sahara Group (Industries) or Sahara
the NGO working in the GReat Himalayan National Park (GHNP) area. If the
latter, i would like to know more about it, as i'm currently looking at a
proposal concerning them.

Ajay Mahajan

   ----- Original Message -----
> From: "rina mukherji" <rina_mukherji@...>
> To: <andamanicobar@...>
> Sent: Friday, January 21, 2005 5:41 PM
> Subject: Re: [andamanicobar] Re: ecotourism
>
>
> >
> > I entirely agree with you, Pradeep. Ecotourism needs to be seriously
> explored, since many parts of the country have been totally denuded of
their
> advantages bycrass commercial interest, to the extent that locals are
devoid
> of any means of livelihood. Eco-tourism as promoted by some
> environmentally-conscious groups have managed to get the locals on their
> feet. Pankaj has himself seen it in the Sundarbans. I know of similar
> ventures having worked in North Bengal, Sikkim and the northeast.
> >
> > But when we say eco-tourism, it cannot be the large-scale profit-making
> Sahara variety. it ought to be confined to small groups of 10-15 tourists
at
> a maximum, lest we encounter the kind of ravages adventure tourists had
> wrought in places like Sandakphu and other Himalayan trekking routes.
> >
> > Perhaps, this is the only solution we can have in the Andamans too.
> >
> > Rina Mukherji
> >
> > pradeep <pradeepnarayanan@...> wrote:
> > Dear Seby,
> >
> > It was a thought provoking mail, which raised serious doubts. As you
said,
> we have to take ideological positions in our interventions.I think
> eco-tourism does fit in any movement that focusses on adverse
environmental
> impact due to tourism. However, dont we have to differentiate between
> tourism and eco-tourism (which I presume is "ecological" tourism)? More
than
> that what is the position of tourism in any ideology? Eco-tourism does
have
> space for the perspective of the vulnerable sections because it originated
> due to the adverse imp[act of tourism on ecology. Although ecology is
> generally used synonymous with 'environmental' perspective, it does need
to
> address the concerns of mortals who depend on jungle and jamin. With eco
> tourism having these components as well, cant the social activists have a
> larger space in this scheme?
> >
> > My larger question is on the place of tourism in any ideology. Today,
the
> market led development model see tourism as a potential growth enhancing
> tool. Many corporate actors see this as a potential for their profits. The
> neoliberal economic environment has no space for distributive justice, but
> it has the strength to convert all distributive policies into growth
> oriented policies. So we have to see this fronm three angles- firstly our
> stand on tourism should not in anyway perpetuate the dominance of
> neo-liberal ideology. Secondly, it should also be seen that we just not
part
> away with the sector of tourism, which in anyway is providing livelihood
> support to not to the capitalists alone but also the poor households.
> Finally, a distributive socialist welfare system will be sustainable only
if
> it enhances the growth as well, after all we need money to distribute. The
> third angle is the most problematic- because in the name of
sustainability,
> we end up supporting "profit based"
> > ideology. The disastrous component of eco-tourism has to be prohibited
by
> social action- but will it be right to say no to tourism itself? Or you
> suggest just that let market take care of tourism, and we stay away from
it?
> Or we just focus on the negative impacts of tourism, as there is alreadfy
a
> powerful lobby to promote tourism. The last one makes sense, but our
> ideology will then be reactive only.
> >
> > Thanks
> > Pradeep
> >
> >
> >
> > nest nest <ne_st@...> wrote:
> > Dear Divya sinha,
> > It is nice to know your interest and enthusiasm to work in Andamans.
> However I am at a loss to understand as to how eco-tourism fits in the
> scheme of things. Has it been clubbed together with Social Work?
> >
> > Eco-tourism is commerce. Is Social Work also being viewed as commerce?
If
> Yes then both should stay away. I know practically the disastrous
experience
> of eco-tourism in Goa where I am based. The underlying factor of
eco-tourism
> is bussiness-irrespective of the fact as to what is the type of adventures
> involved; infact eco-tourism is even more dangerous both to nature as well
> as People leaving in forest areas. Andaman MUST be defended against this
> human induced tsunami of commerce at any cost! The ultimate goal is profit
> and not the people or nature.
> >
> > Sorry for being polemical, but under no circustances eco-tourism must be
> given free rein.
> >
> > This intervention is not directed at your initiatives but only mean to
> further clarify and understand and be sensitive to the kind of ideological
> positions we take up in our interventions.
> >
> > Seby.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 divya  sinha wrote :
> > >
> > >hi everybody,
> > >my name is Divya Sinha and im a student of Master's in Social Work at
> Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS),Mumbai.i got to know about Pankaj
> and the kind of work he is involved in through some faculty members. i
have
> always had a keen interest in knowing more about the andaman and nicobar
> islands and i was thrilled to be a member of this group. its a pleasure to
> be a part of the group and it would be intresting to know if there are
NGOs
> in the area who require MSW students as full time employees. i will finish
> my term in May this year and my areas of interst are very much in
congruence
> with the nature of work done by mostof u,namely,conservation,eco-tourism,
> environmental restoration, working in the eco senstive zones of the
country
> etc.
> > >if any of u need any further details and think that i fit anywhere in
the
> scheme of things and if any of u would want to take a look at my cv id be
> glad to send it.
> > >please keep me updated on the develpments...
> > >thanks a ton
> > >divya
> > >
> > >[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >Yahoo! Groups Links
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > NATURE ENVIRONMENT SOCIETY AND TRANSFORMATIONS
> >                   (NEST)
> > DONGAR GHAR, HILLTOP RESIDENCE, CHORAO ISLANDS, TISWADI, GOA.
> PH:(0832)2492014.
> >
> > 31/A, IGREJ VADDO, MARNA, SIOLIM, BARDEZ, GOA. 403517 PH: (0832)2272164
> >
> > FOUNDER: Dr. Bikram Dasgupta.
> >
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >    To visit your group on the web, go to:
> > http://in.groups.yahoo.com/group/andamanicobar/
> >
> >    To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> > andamanicobar-unsubscribe@...
> >
> >    Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------
> > ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - all new features - even more fun!
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >    To visit your group on the web, go to:
> > http://in.groups.yahoo.com/group/andamanicobar/
> >
> >    To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> > andamanicobar-unsubscribe@...
> >
> >    Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> >  Yahoo! Search presents - Jib Jab's 'Second Term'
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>




---------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links

    To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://in.groups.yahoo.com/group/andamanicobar/

    To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
andamanicobar-unsubscribe@...

    Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.



---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
  Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search. Learn more.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Dear Friends,
I will myself be going to the islands and will be there for about three
weeks starting January 28. I guess this has implications for our egroup as I
may no longer be in a position to send as many mails that I have been
sending out on a daily basis (I am sure there will be a few sighs of relief
at this!). However I do hope to try and continue accessing email as much as
it is possible though it would depend on a host of factors.

I am also trying to organising the moderating of the group and if that is
possible will send you the details shortly. If that is not possible, the
option is to make the group unmoderated and to ensure that each one is
careful in sending in mails only that are directly relevant and of use.

many thanks
Pankaj Sekhsaria
C/o Kalpavriksh
Apt. 5, Sri Dutta Krupa
908 Deccan Gymkhana,
Pune 411004
Tel: 020 - 25654239 / 25675450
Fax: 25654239

The town by the sea
The Hindu / 13.01.05

Amitav Ghosh, renowned novelist, accompanies the Director on a search
through the island of Car Nicobar towards the seafront where the town of
Malacca once stood. Discovering in stages how little he had understood the
power of the tsunami, the writer finds himself completely unprepared for the
experience. This is the concluding part of a special three-article series
for The Hindu.







Only the trees were left standing at Malacca, most of the houses had
disappeared. -- Photo: Amitav Ghosh

AT THE airfield in Car Nicobar, the Director arranged a ride for us on a
yellow construction truck that had been set to the task of distributing
relief supplies. The truck went bouncing down the runway before turning off
into a narrow road that led into a forest. Once the airstrip was behind us,
it was as though we had been transported to some long-ago land, unspoiled
and untouched. The road wound through a dense tropical jungle, dotted, at
intervals, with groves of slender areca-palms and huts mounted on stilts.
Some of these had metamorphosed into makeshift camps, sprouting awnings of
plastic and tarpaulin. It was clear that the island's interior was sparsely
inhabited, with the population being concentrated along the seafront.

Earlier, while the plane was making its descent, I had had a panoramic, if
blurred, view of the island, in the crisp morning sunlight. No more than a
few kilometres across, it was flat and low, and its interior was covered by
a dense canopy of greenery. A turquoise halo surrounded its shores, where a
fringe of sand had once formed an almost-continuous length of beach: this
was now still mainly underwater. I saw to my surprise that many thick stands
of coconut palms were still standing, even on the edge of the water.
Relatively few palms had been flattened; most remained upright and in full
possession of their greenery. As for the forest, the canopy seemed almost
undisturbed. All trace of habitation on the other hand, had been obliterated
: the foundations of many buildings could be clearly seen, on the ground.
But of the structures they had once supported, nothing remained.

Selective destruction


It was evident from above that the tsunami had been peculiarly selective in
the manner of its destruction. Had the island been hit by a major cyclone,
not a frond would have survived on the coconut palms and the forest canopy
would have been denuded. Most human dwellings, on the other hand, would have
retained their walls even if they lost their roofs. Not so in this instance:
the villages along the shore were not merely damaged; they were erased. It
was as if the island had been hit by a weapon devised to cause the maximum
possible damage to life and property, while leaving nature largely unharmed.

We came to an intersection that was flanked by low, whitewashed buildings.
This was the administrative centre of the island, the Director explained;
the settlement of Malacca lay a good distance away and we would have to
walk. After getting off the truck, we came to the District Library, a
building of surprising size and solidity: like the surrounding offices, it
was unharmed, but a medical camp, manned by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police,
had sprung up on its grounds, under the shade of a spreading, moss-twined
padauk tree. The Director spotted a doctor, sitting in a tent. He darted
away and slipped under the tent's blue flap. "Doctor, have you heard
anything about my family?" he said. "I've come because I heard some
survivors had been found... "

The doctor's face froze and after a moment's silence, in a tone that was
non-committal and yet not discouraging, he said: "No news has reached me -
I've not heard anything... "

Salvaged goods


We continued on our way, walking past the airy bungalows of the island's top
officials, with their well-tended gardens. Soon we came upon two men who
were sitting by the roadside, beside an odd assortment of salvaged goods.
"That's mine," said the Director, pointing to a lampstand of turned wood. "I
paid a lot for it; it's made of padauk wood." There was no rancour in his
voice and nor did he seem to want to reclaim the object. We walked on.

