Et Tu Brutus??? Mr. Narayan Murthy, stop misguiding youth.

Dear Mr. Narayan Murthy,

As the co-founder of one of the biggest and (once) most respected IT giant companies, it is with great distress that I have to dissent with you. Mind you, I had great respect for you until I read these news articles (and this) about your statements made to impressionable college students at St. Xavier’s college in Mumbai about the benefits of nuclear energy. 

It is even more shameful that YOU as a guiding symbol of youth chose the days and month of the deadly Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings to make such statements. We know from past experiences that the timings of such statements and “seminars” are usually fixed by the Department of Atomic Energy/NPCIL etc to deflect public attention from core issues related to nuclear. And apparently you have willy-nilly fallen into that trap – lock stock and barrel.

I was shattered that you as a person with so much knowledge, deep understanding of business consulting, outsourcing and technology among many other skills can actually go around town with such juvenile, rash and factually incorrect statements.

I must say that I have lost all that respect for you Sir!

You were supposed to be a role model for students; not be a champion of ASSOCHAM or for FICCI or for foreign companies (which may give business contracts to Infosys) or to butter up to the government and bag more contracts by your public utterances (you already have the Padma Vibhushan and Padma Shree award, so these do not matter - so the Presidents post is probably what you are aiming for?)

Seriously, Sir, it sullies your image to get into such issues of national and international significance with zero knowledge. 

To top it all, you are also a member of the advisory boards and councils of several educational and philanthropic institutions, including Cornell University, INSEAD,ESSEC, Ford Foundation, the UN Foundation, the Indo-British Partnership, Asian Institute of Management, a trustee of the Infosys Prize, and a trustee of the Rhodes Trust, Chairman of the Governing board of Public Health Foundation of India and serve on the Asia Pacific Advisory Board of British Telecommunications. 

Ironically, you are also the author of the book “A Better India, A Better World” (it rings a bell about the BJP promise of Acche Din)

Frankly, it would have been quite easy to dismiss such statements you have made had they came from some ignorant or an illiterate politician. But from you - coming from such an impressive pedigree and with an impressive background of engineering degrees (including that from the prestigious IIT, Kanpur) and being a business tycoon as well CEO, Chairman of Board and Chief Mentor at Infosys!! Speechless.

Notwithstanding all the above, it is with great pain that I will have to take apart your statements – bit by bit.

1. "As long as we're diligent and strive for excellence, there is nothing wrong in using nuclear technology for peaceful energy"

--- The key part of this statement is “As long as we are diligent.” As long as nuclear industry exists Mr. Murthy, it will remain opaque otherwise, or else its dark underbelly will be exposed. The nuclear industry is notorious for its means of doing business. Costs are under-reported when taking orders, the nuclear plants take forever long to be commissioned, cost overruns of even 100% are common place in the industry, the nuclear industry frequently cuts corners on safety and then puts up its hands saying that whatever happened is a ‘Beyond Design Basis Accident’ (BDBA).” When the industry itself claims that it is not free from possible accidents (plus given the massive corruption involved in these deals) can you – as a businessman – seriously imagine that corners are not being cut? If you think so, then you certainly are (or pretend to be) an extremely naïve person indeed!!

     2.  "Citing detractors who quote disasters like Fukushima and Chernobyl, Murthy said the number of people affected in these tragedies are far less than those who die in car accidents."

---- Sir, what is the source of your information? Various surveys by reputed international NGO’s (who are not aligned to the UN) have reported over a million excessive deaths related to the Chernobyl disaster. These include cancer, thyroid problems, acute and severe depression besides heart and organ failures and birth defects.  

If it is the WHO which is your “source”, then please read the WHO-IAEA deal about reporting nuclear accident statistics which was signed about fifty years ago. (IIT should have provided you with that much knowledge?)  

“In 1959, the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) and World Health Organization(WHO) entered into an working agreement which is out-of-date and conflicts with the research of the WHO to determine the effects of ionizing radiation exposure on human health. We are concerned that the language of this agreement (WHA 12.40 approved by the 12th World Health Assembly on 28 May 1959) mingles promotion of nuclear technology, including nuclear power, with the WHO’s mandate to undertake international health research work on people exposed to ionizing radiation-a product of this same nuclear technology. Specifically the WHO, as stated in its Constitution, has a mandate to “promote and protect the health of all peoples.” Health is defined as “not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” but “the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health.” This highest attainable standard “is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition.” (Link to some PDF’s and sites here or here )

Your statement is shocking as it comes from a person who is the Chairman of the Governing board of Public Health Foundation of India. It is my honest suggestion that you link up with some genuine medical experts who have spent over four decades studying the effects of radiation. (You can begin with Dr. Helen Caldicott here)    

Besides, a car accident victim may die, but the future generations do not suffer from cancer and other illnesses. Here, we are talking about medcine and not about the engineering of cars and roads Sir.