A few steps ahead the road dipped towards a large clearing fringed by thick
stands of coconut palm: as with many small town maidans, there was a plaster
bust of Mahatma Gandhi standing in its centre. So far on our journey from
the airport we had seen no outward sign of the damage caused by the tsunami,
but now we had arrived at the outer periphery of the band of destruction.
Mounds of splintered planks and other building materials lay scattered
across the clearing, and the red-white-and-green fence that surrounded the
bust of Mahatma Gandhi was swathed in refuse and dead coconut fronds.
Everywhere, evidence of the tsunami's reach could be seen in pools of water
that had turned rank over the last few days.

At the far end of the maidan, a fire was blazing among the coconut palms.
The warehouse that supplied the island with cooking gas had stood at that
spot. The tsunami had swept the warehouse away, leaving the canisters
exposed to the sun and a fire had ensued. Every few minutes the ground shook
to the blast of exploding canisters.

Encountering Michael


Oblivious to the fire, the Director stepped away to accost a passer-by who
was wheeling a loaded bicycle. Over his shoulder, he said to me: "This is
Michael; he worked in my office." Michael was a sturdy, grizzled Nicobarese,
dressed in green shorts and a grey shirt. Laying his hands on the bicycle's
handlebars, the Director said, in Hindi: "Michael, listen - has there been
any news of Madam? You know what she looks like: have you seen any trace of
her?"

Michael dropped his eyes, as if in embarrassment, and answered with a tiny
shake of his head. Lowering his voice, the Director continued: "And have you
heard anyone speak of a girl, roaming in the jungle?" When this too failed
to elicit an answer, he went on: "Michael, I need your help. Bring some men
and come. I need to dig through the rubble to see if I can find anything."
Even as he was speaking, his attention shifted to the contents of the
plastic bags that were hanging from Michael's handlebars. Flinching, he let
go of the handlebar. "Michael!" he cried, "What is all this stuff you've
picked up? You should know better than to take things from over there - they
may be contaminated."

Michael hung his head and wheeled his bicycle silently away.

"They're all looting," said the director, shaking his head. "I've heard the
bazaar in Port Blair has received three sackfuls of gold from the islands...
"





The author in front of Malacca's Murugan temple. -- Photo: By Special
Arrangement

In the clump of burning palm-trees, yet another gas canister exploded. It
was close enough that we could feel the rattle of the blast in the debris
under our feet; a shard of metal struck an onlooker, fortunately without
injury. Oblivious to the flames, the Director hurried towards a spot where a
mound of mangled household objects lay piled, having been pushed through the
screen of coconut palms like dough through a sieve.

Mangled objects


"Look, that's mine," said the Director, pointing to a blue Aristocrat
suitcase made of moulded plastic. It had been hacked open with a
sharp-bladed instrument and its contents were gone. The Director picked it
up and shook it. "I saw it the last time I was here," he said. "It was
already empty. Everything had been looted." His eyes moved over to a steel
trunk, lying nearby. "That's mine too. Go and look." Stepping over I saw
that the trunk's lock had been forced open. On the side, written in large
black letters, was the Director's name and designation.

"You see," the Director said, as if in vindication. "Everything I've been
telling you is true. These things were all mine."

Research lost


A short distance away a wooden cabinet lay overturned, and heaps of paper
could be seen spilling out of its belly. The Director beckoned to me. "See -
there are all the records from my office. Thirteen years of research: all
gone." We went to kneel beside the cabinet and I saw that the papers were
mimeographed data sheets, with the letterhead of the Malaria Research Centre
imprinted on top.

Somewhere among the papers I spotted some old photographs. Somehow it was a
matter of great relief to me to come upon some retrievable memento and I was
quick to draw the Director's attention to the pictures. On examination it
turned out that most of the pictures had been defaced by the water, but I
found one where he, the Director, could clearly be seen, standing among a
group of people. I held it out to him and he took it with an indifferent
shrug. "That photo was taken at the air base, I remember." He let go and it
fluttered into a puddle of stinking water.

"Don't you want to keep it?" I said, in astonishment.

"No," he said simply. "It means nothing. These are just work pictures."

Slides!


Then suddenly his eyes lit up. "Look," he said, "my slides... " A drawer had
come open, shaking loose several decks of white-rimmed photographic slides.
Most were sodden with water, but some were dry and had preserved their
images. To my untrained eyes, the pictures appeared to be of bacteria,
hugely magnified by the lens of a microscope. The Director sorted quickly
through the slides and chose a dozen or so. Close at hand there lay a roll
of unused plastic bags that had been washed out of a shop and dried by the
sun. Peeling off one of these bags, he placed the slides carefully inside
before fastening his fingers on them.






"Your home must have been nearby?" I said.

"No," came the answer. "The wave carried these things right out of the town.
My house is still a kilometre away, over there."

Power of tsunami


I had imagined that his possessions had ended up in the same place because
his house was nearby: this was an indication of how little I understood of
the power of the surge. Its strength was such that it had tossed the
Director's house aside, picked up his household goods, bundled them together
and punched them through a kilometre-wide expanse of dense habitation.

The location the Director had pointed to was on the far side of the burning
coconut palms; it was evident that to get there we would have to pass quite
close to the fire, which was now spreading rapidly. We set off almost at a
run, and soon came to a point where our path was blocked by a fallen tree.
He clambered over, hanging on to his slides and I followed. The fire was now
less than a hundred metres to our right and as I was climbing over there was
another detonation, followed by a crackling, whooshing sound. I fell quickly
to the ground and shut my eyes. When next I looked up, the Director was
still standing, looking down at me with puzzled impatience. "Come on, come
on - that's where we have to go: over there."

When I rose to my feet I had my first glimpse of the seafront where the town
of Malacca had once stood: till now it had been largely screened off from
view by the coconut palms. On a stretch of land a couple of kilometres long,
there were now only five structures still standing: the staring, skull-like
shell of a school that had lost all its doors and windows; a neatly
whitewashed bungalow; an arched gateway that had the words `Rajiv Gandhi
Memorial Park' painted on it; a small, miraculously unharmed Murugan temple,
right beside the sea; and lastly the skeleton of a church, with a row of
parallel arches rising from the rubble like the bleached ribs of a dead
animal.

Life-saver


This was the structure that had saved the life of the Director's son. The
palms along the seafront were undamaged and upright, their fronds intact,
but the other trees on the site had lost all their leaves and a couple had
buses, cars and sheets of corrugated iron wrapped around their trunks. If
not for the tree-trunks and the waving palms, the first visual analogy to
suggest itself would have been Hiroshima after the bomb: the resemblance lay
not just in the destruction but also in the discernible directionality of
the blast. But there the parallel ended for the sky here was a cloudless
blue and there were no wisps of smoke rising from the ruins.

The Director led the way across the debris as if he were following a route
imprinted in memory, a familiar map of streets and lanes. Despite a stiff
breeze, blowing in from the sea, an odour of death flowed over the site, not
evenly, but in whirls and eddies, sometimes growing so powerful as to
indicate the presence of a yet-undiscovered body. Stray dogs, rooting in the
ruins, looked up as though to express their surprise at the sight of human
beings who were still ambient and on their feet.

Home that was


We came to a point where a rectangular platform of cement shone brightly
under the sun. The Director stepped up to it and placed his feet in the
middle. "This was my house," he said. "Only the foundation was concrete. The
rest was wood. My wife used to say that she had moved from a white house to
a log cabin. You see, she was from an affluent family; she grew up in a
bungalow with an air-conditioner. She used to teach English in a school
here, but she always wanted to leave. I applied many times, but the transfer
never came." He paused, thinking back. For much of the time that we had been
together, his voice had carried a note of sharp but undirected annoyance;
now it softened. "There was so much she could have achieved," he said. "I
was never able to give her the opportunity."

I reached out to touch his arm but he shook my hand brusquely away; he was
not the kind of man who takes kindly to expressions of sympathy; I could
tell from his demeanour that he was accustomed to adversity and had invented
many rules for dealing with it. The emotion he felt for his family he had
rarely expressed; he had hoarded it inside himself, in the way a squirrel
gathers food for the winter: loathe to spend it in his hectic middle years,
he had put it away to be savoured when there was a greater sense of ease in
his life, at a time when his battles were past and he could give his hoarded
love his full attention. He had never dreamt - and who could? - that one
bright December day, soon after dawn, it would be stolen, unsavoured, by the
sea.

I began to walk towards the gently lapping waves, no more than a hundred
metres away. The Director took fright at this and called me back: "Don't go
that way, the tide is coming in. It's time to leave."

Yellow paint box


I turned to follow him and we were heading back towards the blazing palms,
when he stopped to point to a yellow paint box, peeping out of the rubble.
"That belonged to Vineeta, my daughter," he said, and the flatness of his
voice was harder to listen to than an outburst would have been. "She loved
to paint; she was very good at it. She was even given a prize, from
Hyderabad."

I had expected that he would stoop to pick up the box, but instead he turned
away and walked on, gripping his bag of slides. "Wait!" I cried. "Don't you
want to take the box?"

"No," he said vehemently, shaking his head. "What good will it do? What will
it give back?" He stopped to look at me over the rim of his glasses. "Do you
know what happened the last time I was here? Someone had found my daughter's
schoolbag and saved it for me. It was handed to me, like a card. It was the
worst thing I could have seen. It was unbearable."

He started to walk off again. Unable to restrain myself, I called out after
him: "Are you sure you don't want it - the paint box?"

Without looking around he said: "Yes, I am sure."

I stood amazed as he walked off towards the blazing fire, with his slides
still folded in his grip: how was it possible that the only memento he had
chosen to retrieve were those magnified images? As a husband, a father, a
human being, it was impossible not to wonder: what would I have done? what
would I have felt? what would I have chosen to keep of the past? The truth
is that nobody can know, except in the extremity of that moment, and then
the choice is not a choice at all, but an expression of the innermost
sovereignty of the self, which decides because nothing now remains to cloud
its vision.

In the manner of his choosing there was not a particle of hesitation, not
the faintest glimmer of a doubt. Was it perhaps that in this moment of utter
desolation there was some comfort in the knowledge of an impersonal effort?
Could it be that he was seeking refuge in the one aspect of his existence
that could not be erased by an act of nature? Or was there some consolation
in the very lack of immediacy - did the value of those slides lie precisely
in their exclusion from the unendurable pain of his loss? Whatever the
reason, his mind had fixed upon a set of objects that derived their meaning
from the part of his life that was lived in thought and contemplation.

There are times when words seem futile, and to no one more so than a writer.
At these moments it seems that nothing is of value other than to act and to
intervene in the course of events: to think, to reflect, to write seem
trivial and wasteful. But the life of the mind takes many forms and after
the day had passed I understood that in the manner of his choosing, the
Director had mounted the most singular, the most powerful defence of it that
I would ever witness.


Amitav Ghosh



Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by

C/o Kalpavriksh
Apt. 5, Sri Dutta Krupa
908 Deccan Gymkhana,
Pune 411004
Tel: 020 - 25654239 / 25675450
Fax: 25654239

Dear Friends,
Some time back we had posted the first part of the three part series on the
Andamans in the aftermath of the tsunami by Amitav Ghosh that was published
by the Hindu.
Here is the 2nd part and I am posting the 3rd part in a subsequent email.
Pankaj

No aid needed
The Hindu
January 12, 2005

AMITAV GHOSH, renowned novelist, discovers the difference between the
diligent and open attitude of the armed forces, and the bureaucratic
insensitivity and inertia of the civilian administration in the Andaman and
Nicobar Islands. Findi ng an unexpected seat on a flight to Car Nicobar, he
encounters the Director and his extraordinary story. This is the second in a
three-part series of special articles for The Hindu. The final article in
the series will be published on Thu rsday.



ARE SUPPLIES really available aplenty, throughout the Andaman and Nicobar
Islands? The tale told in the relief camps is of course exactly the opposite
of that which echoes out of the lairs of officialdom. Most of the refugees
had to wait several days before they were evacuated. Forgotten in their
far-flung islands, they listened to radio broadcasts that told them their
nation was rushing aid to Sri Lanka and had refused all outside help as
unnecessary: for the thirsty and hungry there was little consolation in the
thought that these measures might help their country establish itself as a
superpower. In Campbell Bay, according to several reports, refugees were
moved to such fury by the indifference of the local officials that that they
assaulted an officer who was found ushering in the New Year with a feast.
Accounts of this incident, confirmed by several sources in the Coast Guard
and the police, were characteristically denied by the civil authorities.

In Port Blair, relief camps are the main sources of aid and sustenance for
the refugees. These are all sustained by private initiatives: they are
staffed by volunteers from local youth groups, religious foundations and so
on, and their supplies are provided by local shopkeepers, businessmen and
citizens' organisations. I met with the organisers of several relief camps
and they were unanimous in stating that they had received no aid whatsoever
from the government, apart from some water. They knew that people on the
mainland were eager to help and that a great deal of money had been raised.
None of these funds had reached them; presumably they had met the same
bottlenecks of distribution as the supplies that were lying piled on the
runways. That it should be possible for the people of a small town like Port
Blair to provide relief to so many refugees is the bright side of this
dismal story: it is proof, if any were needed, that the development of civil
society in India has far outpaced the institutions of state and the
personnel who staff them.

Armed forces' attitude


The attitude of the armed forces is not the same as that of the civilian
authorities. At all levels of the chain of command, from Lt. Gen. B.S.
Thakur, the commanding officer in Port Blair, to the jawans who are combing
through the ruins of Car Nicobar, there is an urgency, a diligence and an
openness that is in striking contrast to the stance of the civilian
personnel. Indeed, the feats performed by some units speak of an exemplary
dedication to duty. Consider for example the case of Wing Commander B.S.K.
Kumar, a helicopter pilot at the Car Nicobar air base. On December 26, he
was asleep when the earthquake first made itself felt: his quarters were a
mere 30 metres from the sea. Not only did he manage to outrun the tsunami,
with his wife and child, he was airborne within 10 minutes of the first
wave. In the course of the day he winched up some 60 stranded people and
evacuated another 240.

His colleague, Wing Commander Maheshwari, woke too late to escape the wave.
As the waters rose, he was forced to retreat to the roof of his building
with his wife and daughter. Along with 29 other people, he fought for his
footing on the roof until all were swept off. He managed to make his way to
land, but was separated from his wife and child: two hours passed before
they were found, clinging to the trunk of a tree. Of the 29 people on that
roof, only six survived. And yet, despite the ordeal, Wing Commander
Maheshwari flew several sorties that day.

Bureaucratic insensitivity


Considering the diligence of the armed forces and the enthusiasm and
generosity of ordinary citizens, how is the attitude of the island's
civilian administration to be accounted for? The answer is simple: a lack of
democracy and popular empowerment. As a Union Territory, the Andaman and
Nicobar Islands have no legislature and thus no elected representatives with
any clout apart from a single Member of Parliament. Elsewhere in India, in
any situation of crisis, officials have to answer to legislators at every
level: a failure to act would result in their being hounded by legislators
and harried by trade unions, student groups and the like. As Amartya Sen has
shown in his work on famines, these mechanisms are essential to the proper
distribution of resources in any situation of extreme scarcity: in effect,
the political system serves as a means by which demands are articulated. The
media similarly serve to create flows of information.

These are precisely the mechanisms that are absent in the Andaman and
Nicobar Islands: there are no elected representatives to speak for the
people and the media have been excluded from large swathes of territory. It
is not for no reason that on the mainland, where these mechanisms do exist,
the attitude of administrators in the affected districts has been more
sensitive to the needs of the victims and substantially more open to the
oversight of the press and to offers of help from other parts of the
country.

It is common for civil servants to complain of the perils of political
interference: the situation on the islands is proof that in the absence of
vigorous oversight many (although certainly not all) officials will revert
to the indifference and inertia that are the natural condition of any
bureaucracy.

Clearly the Central Government is aware that there is a problem, for the
relief operation was restructured on January 2, reportedly at the personal
intervention of Sonia Gandhi. What is more, several senior members of the
ruling party have been dispatched to the outlying islands, not just for
token visits, but to make sure that the supplies are properly distributed.
These are welcome first steps, but it is essential that the Central
Government moves quickly to create a more responsive and efficient disaster
relief operation in this region not just for the management of this
disaster, but for the long term. For if anything can be said with any
certainty, it is that the tsunami will not be the last seismic upheaval to
shake the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

In 1991, after lying dormant for 200 years, the volcano of Barren Island,
off the coast of the Andamans, became active again: there are reports that
it erupted again around the time of the earthquake of December 26. On
September 14, 2002, there was a 6.5 magnitude earthquake near Diglipur in
North Andaman Island: now there are unconfirmed reports of a minor eruption
in the same area. The signs are clear: no one can say the Earth has not
provided warnings of its intent.

In Port Blair I found that the tsunami's effects on the outlying islands
could only be guessed at. The refugees in the camps spoke of apocalyptic
devastation and tens of thousands dead; the authorities' estimates were much
more modest. There were few, if any, reliable independent assessments, for
the civil authorities had decided that no journalists or other `outsiders'
were to be allowed to travel to the outlying islands. The reasons given were
those of the battlefield: too many resources would be spent on their
protection. But there was no battle under way in the islands and the dangers
of the tsunami were long past. Public ferry and steamer services linking
Port Blair to the outer islands were in operation and had plenty of room for
paying passengers. And yet journalists, Indian and foreign, who attempted to
board these ships were forcibly dragged off.

Off to Car Nicobar


On January 1, 2005, there was an unexpected parting in this curtain of
exclusion. The reason was that a couple of senior members of the ruling
party had come to Port Blair with the intent of travelling farther afield.
It was quickly made known that an Air Force plane would be provided to take
the Ministers, and a retinue of journalists, to the island of Car Nicobar
the next day. This island, which is positioned halfway between the Andaman
and Nicobar chains, is home to some 30,000 people: it also houses an air
base, which makes it something of a hub in relation to the more southerly
islands.

Hoping to get on this plane, I duly presented myself at the airport only to
find that a great many others had arrived with the same expectation. As
always in such situations, there was considerable confusion about who would
get on. After the Ministers had boarded, a minor melee ensued at the foot of
the ramp that led to the plane's capacious belly. Knowing that I stood
little chance of prevailing in this contest, I had almost resigned myself to
being left behind when a young man in a blue uniform tapped my elbow and
pointed across the airfield. "You want to go to Car Nicobar? That plane over
there is carrying relief supplies. Just go and sit down. No one will say
anything."

I sought no explanation for this unsolicited act of consideration: it seemed
typical of the general goodwill of the military personnel I had encountered
on the islands. As if on tiptoe I walked across the tarmac and up the ramp.
The plane was a twin-engined Soviet-era AN 26, rusty but dependable, and its
capacious fuselage was lined with folding benches. The round portholes that
pierced its sides were like eyes that had grown rheumy with age; time had
sandpapered the panes of glass so that they were almost opaque. The cargo
area was packed with mattresses, folding beds, cases of mineral water and
sacks of food, all covered with a net of webbing. There were some half dozen
men inside, sitting on the benches with their feet planted askew beside the
mass of supplies.

Angry and irascible


I seated myself in the only available space, beside a short, portly man with
thick glasses and well-oiled, curly hair. He was dressed in a stiffly ironed
brown safari suit and he had an air of irascibility that spoke of a surfeit
of time spent in filing papers and running offices. He was muttering angrily
when I came aboard: "What do those people care? What have they ever done to
help anyone... ?" Of all the people on that plane he was perhaps the last I
would have chosen to sit beside: I was keen to make myself as inconspicuous
as possible while he seemed determined to draw attention to himself. It
could only be a matter of minutes I thought, before the airmen evicted him.
Inexplicably, they did not.

When the engines started up, my neighbour turned his attention to me. "These
big people think they are so great, but what help have they given?" I
assumed this to be a general expression of disgust, of the kind that is to
be heard on every train and bus in the country. But then he added suddenly:
"Let them go through what I have gone through. Let them suffer, then they
would see... "

This hit me with the force of a shock: his well-laundered safari suit, his
air of almost-comical self-importance, his irascibility - there was nothing
about him that bespoke the victim. But I understood now why the airmen had
ignored his rants; they knew something about him that I did not and this was
their way of showing compassion.

In the meanwhile the tirade continued: "If those politicians had suffered as
I have, what would they do? This is the question I want to ask."

I winced to think of my first response to his mutterings. "What exactly has
happened?" I asked. "Tell me."

The Director's Story


He did not want his name, so I shall call him `The Director'. This indeed
was his official title: he had been posted to the island of Car Nicobar in
1991, as the Director of the island's Malaria Research Centre and had lived
there ever since. He was originally from Puri, in Orissa, and had been
trained at the University of Berhampore. During his tenure in Car Nicobar he
had married and had two children: a son who was now 13, and a 10-year-old
daughter. His home was in Malacca - the seafront township I'd heard about in
the camps - and his office was just a few minutes' walk from where he lived.
In this office he had accumulated a great wealth of epidemiological
knowledge. Car Nicobar had once been rife with malaria, he told me. In an
island with a population of just 30,000, the annual incidence had been as
high as 3810, even as recently as 1989. But during his tenure he had
succeeded in bringing the rate down to a fraction of this number. It was
clear, from the readiness with which he quoted the figures, that he was
immensely - and justly - proud of what he had achieved during his stay on
the island.

On December 25, 2004, the Director was in Port Blair, on his way to New
Delhi. Since he was travelling for official reasons, he had left his family
in Malacca. He spent the night of December 25 in the Haddo Circuit House,
which stands close to the water. On the morning of the 26th he was woken by
the shaking of his bed. He stepped off to find the floor heaving and
realised that an earthquake had hit the town. As he was running out of the
building, his mobile phone rang. Glancing quickly at the screen, he saw that
his wife was calling from Malacca. He guessed that the earthquake had struck
Car Nicobar too but he was not unduly alarmed. Tremors were frequently felt
on the island and he thought his wife would be able to cope. The Guest House
in the meanwhile was still shaking and there was no time to talk.