3. "France draws 85% of its power from nuclear sources."

Sir, please first read news and then give your "expert" comments. The nuclear share of energy generated in France for 2014 was 77% and not 85% as you claim. (Year wise and country wise generation data from the very champion of the nuclear industry – World Nuclear Association is here Link)  

Besides, France has committed to drastically scale down its nuclear energy targets over the next decade to 50% (even as it sells it's failed technology to India via Areva)

You may be shocked to read this in the venerable Scientific American (June 29 2015 – here)

“The host nation (France) for this year’s climate talk (the UNFCCC - COP21), is pumping the brakes on one of its most successful ways of controlling carbon.”

Look at the REAL facts: 

Areva of France (a majority owned – over 80%- held company by the French government till recently) has deep problems regarding its reactor designs. From Olkilouto in Finland, to Hinkley Point in UK and to Flaminvilla in France itself, its EPR reactor other reactors are faring very poorly.  Massive cost over-runs, problems with reactor designs and control panel problems have showed how this industry really works.

As a CEO of a large global organization; would you lead, respect or champion for an organization like Areva which is planning on setting up N-plants in Jaitpur? A company which has not made any profits since 2010 (it's latest figures quote some 4.8 billion dollars loss for 2014).

Or championing for the corrupt Russian companies which delivered faulty valves for the Kudankulam nuclear plant?

Or championing for US-Japan General Electric (GE) which supplied the Fukushima reactors, and which has now thrown its hands up for the accidents claiming that they were “Beyond Design Accidents”?

It is indeed surprising that a person of your stature does not know about these facts before speaking to gullible students!! I would rather call it as deliberate suppression of material facts. Or, probably hidden agends.

34. “There is nothing which is risk-free and hence, it is important to look at the trade-offs”

Sir, kindly leave your risk appetite for your corporate interests and do not mix them with public health issues. I would suggest that you don’t look with blinkered eyes at the bottom line every time you have to make a statement – sometimes; it is wiser to think of the overall good of people in the long term; not about short term quarterly profit figures on the balance sheet.

4

    5.   "Nuclear plant generates far less carbon than a thermal power station."

-

-- Again, as a businessman, you should know very well about the total lifecycle cost of any asset. You may relate better to the computer parlance term which we call as TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) Please get some of your so called super intelligent engineers to come back and report to you with what are the REAL carbon emission figures for a nuclear power plant over its lifetime.

Begin with the humongous environmental costs of uranium mining, its milling, processing, transport and fabrication into fuel rods. Then, I suggest that you look at the amount of cement and concrete used for setting up these reactors. These are massively polluting industries. And, so is steel, which is used in huge numbers. Besides that, think about all the vehicles deployed to carry all this raw material used for set up these reactors spewing massive amounts of diesel. And then finally, let’s talk about decommissioning of these plants; the cost of which can easily be as much as the cost of building them in the first place and which will again use many tonnes of cement/concrete. A study of 103 nuclear plant’s metadata as compared to renewable energy has shown that during its typical lifecycle, a N-power plant generates 66g/kWh of CO2 as compared to 9.5-38g/kWh. This makes renewable energy 7 to 16 times more effective in fighting climate change. (PDF here) Hopefully this will make you more aware of the reality, Sir!!



Mr, Narayan Murthy, it has been proven beyond a shadow of doubt that nuclear energy is not the solution to climate change.

Look at renewables and energy efficiency. Think out of the box and society Sir, as you once thought for Infosys. Please get the bigger picture clear about energy and climate issues cleared in your own mind first before rushing into such debates.

And finally Sir, if you can come up with a credible solution to the radioactive nuclear waste issue, you might even get a Nobel Prize. And while you may ponder about that, please also figure out a way so that nuclear proliferation and weapons are not deployed using these reactors as a front.

Until then...

Warm Regards,

Yours (once) faithful,

ANUJ WANKHEDE 

(The author can be reached on benchmark.anuj@gmail.com)

URANIUM EXPORTS TO INDIA: AUSTRALIA NOT PLAYING CRICKET WITH A STRAIGHT BAT

-- Anuj Wankhede

Tony Abbott

There has been talk for the past many years about Australia which has the world’s largest known uranium deposits - about 28% - lifting its ban on exporting uranium to India. The visit by the Australian PM Tony Abbott to India and specifically to Delhi on September 5th 2014 is expected to seal a deal which will probably end the 30 year ban on uranium exports to India by Australia.

Australia did not take kindly to the fact that India was not a signatory to the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which aimed to curb the spread of nuclear weapons and atomic testing and hence put a ban on export of uranium to India While the NPT in itself is not without its own flaws, it still remains the single largest multi-lateral treaty which has kept a leash on nuclear weaponization and proliferation to some extent. India has ratified the treaty but has refused to sign it citing various problems in the treaty and claimed a right to nuclear weapons just as the UN permanent council member countries have. 