He cut off the call and ran outside; he would phone back later, he decided,
once the tremors stopped. He waited out the earthquake outside and when the
ground was still at last, he hit the call button on his phone. There was no
answer and he wondered if the network was down. But he had little time to
think about the matter because a strange phenomenon had suddenly begun to
manifest itself before him: the water in the harbour had begun to rise, very
rapidly, and the anchored ships seemed to be swirling about in the grip of
an unseen hand. Along with everyone else he ran to higher ground.

Surge of water


The islands of the Andaman chain rise steeply out of the sea and the harbour
and waterfront of Port Blair are sheltered by a network of winding fjords
and inlets. Such is the lay of the land that the turbulence that radiated
outwards from the earthquake's epicentre, manifested itself here not as an
onrushing wall of water, but as a surge in the water level. Although this
caused a good deal of alarm, the damage was not severe.

It was not long, however, before it occurred to the Director that the
incoming swell in Port Blair's harbour might have taken a different form
elsewhere. The Nicobar islands do not have the high elevations of their
northern neighbours, the Andamans. They are low-lying islands for the most
part, and some like Car Nicobar stand no more than a few metres above sea
level at their highest point. Already anxious, the Director became frantic
when word of the tsunami trickled down to the waterfront, from the naval
offices further up the slope.

Malacca hit


The Director knew of a government office in Car Nicobar that had a satellite
phone. He dialled the number again and again: it was either busy or there
was no answer. When at last he got through, the voice at the other end told
him, with some reluctance, that Malacca had been badly hit. It was known
that there were some survivors, but as for his family, there was no word.

The Director kept calling, and in the afternoon he learnt that his
13-year-old son had been found clinging to the rafters of a church, some 200
metres behind their house. Arrangements were made to bring the boy to the
phone and the Director was able to speak to him directly later that night.
He learnt from his son that the family had been in the bedroom when the
earthquake started. A short while later, a terrifying sound from the
direction of the sea had driven the three of them into the drawing room. The
boy had kept running, right into the kitchen. The house was built of wood,
on a cement foundation. When the wave hit, the house dissolved into
splinters and the boy was carried away as if on a wind. Flailing his arms,
he managed to take hold of something that seemed to be fixed to the earth.
Through wave after wave he managed to keep his grip. When the water receded
he saw that he was holding on to the only upright structure within a radius
of several hundred metres: of the township there was nothing left but a deep
crust of wreckage.

"And your mother and sister?" the Director had asked.

"Baba they just disappeared... " And now for the first time, the boy began
to cry, and the Director's heart broke because he knew his son was crying
because he thought he would be scolded and blamed for what had happened.

Timid, brave boy


"I was strict with him sir," the Director said, his voice trailing off. "I
am a strict man; that is my nature. But I must say he is a brave boy; a very
brave boy."

Having spent 13 years on the island, the Director was well acquainted with
the local administration and the officers on the air base. Through their
intervention he was able to get on a flight the very next day. He spent the
day searching through the rubble; he found many possessions, but no trace of
his daughter or his wife. He came back to Port Blair with his son the same
evening and the two of them moved in with some friends. Every day since then
he'd been trying to go back, to find out what had become of his wife and
daughter but the flights had been closed - until this one.

"Tell me," he said, his voice becoming uncharacteristically soft. "What do
you think: is there any hope?"

It took me a moment to collect my wits. "Of course there is hope," I said.
"There is always hope. They could have been swept ashore on another part of
the island."

He nodded. "We will see. I hope I will find out today, in Malacca."

With some hesitation I asked if it would be all right if I came with him. He
answered with a prompt nod. "You can come."

I had the impression that he had been dreading the lonely search that lay
ahead and would be glad of some company. "All right then," I said. "I will."



Amitav Ghosh



Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by

C/o Kalpavriksh
Apt. 5, Sri Dutta Krupa
908 Deccan Gymkhana,
Pune 411004
Tel: 020 - 25654239 / 25675450
Fax: 25654239

----- Original Message -----
From: Sudarshan Rodriguez
To: SamirAcharya ; rohan@... ; Aarthi Sridhar ; ListReefwatch ; Harry
Andrews ; Manju Menon ; Pankaj Sekhsaria
Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 11:17 AM
Subject: The deadly bureaucracy in the Andamans


The deadly bureaucracy in the Andamans





The civic administration in the Andamans and Nicobar islands is stalling relief
measures and preventing aid from reaching those who urgently need it





COLIN GONSALVES





Posted online: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 at 0000 hours IST







One would have thought that in a disaster of this magnitude even ineffective
bureaucrats would put their shoulder to the wheel and take assistance from all
well meaning citizens and push on without regard to petty rules and red tape.
But the experiences of the NGOs have been to the contrary. Social workers,
doctors and others are wasting their time at Port Blair. Thirty doctors from
Medecins Sans Frontieres and Voluntary Health Association and six doctors from
Kerala have been refused permission to move to the other islands.



In the mean while, Paul Sanjit, a 38 year old Nicobari on the Island Kakana fell
ill on the 12th of January. There was no doctor to attend to him. He died that
evening.







While the Relief Commissioner said that he had a million water purification
tablets they were apparently not reaching the people. There were complaints of
women needing sanitary napkins. The Anand Margis at Hut Bay complained that they
could not get rice while it is said that the Government godowns are full of
grain. Two hundred cycles meant for Central Nicobar are not being transported to
the islands. Mothers want mosquito nets for their infant children. People need
axes for the making of houses. In Car Nicobar seventy 'huris' (boats) were lost.
An NGO offered government two fiberglass boats but they were not accepted. They
were then taken by an NGO and sent to the islands. Freight charges have been
introduced for the first time for relief work. However, even when the NGO's pay
the cargo does not reach.



As a result rising anger has manifested itself in ugly incidents. The Tehsildar
at Hut Bay was tied up by local people. An official supervising relief operation
at Kamorta was criticized by tribals because of insensitive remarks that he
allegedly made. An officer at Nicobar having not bathed for days took one in
mineral water. He has now been replaced.





Cambell Bay



A Class I gazetted officer living at Laxminagar recounted his tale of woe. The
Tsunami struck on the 26th destroying everything. For three days no one came to
their rescue. The Assistant Commissioner ('A.C.'), assuming, since his area was
not badly affected, that the remainder of the island was safe, apparently sent a
radio message that Cambell Bay was fine. No helicopters flew over. The coast
guard did not provide relief. In desperation on 29th morning the entire group
began trekking towards the headquarters. They felt very let down when they heard
on the radio that Indian planes and ships had reached Sri Lanka while they were
still not rescued. At 10. 30 that night they were still on the road looking for
the AC. They were told, ''searching for the A.C. is like searching for God.''





Champin



The earthquake struck Champin in Nancowry Island causing extensive damage. The
A.C. in charge was requested to depute three administration boats for rescuing
people. He declined because he had received a signal from the Director of
Shipping Services not to send the boats. The A.C. was requested to send rations
to Champin but he said he could not send a boat. Then one Nepas Levi managed to
swim from Trinket to Kamorta. He requested that a boat be sent to rescue people.
Two small navy boats with the commanding officer set out at once. The officer
saved the life of a seven years old child from Trinket. A resident, Rashid
Yousuf was one of the first persons to give his four boats for rescue. Together
with the police they rescued two hundred people from Trinket, Safed Balu and
Chota and Bara Inaka. Mrs. Priscilla of Pilpillow village floated for three days
and reached Teressa. If the boat had been sent earlier she might not have had to
go through this ordeal and who knows how many more would have been saved.
Through all this the A.C. in charge insisted that everything was ''under
control.'' A request was made to him to supply rations free. He said that he had
no orders from a higher authority to supply free rations. These were released
only after Dr. Naresh of the civil hospital insisted that the cost of the
rations be deducted from his salary.



Why the great secrecy? Apparently thousands of non-tribals live illegally in the
Andamans with the connivance of the officials. Retired Government employees have
houses on tribal land and are cultivating land, an activity prohibited by law.
The excuse of tribal passes is used to keep out experts so that the actual
functioning of the administration is not exposed.



What needs to be done? First, no tribal pass should be issued without consulting
the Tribal Council. They seek 100% reservation in government jobs. They must be
an integral part of all planning processes. The Autonomous Tribal Council with
increased powers is a long pending demand. Loss must be assessed immediately.
The survey done by the administration is unreliable. Repayment of bank loans and
the other liabilities of the tribals must be waived. Compensation in Tamil Nadu
is Rs. 1,00,000 for death, Rs. 10,000 for house reconstruction, Rs. 5000 for
cremation expenses and smaller amounts for grain and utensils. In the islands
the only compensation paid is the initial Rs. 2000 despite the Prime Minister's
announcement of Rs. 1,00,000 compensation for death. The banks are offering
loans but are unclear about whether the existing liability is to be waived. The
Lt. Governor declared a payment of Rs. 60 lakhs to the Tribal Development
Cooperative Society but this is yet to materialize. The children need to start
studying but the books have not reached. A scholarship system must be set up.
The children are traumatized and persons with professional counseling skills are
needed immediately. The process by which a tribal can get a contract for work
takes up to one year and needs to be radically changed. Boats must be given
priority. Most of all NGOs must be allowed in but only after clearance from the
Tribal Councils.



As things stand today senor persons from leading Indian NGOs are twiddling their
thumbs at Port Blair. They were bluntly told by the administration that the
government did not need their help. Even in the Little Andamans and Cambell Bay
where permits are not necessary journalists and NGOs are now blocked after
reports critical of the administration emerged from those islands. The
administration promises to allow funding to reach Hut Bay, Little Andamans and
Cambell Bay but that permission has not yet been granted. However the need is
far greater in the Nicobar Islands. Give us the money, is the stand of the
administration, we will do the work






Sudarshan Rodriguez
Marine Conservation Analyst
Flat 2B, Adithya Apartments
38 Balakrishna Road,
Valmiki Nagar,Thiruvanmiyur ,
Chennai-600 041
Tamilnadu, India.
Phone:+91 44 5201 9470
Mobile: +91 9840680127
Fax: +91 44 52019468
Email: sudarshanr@...

You are not what you  do , you do what  you are

One's profession and career should be their  hobby, passion and a cause.

"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in
harmony"-M.K Gandhi

"We must become the change we want to see."-M.K.Gandhi


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Rina and others,
  Share the concerns abt. eco-tourism. Am considering its potential and peril
too.   Rina, when u say cant be like large profit making 'Sahara' variety,
which Sahara are u referring to ? The Sahara Group (Industries) or Sahara
the NGO working in the GReat Himalayan National Park (GHNP) area. If the
latter, i would like to know more about it, as i'm currently looking at a
proposal concerning them.

  Ajay Mahajan

   ----- Original Message -----
> From: "rina mukherji" <rina_mukherji@...>
> To: <andamanicobar@...>
> Sent: Friday, January 21, 2005 5:41 PM
> Subject: Re: [andamanicobar] Re: ecotourism
>
>
> >
> > I entirely agree with you, Pradeep. Ecotourism needs to be seriously
> explored, since many parts of the country have been totally denuded of
their
> advantages bycrass commercial interest, to the extent that locals are
devoid
> of any means of livelihood. Eco-tourism as promoted by some
> environmentally-conscious groups have managed to get the locals on their
> feet. Pankaj has himself seen it in the Sundarbans. I know of similar
> ventures having worked in North Bengal, Sikkim and the northeast.
> >
> > But when we say eco-tourism, it cannot be the large-scale profit-making
> Sahara variety. it ought to be confined to small groups of 10-15 tourists
at
> a maximum, lest we encounter the kind of ravages adventure tourists had
> wrought in places like Sandakphu and other Himalayan trekking routes.
> >
> > Perhaps, this is the only solution we can have in the Andamans too.
> >
> > Rina Mukherji
> >
> > pradeep <pradeepnarayanan@...> wrote:
> > Dear Seby,
> >
> > It was a thought provoking mail, which raised serious doubts. As you
said,
> we have to take ideological positions in our interventions.I think
> eco-tourism does fit in any movement that focusses on adverse
environmental
> impact due to tourism. However, dont we have to differentiate between
> tourism and eco-tourism (which I presume is "ecological" tourism)? More
than
> that what is the position of tourism in any ideology? Eco-tourism does
have
> space for the perspective of the vulnerable sections because it originated
> due to the adverse imp[act of tourism on ecology. Although ecology is
> generally used synonymous with 'environmental' perspective, it does need
to
> address the concerns of mortals who depend on jungle and jamin. With eco
> tourism having these components as well, cant the social activists have a
> larger space in this scheme?
> >
> > My larger question is on the place of tourism in any ideology. Today,
the
> market led development model see tourism as a potential growth enhancing
> tool. Many corporate actors see this as a potential for their profits. The
> neoliberal economic environment has no space for distributive justice, but
> it has the strength to convert all distributive policies into growth
> oriented policies. So we have to see this fronm three angles- firstly our
> stand on tourism should not in anyway perpetuate the dominance of
> neo-liberal ideology. Secondly, it should also be seen that we just not
part
> away with the sector of tourism, which in anyway is providing livelihood
> support to not to the capitalists alone but also the poor households.
> Finally, a distributive socialist welfare system will be sustainable only
if
> it enhances the growth as well, after all we need money to distribute. The
> third angle is the most problematic- because in the name of
sustainability,
> we end up supporting "profit based"
> > ideology. The disastrous component of eco-tourism has to be prohibited
by
> social action- but will it be right to say no to tourism itself? Or you
> suggest just that let market take care of tourism, and we stay away from
it?
> Or we just focus on the negative impacts of tourism, as there is alreadfy
a
> powerful lobby to promote tourism. The last one makes sense, but our
> ideology will then be reactive only.
> >
> > Thanks
> > Pradeep
> >
> >
> >
> > nest nest <ne_st@...> wrote:
> > Dear Divya sinha,
> > It is nice to know your interest and enthusiasm to work in Andamans.
> However I am at a loss to understand as to how eco-tourism fits in the
> scheme of things. Has it been clubbed together with Social Work?
> >
> > Eco-tourism is commerce. Is Social Work also being viewed as commerce?
If
> Yes then both should stay away. I know practically the disastrous
experience
> of eco-tourism in Goa where I am based. The underlying factor of
eco-tourism
> is bussiness-irrespective of the fact as to what is the type of adventures
> involved; infact eco-tourism is even more dangerous both to nature as well
> as People leaving in forest areas. Andaman MUST be defended against this
> human induced tsunami of commerce at any cost! The ultimate goal is profit
> and not the people or nature.
> >
> > Sorry for being polemical, but under no circustances eco-tourism must be
> given free rein.
> >
> > This intervention is not directed at your initiatives but only mean to
> further clarify and understand and be sensitive to the kind of ideological
> positions we take up in our interventions.
> >
> > Seby.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 divya  sinha wrote :
> > >
> > >hi everybody,
> > >my name is Divya Sinha and im a student of Master's in Social Work at
> Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS),Mumbai.i got to know about Pankaj
> and the kind of work he is involved in through some faculty members. i
have
> always had a keen interest in knowing more about the andaman and nicobar
> islands and i was thrilled to be a member of this group. its a pleasure to
> be a part of the group and it would be intresting to know if there are
NGOs
> in the area who require MSW students as full time employees. i will finish
> my term in May this year and my areas of interst are very much in
congruence
> with the nature of work done by mostof u,namely,conservation,eco-tourism,
> environmental restoration, working in the eco senstive zones of the
country
> etc.
> > >if any of u need any further details and think that i fit anywhere in
the
> scheme of things and if any of u would want to take a look at my cv id be
> glad to send it.
> > >please keep me updated on the develpments...
> > >thanks a ton
> > >divya
> > >
> > >[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >Yahoo! Groups Links
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > NATURE ENVIRONMENT SOCIETY AND TRANSFORMATIONS
> >                   (NEST)
> > DONGAR GHAR, HILLTOP RESIDENCE, CHORAO ISLANDS, TISWADI, GOA.
> PH:(0832)2492014.
> >
> > 31/A, IGREJ VADDO, MARNA, SIOLIM, BARDEZ, GOA. 403517 PH: (0832)2272164
> >
> > FOUNDER: Dr. Bikram Dasgupta.
> >
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >    To visit your group on the web, go to:
> > http://in.groups.yahoo.com/group/andamanicobar/
> >
> >    To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> > andamanicobar-unsubscribe@...
> >
> >    Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------
> > ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - all new features - even more fun!
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >    To visit your group on the web, go to:
> > http://in.groups.yahoo.com/group/andamanicobar/
> >
> >    To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> > andamanicobar-unsubscribe@...
> >
> >    Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> >  Yahoo! Search presents - Jib Jab's 'Second Term'
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>

BSNL restores telephone exchanges

  A&N Admin Press Release, Jan 23, 2005

Due to the recent earthquake and the tsunami which followed, telephone
exchanges across the Islands were destroyed. In most of the cases, damages
occurred to the exchange equipment, battery and power plants and the
satellite receivers, among other things.



The staff of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited immediately sprung out to
different parts of the Islands carrying replacement equipments and other
materials and they were able to restore the functioning of most of the
exchanges within a short span of time.



The functioning of the Swadeshnagar exchange in mayabunder has been
restored, where the optical fibre was replaced. The Bambooflat exchange was
shifted to a new building with fresh exchange equipments and the exchange is
now functioning full fledged. At Hutbay, the exchange has started
functioning from a satellite building and the equipments were replaced. At
Car Nicobar, the optical fibre equipment, engine alternator and the
satellite receivers were damaged. Those were replaced in the exchange
building and the Car Nicobar exchange is now working properly. At Katchal
and Teressa, the exchange equipment, battery & power plant, engine
alternator, satellite receiver and the copper cable and pillars were
destroyed. They have all been replaced and the exchanges are functioning
from new buildings. At Kamorta, the satellite receiver was repaired and the
exchange is functioning. At Campbell Bay exchange the equipments, battery &
power plant, engine alternator, optical fibre cable and the copper cable and
pillars were damaged. These were replaced and the exchange is working from a
satellite building. Efforts are underway to install an Inmarsat satellite
phone connection at the Champin exchange.



The BSNL exchanges in the Islands are operated on 48V DC power delivered
from the battery & power plant, which in turn operates on AC 220V/415 V
commercial power supply. Standby AC supply is generated by the engine
alternator. Exchange networks in different Islands are in turn connected to
the satellite hub at Port Blair through satellite media.




C/o Kalpavriksh
Apt. 5, Sri Dutta Krupa
908 Deccan Gymkhana,
Pune 411004
Tel: 020 - 25654239 / 25675450
Fax: 25654239

I never said "Life finds its way..." etc.
I am not from the Andaman Nicobar Environment Group. I don't know what it
is.
I have also not indicated that a new nesting beach has been located on
Rutland as the article appears to convey. I had merely told the guy about
the report that Manish had posted on the egroup based on his two day survey
to Rutland. And Rutland is certainly not 130 kms from Port Blair
pankaj
----- Original Message -----
From: Joydeep Bose <joydeep@...>
To: <andamanicobar@...>
Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 4:59 PM
Subject: Re: [andamanicobar] Endangered turtles find new nests on
tsunami-hit Indian islands


>
> Dear Pankaj,
> Can you please clarify? I am just back from Port Blair.
>
> Joydeep Bose
> WTI
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Pankaj" <pankaj@...>
> To: <andamanicobar@...>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 3:56 PM
> Subject: [andamanicobar] Endangered turtles find new nests on tsunami-hit
> Indian islands
>
>
> >
> > I have been quoted completely wrongly and out of context.
> > pankaj
> >
> >
> > Endangered turtles find new nests on tsunami-hit Indian islands
> >
> > by Sanjib Kumar Roy
> >
> > PORT BLAIR, India, Jan 24 (AFP) - Helicopters scouring a devastated
Indian
> > island
> > have sighted endangered sea turtles and they are nest-ing again at new
> > locations a
> > month after the tsunamis wrecked their habitat.
> > Coastguard spokesman Commandant Sanjay Anchalwal said Monday that olive
> > ridley and
> > leatherback turtles were spotted at Indira Point off the ravaged island
of
> > Campbell
> > Bay, the southern-most tip of India.
> > Campbell Bay lies just 163 kilometres (101 miles) from Banda Aceh in
> > Indonesia, the
> > epicentre of the December 26 undersea earthquake that sent tsunami waves
> > crashing
> > across Asian shores.
> > The remote island, one of more than 500 in the Andaman and Nicobar
> > archipelago,
> > bore the full fury of the towering waves that submerged Indira Point and
> > washed
> > away turtle nesting places.
> > "A Coast Guard helicopter Friday sighted turtle nesting for the first
time
> > since
> > the disaster," the spokesman said, adding that the turtles had shifted
> their
> > breeding grounds some 10 kilometres (six miles) from the orginal
location.
> > "The nesting site has shifted from the original ground called South Bay
> > Galathia
> > river to a newly-formed beach at Indira Point," Anchal-wal added.
> > "Some 20 tracks are visible and a ground team has also found newly-laid
> > eggs," he
> > said. Old nests appeared to have been smashed by the waves and the
turtles
> > settled
> > among debris washed ashore at the new location on Indira Point.
> > However the primitive, protected animals which co-existed with the
> > dinosaurs, were
> > not sighted in large numbers.
> > "Our men could locate only four to five turtles while in peak season
> earlier
> > we
> > have noticed 15-20 turtles every day coming ashore to lay eggs," added
> coast
> > guard
> > official Pankaj Verma.
> > The original breeding site known as "Point 41" is completely deserted
and
> > half
> > submerged in the sea following the devastation.
> > Six turtle researchers from the western Indian city of Pune and 16
lo-cal
> > lighthouse personnel are still missing from Indira Point since De-cember
> 26.
> > Andaman environmentalists on Monday cheered after the official sighting
> > which was
> > reported in Port Blair, capital of the federally-ruled territory.
> > "Life finds out its way. It is really nice to see these endangered
turtles
> > claiming
> > a new land for laying eggs," said Pankaj Sekhsaria of the An-daman and
> > Nicobar
> > Environment group.
> > "Other researchers too have located leatherbacks and olive ridleys on a
> > beach on
> > Rutland island," some 130 kilometres (80 miles) from Port Blair,
Sekhsaria
> > said.
> > Four species of sea turtles -- the leatherback, green, hawksbill and
> ol-ive
> > ridley,
> > the most common in Indian waters -- nested on the beaches of the Car
> Nicobar
> > chain
> > of islands between December and February.
> > All but the leatherback were once hunted on the islands for meat and the
> > creatures
> > remain a lucrative target for poachers.
> > Some 7,500 people were killed or are listed as missing on the Anda-mans
> > since the
> > waves hit on December 26.
> > The archipelago is also home to brakish water crocodiles, deer, wild
boar
> > and a
> > huge variety of birds.
> >
> > str-pc/bp/jah
> > Asia-quake-Andaman-turtles
> >
> >
> > ---DISCLAIMER And Notice---
> > This E-mail / attachments is privileged and confidential material of
> > Bennett, Coleman Co. Ltd. and should
> > not be disclosed to, used by or copied in any manner by anyone other
than
> > the intended addressees. If this
> > E-mail / attachments, has been received in error, please advise the
sender
> > immediately and delete it from
> > your system. The views expressed in this E-mail message / attachments,
are
> > those of the individual sender.
> >
> > C/o Kalpavriksh
> > Apt. 5, Sri Dutta Krupa
> > 908 Deccan Gymkhana,
> > Pune 411004
> > Tel: 020 - 25654239 / 25675450
> > Fax: 25654239
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> ---
> Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
> Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
> Version: 6.0.841 / Virus Database: 572 - Release Date: 1/21/05
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