Due to this, Australia (and many other countries) suspended nuclear trade with India thus forcing India to look for indigenous development of civil and military nuclear options. Things changed after the Indo-US nuclear deal was signed in 2008 which paved the way for India to do business albeit on a small scale with some countries. Not being a part of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) had also hurt the Indian nuclear dream and India was literally a pariah after its Pokhran II atomic tests in 1998.

It is pertinent to note that the Pokhran II tests were conducted while the BJP was in power and were supposed to serve as a warning to Pakistan and China to not take India lightly. 

It was sheer jingoism at work. 

By coincidence or by design, it is again the BJP which is playing this nuclear game. The difference is that this time around, the BJP has a commanding majority in the lower house of the Parliament enabling it to muscle through legislation with virtually no opposition. Also, the Indian PM Narendra Modi is a known right wing

Narendra Modi at World Economic Forum

hardliner and however many clean chits he gets, the bogey of the Godhra Hindu Muslim riots sits on his back like a monkey. His hardline views towards Muslims in general and Pakistan in particular are a matter of public knowledge. He is also a pro-industry votary and has rolled out the red carpet to foreign investors in practically all key sectors within three months of his anointment as PM. This has stirred tremendous foreign interest in India given its huge population and thus enormous profit potential and a virtual assurance that this will remain a stable government for five years. Modi is cleverly using this prospect of profits to leverage nuclear deals with various countries and appears to be in a hurry to seal as many nuclear deals as possible. As we will see later, the beleaguered Australian uranium mining industry could not have asked for a better Indian PM. It is literally a marriage made in heaven – whatever the future implications may be.

After the BJP lost the elections post Pokhran II in 2004, it was the turn of the Congress led rag tag coalition of UPA 1 and then UPA 2 to rule the country for a decade. They too followed the time tested tactic of claiming that India’s nuclear program was peaceful, purely civilian and India had no intentions of military use of the same. The world at large saw through this hollow and outright blatant lie and continued to impose sanctions on India especially where it hurt India the most – uranium fuel. India has very little domestic uranium and whatever exists; it is of extremely low grade. This makes it almost impossible to use the domestic uranium to fuel its nuclear energy program AND to enrich it to weapons grade for manufacturing bombs. Perforce, India needs to depend on imported uranium from either Canada or Australia or Kazakhstan to keep its nuclear reactors going.

Knowing this reality, the Manmohan Singh led Congress government made all efforts – politically and diplomatically – to have access to nuclear technology and fuel and get into the elite NSG. The efforts paid off

George Bush and Manmohan Singh 2008

and the landmark Indo-US 123 agreement was signed amid ruckus in the Indian parliament; cash for vote’s bribery scams and stiff opposition in March 2008. Under this agreement, India would open up its civilian nuclear facilities to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and delineate its civil and military facilities.
In return, the US would offer full co-operation in the civil nuclear arena to India (read, US companies would get preferential treatment on deals in the growing Indian nuclear energy market.)
It also paved the way for India to be part of the NSG and carry out nuclear related business with other countries despite being a non-NPT signatory AND a nuclear weapons nation.
It was basically a huge "you scratch my back, and I will scratch your" deal between India and the West (particularly the US)

However just a couple of years later, India also passed the Civil Liability for Nuclear Disaster (CLND) Act in 2010 which held foreign nuclear suppliers liable in case of accidents and this cast a pall of gloom over all the countries which had been eagerly looking to get a foothold in India. Despite the UPA governments’ best efforts to dilute the stringent law; it was not successful in doing so. Hence, apart from the partial commissioning of the Koodankulam nuclear power plant with Russian assistance, no other deals were being signed formally even after being announced. And the US was getting jittery and impatient with the UPA.

Nuclear is a long term business and both India and the foreign supplier were playing the waiting game knowing that there will be cracks sooner rather than later given that India has a huge shortfall of power and is keen on nuclear energy which makes up for barely 2% of it’s energy basket (despite spending billions on it.) Knowing that nuclear technology is dual use i.e. civil (energy) as well as military (weapons) it took a lot of diplomatic cajoling for India to be admitted to the NSG and get access to technology and fuel. Two things have still hampered the foreign companies from rushing into India – the stringent CLND Act and India not being a signatory to the NPT. 

Amid a largely successful Japan state visit by PM Modi in 2014 - which saw significant investment commitments by Japan to India, Japan refused to sign any nuclear deal with India and Modi had to return home empty handed without getting hands on the latest Japanese nuclear technology (sic) Japan had made it amply clear that it is not happy with either the CLND Act or with the Indian stand on NPT and that basically it does not trust India enough to enter into any nuclear commitment. 