LG visits Little Andaman
A&N Admin Press Release / Jan 22, 2005




             The Lt. Governor, Prof. Ram Kapse today visited Little Andaman
to review relief operations there. From the helipad the Lt. Governor drove
to the Primary Health Centre (PHC) set up in the Forest Corporation Guest
House and met the doctors. The Lt. Governor and the First Lady visited the
ward set up in a Govt. quarter and enquired after the welfare of the
patients there.



             The Lt. Governor visited the relief camp set up for the Onges
and interacted with them in the presence of Prof. Vishwajit Pandya, renowned
Anthropologist. The Onges discussed matters relating to shifting their
settlement to safer locations. The Lt. Governor also met the inmates of
another camp for settlers and listened to their problems.



             The Lt. Governor visited the Hut Bay jetty and the breakwater
and inspected the work going on there. He met the peoples' representatives
and the general public at the APWD Guest House. The Lt. Governor invited PRI
members to come to Port Blair on 25th January, 2005 to discuss the matters
relating to their demands.



             Prominent among the demands was resettlement of entire Hut Bay
area, repair of jetty, road, starting of schools, aid to fishermen, starting
postal services, cell phone facility and radio and TV at every relief camp.



              The Lt. Governor asked the authorities to start schools from
Monday. He also asked TV and Radio may be provided at the camps. He asked
the PWD officials to repair the roads. He also informed that sufficient
stock of Kerosene would be sent to Hut Bay. He informed that other matters
would be taken up with the Central Govt. during his visit to New Delhi.



             The Lt. Governor also interacted with members of some NGOs
working in Little Andaman. The First Lady Smt. Smita Kapse met women and
children and enquired about their problems and needs.



             The Lt. Governor on his visit was accompanied by the Member of
Parliament, Shri Manoranjan Bhakta, Deputy Commissioner, Andamans, Shri
Gyanesh Bharti, Director of Fisheries, Dr. V. Krishnamurthy and Chief
Executive Officer of Zilla Parishad, Shri CM Singh.





C/o Kalpavriksh
Apt. 5, Sri Dutta Krupa
908 Deccan Gymkhana,
Pune 411004
Tel: 020 - 25654239 / 25675450
Fax: 25654239

Runway declared fit for landing of bigger aircrafts
A&N Admin, Press Release / Jan 22, 2005


The runway at the Veer Savarkar Airport, Port Blair had developed cracks due
to the massive earthquake that rocked the Islands on 26th December, 2004. As
a result wide bodied aircrafts were not able to land at the airport and the
airline operations were managed with smaller aircrafts. The runway has now
been repaired and has been declared fit for landing of wide bodied aircrafts
like the A-320s.



C/o Kalpavriksh
Apt. 5, Sri Dutta Krupa
908 Deccan Gymkhana,
Pune 411004
Tel: 020 - 25654239 / 25675450
Fax: 25654239

Efforts for revival of tourism in Andamans
A&N Admin Press Release, Jan 25, 2005
  http://www.and.nic.in/ipt/ptuesday.htm

A large gathering of people consisting of representatives from Andaman
Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Andaman Tourism Guild, travel agents, tour
operators and general public ventured into the waters of the Carbyn's Cove
beach to send a strong message to the world that Andaman is safe and open
for domestic and international tourists. The Lt. Governor, Prof. Ram Kapse,
the first lady Smt. Smita Kapse and Shri K. Krishanan, Chairman PBMC also
participated. Speaking on the occasion the Lt. Governor called upon the
tourism industry to endeavor to bring back tourists from all over the world.
He mentioned that since tourism has been identified as a thrust area along
with fishing and high value agriculture, the union government is also
encouraging the revival of the tourism sector in the Islands. He emphasized
that the three thrust areas would be revived and given importance so that
the islanders get employed in these sectors. He called upon everyone
concerned to work as a team to revive these sectors and mentioned that this
should be seen as a start of a new era. He stated that the Administration
will build a new Andaman and the tourism sector will be made successful. He
praised the media for highlighting positively about the tourism potential of
the Islands.



C/o Kalpavriksh
Apt. 5, Sri Dutta Krupa
908 Deccan Gymkhana,
Pune 411004
Tel: 020 - 25654239 / 25675450
Fax: 25654239

Postal services restored at Katchal
THE DAILY TELEGRAM / Jan 25, 2005
Port Blair, Jan 24

    Postal Services have been restored fully in the Katchal Island. The Sub
Post Office, Kapanga which was washed away completely has started its
functioning from today onwards and transacting all mail and savings bank
works from its counter. Kapanga SO has got its mail from Port Blair through
the Nancowrie Sub Post Office. The letters of Katchal islands have been got
delivered also.

    The Kapanga SO is functioning in a building provided by the Andaman &
Nicobar Islands Forest & Plantation Development Corporation Ltd., in
Mildera. Its one of the Branch Post Office Mildera is also functioning with
the Kapanga SO, Director Postal Services said in a press note

C/o Kalpavriksh
Apt. 5, Sri Dutta Krupa
908 Deccan Gymkhana,
Pune 411004
Tel: 020 - 25654239 / 25675450
Fax: 25654239

CG reports turtle nesting at Indira Point
Port Blair, Jan 23
THE DAILY TELEGRAMS / Jan 24
    For the first time, turtle nesting was sighted by the coast guard
helicopter pilots at Indira Point after tsunami disaster. The nesting site
had shifted from the original nesting ground at South Bay Galathia river to
newly formed beach at Indira Point where 20 tracks made by turtles were
sighted and the ground team found eggs in it.

    It is suspected that the debris drifted port tsunami disaster likely to
disrupt newly formed turtle habitat and hatching of turtle eggs. Indian
Coast Guard Ship Vivek was carrying out relief operation in the Nicobar
group of islands and launched ship borne helicopter for aerial survey of
islands and creeks when the event was noticed on January 24, a Coast Guard
release received here said.


C/o Kalpavriksh
Apt. 5, Sri Dutta Krupa
908 Deccan Gymkhana,
Pune 411004
Tel: 020 - 25654239 / 25675450
Fax: 25654239

Big tremor off Andaman coast
THE DAILY TELEGRAMS
New Delhi, Jan 24

     A powerful tremor of 6.5 magnitude struck off the tsunami-devastated
Andaman and Nicobar Islands on Monday, but an official said there were no
reports of damage or panic. The tremor was recorded at 9.47 am. Its
epicentre was under the sea, off the west of Great Nicobar Island, an Indian
meteorological official said.

     About 7,500 people were killed or presumed killed in Andamans in the
26th December tsunami, which was triggered by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake off
Indonesia's Sumatra island, to the south of the Indian islands. The remote
islands, which are closer to Southeast Asia than the Indian mainland, have
been rattled by more than 130 aftershocks of magnitude 5.0 or greater since
26th December and thousands of nervous residents have left.

    But Commander Salil Mehta, head of the Indian navy's meteorological
department in Port Blair, capital of the island chain, said Monday's tremor
had not spread fresh panic. "Many of us did not feel the tremor," he said.
Last month's tsunami killed more than 234,000 people across Asia and Africa,
more than 16,000 of them in India.


C/o Kalpavriksh
Apt. 5, Sri Dutta Krupa
908 Deccan Gymkhana,
Pune 411004
Tel: 020 - 25654239 / 25675450
Fax: 25654239

Dear Pankaj,
Can you please clarify? I am just back from Port Blair.

Joydeep Bose
WTI
----- Original Message -----
From: "Pankaj" <pankaj@...>
To: <andamanicobar@...>
Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 3:56 PM
Subject: [andamanicobar] Endangered turtles find new nests on tsunami-hit
Indian islands


>
> I have been quoted completely wrongly and out of context.
> pankaj
>
>
> Endangered turtles find new nests on tsunami-hit Indian islands
>
> by Sanjib Kumar Roy
>
> PORT BLAIR, India, Jan 24 (AFP) - Helicopters scouring a devastated Indian
> island
> have sighted endangered sea turtles and they are nest-ing again at new
> locations a
> month after the tsunamis wrecked their habitat.
> Coastguard spokesman Commandant Sanjay Anchalwal said Monday that olive
> ridley and
> leatherback turtles were spotted at Indira Point off the ravaged island of
> Campbell
> Bay, the southern-most tip of India.
> Campbell Bay lies just 163 kilometres (101 miles) from Banda Aceh in
> Indonesia, the
> epicentre of the December 26 undersea earthquake that sent tsunami waves
> crashing
> across Asian shores.
> The remote island, one of more than 500 in the Andaman and Nicobar
> archipelago,
> bore the full fury of the towering waves that submerged Indira Point and
> washed
> away turtle nesting places.
> "A Coast Guard helicopter Friday sighted turtle nesting for the first time
> since
> the disaster," the spokesman said, adding that the turtles had shifted
their
> breeding grounds some 10 kilometres (six miles) from the orginal location.
> "The nesting site has shifted from the original ground called South Bay
> Galathia
> river to a newly-formed beach at Indira Point," Anchal-wal added.
> "Some 20 tracks are visible and a ground team has also found newly-laid
> eggs," he
> said. Old nests appeared to have been smashed by the waves and the turtles
> settled
> among debris washed ashore at the new location on Indira Point.
> However the primitive, protected animals which co-existed with the
> dinosaurs, were
> not sighted in large numbers.
> "Our men could locate only four to five turtles while in peak season
earlier
> we
> have noticed 15-20 turtles every day coming ashore to lay eggs," added
coast
> guard
> official Pankaj Verma.
> The original breeding site known as "Point 41" is completely deserted and
> half
> submerged in the sea following the devastation.
> Six turtle researchers from the western Indian city of Pune and 16 lo-cal
> lighthouse personnel are still missing from Indira Point since De-cember
26.
> Andaman environmentalists on Monday cheered after the official sighting
> which was
> reported in Port Blair, capital of the federally-ruled territory.
> "Life finds out its way. It is really nice to see these endangered turtles
> claiming
> a new land for laying eggs," said Pankaj Sekhsaria of the An-daman and
> Nicobar
> Environment group.
> "Other researchers too have located leatherbacks and olive ridleys on a
> beach on
> Rutland island," some 130 kilometres (80 miles) from Port Blair, Sekhsaria
> said.
> Four species of sea turtles -- the leatherback, green, hawksbill and
ol-ive
> ridley,
> the most common in Indian waters -- nested on the beaches of the Car
Nicobar
> chain
> of islands between December and February.
> All but the leatherback were once hunted on the islands for meat and the
> creatures
> remain a lucrative target for poachers.
> Some 7,500 people were killed or are listed as missing on the Anda-mans
> since the
> waves hit on December 26.
> The archipelago is also home to brakish water crocodiles, deer, wild boar
> and a
> huge variety of birds.
>
> str-pc/bp/jah
> Asia-quake-Andaman-turtles
>
>
> ---DISCLAIMER And Notice---
> This E-mail / attachments is privileged and confidential material of
> Bennett, Coleman Co. Ltd. and should
> not be disclosed to, used by or copied in any manner by anyone other than
> the intended addressees. If this
> E-mail / attachments, has been received in error, please advise the sender
> immediately and delete it from
> your system. The views expressed in this E-mail message / attachments, are
> those of the individual sender.
>
> C/o Kalpavriksh
> Apt. 5, Sri Dutta Krupa
> 908 Deccan Gymkhana,
> Pune 411004
> Tel: 020 - 25654239 / 25675450
> Fax: 25654239
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>


---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.841 / Virus Database: 572 - Release Date: 1/21/05

I have been quoted completely wrongly and out of context.
pankaj


Endangered turtles find new nests on tsunami-hit Indian islands

by Sanjib Kumar Roy

PORT BLAIR, India, Jan 24 (AFP) - Helicopters scouring a devastated Indian
island
have sighted endangered sea turtles and they are nest-ing again at new
locations a
month after the tsunamis wrecked their habitat.
Coastguard spokesman Commandant Sanjay Anchalwal said Monday that olive
ridley and
leatherback turtles were spotted at Indira Point off the ravaged island of
Campbell
Bay, the southern-most tip of India.
Campbell Bay lies just 163 kilometres (101 miles) from Banda Aceh in
Indonesia, the
epicentre of the December 26 undersea earthquake that sent tsunami waves
crashing
across Asian shores.
The remote island, one of more than 500 in the Andaman and Nicobar
archipelago,
bore the full fury of the towering waves that submerged Indira Point and
washed
away turtle nesting places.
"A Coast Guard helicopter Friday sighted turtle nesting for the first time
since
the disaster," the spokesman said, adding that the turtles had shifted their
breeding grounds some 10 kilometres (six miles) from the orginal location.
"The nesting site has shifted from the original ground called South Bay
Galathia
river to a newly-formed beach at Indira Point," Anchal-wal added.
"Some 20 tracks are visible and a ground team has also found newly-laid
eggs," he
said. Old nests appeared to have been smashed by the waves and the turtles
settled
among debris washed ashore at the new location on Indira Point.
However the primitive, protected animals which co-existed with the
dinosaurs, were
not sighted in large numbers.
"Our men could locate only four to five turtles while in peak season earlier
we
have noticed 15-20 turtles every day coming ashore to lay eggs," added coast
guard
official Pankaj Verma.
The original breeding site known as "Point 41" is completely deserted and
half
submerged in the sea following the devastation.
Six turtle researchers from the western Indian city of Pune and 16 lo-cal
lighthouse personnel are still missing from Indira Point since De-cember 26.
Andaman environmentalists on Monday cheered after the official sighting
which was
reported in Port Blair, capital of the federally-ruled territory.
"Life finds out its way. It is really nice to see these endangered turtles
claiming
a new land for laying eggs," said Pankaj Sekhsaria of the An-daman and
Nicobar
Environment group.
"Other researchers too have located leatherbacks and olive ridleys on a
beach on
Rutland island," some 130 kilometres (80 miles) from Port Blair, Sekhsaria
said.
Four species of sea turtles -- the leatherback, green, hawksbill and ol-ive
ridley,
the most common in Indian waters -- nested on the beaches of the Car Nicobar
chain
of islands between December and February.
All but the leatherback were once hunted on the islands for meat and the
creatures
remain a lucrative target for poachers.
Some 7,500 people were killed or are listed as missing on the Anda-mans
since the
waves hit on December 26.
The archipelago is also home to brakish water crocodiles, deer, wild boar
and a
huge variety of birds.

str-pc/bp/jah
Asia-quake-Andaman-turtles


---DISCLAIMER And Notice---
This E-mail / attachments is privileged and confidential material of
Bennett, Coleman Co. Ltd. and should
not be disclosed to, used by or copied in any manner by anyone other than
the intended addressees. If this
E-mail / attachments, has been received in error, please advise the sender
immediately and delete it from
your system. The views expressed in this E-mail message / attachments, are
those of the individual sender.

C/o Kalpavriksh
Apt. 5, Sri Dutta Krupa
908 Deccan Gymkhana,
Pune 411004
Tel: 020 - 25654239 / 25675450
Fax: 25654239

checked radha nagar beach,north andaman ,turtles are still nesting there,in fact
there was a nesting on the 26 (olive ridley), after which there was an avg of
3-4 nestings per day,so far only ridleys and green sea turtles have nested there
this season

manish chandi <manishchandi@...> wrote:for info- spent a day /night at
Jahaji beach on
Rutland Island to check the situation there- the
damage is minimal given the height of the waves-
tree/trunk abrasions during the wave are over 10 fet
high- the berach has survived and i counted 15 tracks-
8 Olive ridleys and 7 Leatherback tracks; one Leather
back nested the night i was there- though i didnt see
it i saw the tracks later. There are reports of
turtles also nesting at Cuthbert Bay Middle Andman-
thought ehbeach is smaller they have sen a few dead
turtles washed ashore and others arriving to nest- the
Nicobars are a diferent story- Harry will soon be
moving inthe Andmans to check on tsuch regions others
will be in the Nicobars soon- Manish
--- Pankaj <pankaj@...> wrote:

> Sent by Janki Lenin
> Courtesey: www.herpdigest.com
>
> Tsunami Affects Turtle Conservation Programs
> Throughout Indian Ocean
> By Hillary Chew, The Star-On-Line, 1/18/05
>
> Marine turtle conservation programmes surrounding
> the
> Indian Ocean
> suffered considerable damage from the giant ocean
> waves, severely
> undermining regional plans to save the highly
> endangered marine reptile.
>
> Six out of seven species of sea turtles in the world
> are found in this
> region which was ravaged by killer waves triggered
> by
> the Dec 26
> undersea earthquake off Sumatra. The tsunami
> disaster
> has claimed over
> 150,000 lives, displaced hundreds of coastal
> communities and disrupted the
> livelihood of thousands of fisherfolk.
>
> The Indian Ocean and South East Asian Marine Turtle
> Memorandum of
> Understanding (IOSEA MoU) has started assessing the
> extent of damage
> following the tsunami tragedy.
>
> "The IOSEA MoU Secretariat is compiling information
> on
> turtle
> conservation projects around the Indian Ocean that
> may
> have been affected by the
> tsunami," says its coordinator Douglas Hykle who is
> based in Bangkok.
>
> Sri Lankan tsunami survivor Dudley Pereira lost some
> 200 hawkbill sea
> turtles to the tsunami when the waves destroyed his
> sea turtle tanks. In
> his hands is all that's left of his collection of
> the
> endangered
> turtles. The secretariat has been coordinating the
> turtle revival programme
> in the region since 2001.
>
> "We will also collaborate with other organisations
> which are conducting
> or supporting assessments on the ground to ensure
> that
> important turtle
> habitats such as nesting beaches, coral reefs,
> seagrass beds and
> mangroves are covered by these studies."
>
> Facilities in the Indian Nicobar Islands, Sri Lanka
> and Thailand were
> the hardest hit with reports of dead and missing
> field
> staff and
> destruction of research stations.
>
> The Andaman Nicobar Environment Trust field station
> at
> Campbell Bay in
> Great Nicobar was devastated when seismic waves
> slammed the island. Six
> out of seven field staff, including four scientists
> studying the Olive
> Ridley and Leatherback turtles, are still missing.
>
> A field assistant, Santosh Augu, who sustained two
> broken collarbones,
> miraculously survived after he was reported missing
> for 17 days.
> Santosh related that a few of them had clung on to a
> tree, which was uprooted
> after the third wave battered the coast. He has not
> seen his colleagues
> since.
>
> The Gahirmatha marine sanctuary in India's
> Kendrapara
> district, the
> largest breeding ground for the Olive Ridley,
> escaped
> the wrath of the
> tsunami.
>
> Nesting at the sanctuary occurs on a cluster of
> islands - Barunei,
> Nasi-1, Nasi-2, Babubali and Agarnasi off the east
> coast. Waves surged into
> the Babubali and Agarnasi nesting grounds, causing
> minor erosion on the
> sandy beach. Forestry personnel who were present
> escaped unhurt as
> their camps were a safe distance from the coast.
>
> The Kosgoda nesting beach on the southern coast of
> Sri
> Lanka was hit by
> a six-metre high wave which surged 1.5km inland. The
> Turtle
> Conservation Project (TCP) is managed by 17 local
> egg-protectors, six research
> officers and some foreign volunteers. Everyone was
> saved except for three
> egg-protectors who were swept into the sea.
>
> The TCP field station located 1km inland was
> inundated
> and suffered
> damage to equipment and educational materials
> although
> the building
> remained intact.
>
> Immediate relief efforts went into operation to
> assess
> damage and
> provide basic humanitarian aid to the affected staff
> and their families.
>
> The turtle conservation project which finds its
> strength in community
> participation, needs to recommence operations as
> soon
> as possible to
> enable its staff to earn an income amidst the bleak
> future faced by the
> fishing community which has suffered heavy losses in
> terms of damaged
> fishing boats and gear. Two other nesting grounds at
> Rekawa and Bundala
> National Park have yet to be surveyed.
>
> Several privately-owned turtle hatcheries were also
> affected by the
> killer waves which shattered holding tanks and
> washed
> away the reptiles.
> One operator lost about 10,000 eggs and a few
> hundred
> hatchlings.
>
> In Thailand, three turtle research facilities were
> badly affected. At
> Koh Phra Thong, the Italian Naucrates conservation
> project was wiped out
> and suffered heavy losses. Two of its marine
> biologists, Rebecca Clark
> from Canada and Lisa Jones from Britain, who were
> working on the Golden
> Buddha Beach, were swept away by the giant waves. A
> memorial fund has
> been set up in the biologists' names to continue
> Naucrates's
> conservation work there.
>
> Clark was the science manager onboard Ocean
> Alliance's
> whale-research
> vessel Odyssey before she went on sabbatical leave
> to
> Thailand. In
> memory of the young scientist, the alliance has set
> up
> an internship fund
> for young women from developing nations who are
> interested in science.
>
> Located in the same province of Phang Nga as
> Naucrates, the Thai navy's
> turtle head-start programme at the Tap Lamu naval
> base
> was also in
> ruins. Two thousand turtles from two months to seven
> years old were lost.
>
> In neighbouring Phuket, the Marine and Coastal
> Resource Development and
> Research Institute which was conducting research on
> the Olive Ridley
> and green turtle, reported 20 missing Olive Ridley
> turtles.
>
> The institute's biologist, Kongkiat
> Kittiwattanawong,
> fears that the
> tsunami incident may push the dwindling turtle
> population one step closer
> to extinction.
>
>
=== message truncated ===




__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - now with 250MB free storage. Learn more.
http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250


---------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links

    To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://in.groups.yahoo.com/group/andamanicobar/

    To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
andamanicobar-unsubscribe@...

    Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.




---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
  All your favorites on one personal page – Try My Yahoo!

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Reg the alteration of the A& N Islands:
Immediate attention is needed to assess the dimension of change that has
occurred in the Islands.It is not only needed for strategic purpose but also for
assessing the ecological change that has occurred and will occur.

Jawa

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Woman blames school for missing husband in Car Nicobar

Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 22, 2005

  A distraught woman is holding the Kendriya Vidyalaya school authorities
responsible for the disappearance of her husband in the wake of the tsunami
tragedy.

Saraswathi Sisupalan is one of the hundreds in Kerala who are yet to recover
from the Dec 26 disaster. Her ordeal is still not over. Almost a month after the
gigantic waves killed thousands on Indian shores, the mother of three does not
know if her husband A. Sisupalan, a 57-year-old Kendriya Vidyalaya teacher, is
alive or not.

She last spoke to her husband, who was a biology teacher in Car Nicobar, on
Christmas day. The next day the tsunami hit the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and
since then she has not heard from him.

"I have not slept properly since then but I have not given up hope. I hope and
pray my husband will return one day," Saraswathi told IANS here, trying to hold
back her tears.

Even as she was grieving for him, an Indian Air Force official in Car Nicobar
claimed he had spotted the man Dec 27 while waiting to board a plane. But there
has been no independent collaboration, and Sisupalan, assuming he somehow
managed to survive, has not called home.

The Kendriya Vidyalaya headquarters in New Delhi has not been able to shed light
on his whereabouts.

"I got a letter from the Kendriya Vidyalaya on Jan 11 stating my husband and
three other employees at the Car Nicobar school have been reported missing after
the tsunami," said Saraswathi, a clerk at a government office.

She is furious with what she feels is Kendriya Vidyalaya's lack of concern for
her husband's welfare, and accuses its senior officials of victimising him.

"Car Nicobar area comes under the category of 'hard stations' and it is
mandatory that anyone who serves a minimum period of two years in such stations
gets transferred," she said.

"But despite spending three-and-a-half years there, my husband was not
transferred out of Car Nicobar."

She said Sisupalan used to call a spade a spade, and this made his seniors
dislike him. Unlike many of his fellow teachers, he had also served in other
"hard stations".

Saraswathi lamented that despite writing letters to President A.P.J. Abdul
Kalam, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Human Resource Development Minister
Arjun Singh, she has received no help.

"Except for the president who acknowledged my letter, there was no response from
the other two," rued Saraswathi.

"Several times I myself had written to Kendriya Vidyalaya officials in Delhi
pointing out vacancies elsewhere where my husband could be transferred, but
nothing happened. Despite my husband having enough points to get a transfer
under various options, he never got justice," she said.

But despite the mental agony that she and her three children are undergoing, she
remains hopeful that some day there will be news that Sisupalan is safe - and
living somewhere.

"I have faith in god and I believe that my husband will come home to see me and
our three children," she said.

http://www.asianetindia.com/keralanews.asp?folder=Keralanews&file=7_5014.xml
-----------------------------------------------------------------------



Mukundan

Mukundan C. Menon
3, Rams' Cottage
Ambalathumukku
Pettah
Thiruvananthapuram-695 024
(Phone: 0471-476262)

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Advanced tsunami system and still improving, Japanese expert tells how
Saturday January 22 2005 00:00 IST
NEW DELHI: On January 19, a tsunami warning was issued by the Japan Met Agency
after a quake of 6.5 was recorded off Japan's eastern coast.

The warning was cancelled as the waves posed no danger. But it took the agency
just two minutes to convey the message to the residents in the area.

And the man behind this, Kenji Satake of the Active Fault Res. Centre in
Tsukuba, Japan, has perfected the speed over a period of 50 years.

Satake, who is in the Capital for a two-day brainstorming session, says that
Japan, which has among the most advanced tsunami warning system, has been
finetuning the system since 1952. ``Earlier, it used to take 20 minutes after
the earthquake for a tsunami to be recorded. In 1983 there was a tsunami in the
Japan Sea and it took seven minutes after the quake to predict. But the tsunami
reached in five minutes,'' said Satake. So the system was finetuned further, and
now it takes two minutes after a quake to predict the tidal wave.

``We look at three criterias for a tsunami warning: When an earthquake above 6.5
on the Richter Scale occurs, has 50 km depth or shallow, and if it is beneath
the ocean. If these three conditions are met, they just automatically issue a
tsunami warning,'' said Satake. Japan works with the numerical stimulation
technique. Various combinations are stored in a database which has thousands of
computed cases. After a quake, its location, depth and intensity is fed into a
computer and the size, speed and direction of a tsunami is calculated within
seconds.

Japan has in place 300 earthquake-sensors relaying information to six regional
centres that operate round-the-clock. The moment a tsunami threat is gauged,
local government officials are alerted to send out evacuation alarms and
broadcast information on radio and TV. The strength of the Japanese network is
also in its fast communication _ all taking 2 minutes. The residents are then
given 10 minutes to evacuate.

But for India to develop such a system could mean millions of rupees. Satake is
unwilling to reveal the amount of money it will take to set up such a system,
but is here to sell his proposal to the Indian government. Japan, he said, was
willing to help India set up its warning system.

Experts, however, are divided on whether India should have its own tsunami
warning system. Dr Tad Murthy, president, Tsunami Society of Canada, during his
presentation said that India and the other Indian Ocean countries should work
towards a warning system together. ``The Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System
should include 36 countries working with Unesco,'' said Murthy.

Canada, he said, also follows the numeric modelling system. ``It took Canada two
years. You have to run every single combination, punch that in and look at the
closest match,'' said Murthy.

Japan is also one of the founders of the International Coordination Group for
the Tsunami Warning System in the Pacific. When the earthquake occurred in the
Indian Ocean, Satake said he got a message on his mobile from the centre saying
that an earthquake measuring 8.02 (which was revised later) was recorded in the
Indian Ocean. ``The technology is there,'' he said.

http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEH20050121120559&Page=H&Title=Top+S\
tories&Topic=%2D367&
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------------------
Debi Goenka
Bombay Environmental Action Group

e-mails: debi@... & debi@...

If you are sending huge files, please send to debigoenka@... (but please
send me a mail to inform me at any of the other email ids - thanks! )

Environmental Education Office

Kalbadevi Municipal School
# 54, 2nd floor, Mumbai 400002
Tel:91-22-22423126 Tfax:91-22-22426385

Residence

B 502 Glengate, Hiran. Gardens
Powai Mumbai 400076          Tel:91-22-25701459   Tfax:91-22-25700638


Cell - +91 98200 86404
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------------------
This e-mail may contain confidential and/or privileged information. If you are
not the intended recipient (or have received this e-mail in error) please notify
the sender immediately and destroy this e-mail. Any unauthorised copying,
disclosure or distribution of the material in this e-mail is strictly forbidden.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Panic drives residents to flee Andamans

Friday, 21 January , 2005, 15:44

Port Blair: Fresh panic gripped the Andaman and Nicobar Islands on Friday as
rumours of its subsidence drove hundreds to board ships to mainland India with
all their life's savings while the administration tried hard to explain that
there was no scientific basis to the fear.
The rumours said the islands could slowly sink in the sea on January 21 or 26
and this made the tsunami-battered people rush to pack their bags.

Hundreds queued up to take any of the next available vessel - MV Akbar, MV
Nicobar, MV Nancowry, MV Swarajdweep, MV Harshavardhan -- that could take them
to the safer terrains in Chennai, Kolkata or Vishakhapatnam.



"We have been waiting overnight to get the tickets. We want to leave the islands
as soon as possible," said R Muthuswamy, who wanted to go back with his family
of seven to his native Chennai.

"He has wound up his garments business but could not sell off his property
before leaving. If everything is okay, we can always come back to sell the land.
As of now our lives mean more," the man who has lost a few relatives in Car
Nicobar in the calamity said.

The ships are crammed with people willing to make the two-day to four-day
journey in spaces just enough to stand.

"The bunker tickets have no numbers. It is a first come first serve situation.
If you don't get a bunker, they are allowing you to go standing. We don't mind
that," Atul Prakash, who would take a journey to Kolkata on the first ship
sailing, says.

http://headlines.sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=13653700&headline=Panic~drives~r\
esidents~to~flee~Andamans
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------------------
Debi Goenka
Bombay Environmental Action Group

e-mails: debi@... & debi@...

If you are sending huge files, please send to debigoenka@... (but please
send me a mail to inform me at any of the other email ids - thanks! )

Environmental Education Office

Kalbadevi Municipal School
# 54, 2nd floor, Mumbai 400002
Tel:91-22-22423126 Tfax:91-22-22426385

Residence

B 502 Glengate, Hiran. Gardens
Powai Mumbai 400076          Tel:91-22-25701459   Tfax:91-22-25700638


Cell - +91 98200 86404
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------------------
This e-mail may contain confidential and/or privileged information. If you are
not the intended recipient (or have received this e-mail in error) please notify
the sender immediately and destroy this e-mail. Any unauthorised copying,
disclosure or distribution of the material in this e-mail is strictly forbidden.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]