Australia had all along taken the line that since India was not a signatory to the NPT, it would not supply uranium to India (the CLND Act makes no material difference to Australian uranium exports.) 

However, ever since it became evident to Australia that the developed world was slowly but surely turning away from nuclear energy, it began to look at developing countries to sell uranium – and India happened to be the perfect choice given its size and nuclear ambitions. The Fukushima disaster had been the final nail in the coffin (pun unintended) for nuclear energy and the price of uranium in the global markets plummeted to almost half of what it was pre March 11, 2011 when the earthquake and tsunami ravaged Japan and exposed the world once again to the dangers and costs of nuclear energy.

Germany took the lead and made a firm commitment to shun nuclear energy and close down its reactors. Many US and European reactors were shutting down or close to shutting down. Countries scaled back on their nuclear reactor plans and did a re-think about the wisdom of depending on nuclear energy. Things had gone horribly wrong for the Australian uranium mining industry and new strategies and markets needed to be explored urgently for the industry to survive and recoup the huge investments it had made. The bets were big enough, the stakes were high and the miners knew how to play the game – politically, diplomatically, geo-politically and economically.

Suddenly, Australia began to look overlook at the fact that India was not a party to the NPT and changed its stance. Industry leaders as well as politicians in the previous Gillard government made statements that since a large part of the Indian population was without electricity, it was the “moral duty” and “humanitarian responsibility” of Australia to supply nuclear fuel (uranium) to India. The logic was that since India was into a high growth phase its energy demands would keep rising and hence it needed to add more capacity NOW.

Like a (rather bad) salesman, the uranium mining industry lobbied hard to lift the ban on uranium exports claiming that solar and wind would never match nuclear energy’s base-load capability all the while mindless of the fact that the world was slowly embracing smart power grid distribution networks, renewable energy, that building new nuclear reactors typically takes about a decade or even longer and that India was already a nuclear weapons nation bordering with two other hostile nuclear nations – Pakistan and China. 

Uncle Sam

It is well known fact that the USA dictates most of the Australian government policies – particularly foreign policy. 

With the US nuclear industry in decline and neck deep in trouble plus no domestic and foreign orders forthcoming, it was imperative for the US government to save giant companies like GE and Westinghouse which had already chalked out big Indian plans. But for these plans to fructify, more nuclear fuel i.e. uranium would be the need of the hour. Given this background, it is entirely conceivable that the US exerted suitable pressure to facilitate lifting the uranium export ban as soon as possible and before Modi makes his maiden state visit to the US. 

The Americans know well that given the BJP’s parliamentary majority, Modi's pro industry leanings and fondness for the so-called “nuclear deterrent”; suitable deals could be struck by selectively interpreting the CLND Act and US companies can sign the contracts to build new reactors in India. 
(Manmohan Singh - during the UPA II’s last gasp - did precisely this during his last US visit by getting an ambiguous interpretation of the CLND from the Attorney General of India.) 
In short, it becomes a win-win-win situation for three parties – the US companies, the Australian mining companies and the Indian establishment/businesses.

Also, as far as nuclear energy and weapons go, the two major political parties in India are brothers in arms having the same agenda. And why not? Nuclear deals are big ticket business and even 2-5% of the deal counts for a lot for the venal, short sighted politicians who rule India. Unfortunately, there is a lack of any leader who can be called a genuine statesman and who can halt this march towards certain doom.

Same policy by ex PM, current PM and the President - perhaps for same reasons

Perhaps, and with almost certainty, one can say that the Australians are pretty much aware of the implications of supplying uranium to India and are willing to turn a blind eye towards its dangers. 

Senator Scott Ludlam of the Greens Party and a known vocal opponent of the export has this to say:

Scott Ludlam 

“They (the mining companies) see India as an industrializing nation with a growing power sector, they see the dollar signs but they quite clearly don't seem to be interested in the risks."   

He goes on to further add: 

"India is a nuclear weapons state and they're on the record saying they're trying to buy foreign sources of uranium so they can lock up their domestic reserves for a nuclear arms race with Pakistan. So it's a very volatile and dangerous security situation into which to be selling uranium."

Despite this plain truth being espoused in public, Rakesh Ahuja former Australian High Commissioner to India and now an energy strategist has this to his credit:

"Any uranium we sell to India must be used for civilian purposes.”
When questioned whether this doesn't that just free up domestic uranium, for military purposes? He answers “Yes, ah yes, that has always been the case, yes, I mean we sell to China, and it frees up their domestic (uranium) for military use, yes, it's a fact of life.”

Pakistan is also a non signatory to the NPT but has entered into bilateral treaty with China for nuclear technology, equipment and installation. It is this kind of a bi-lateral deal that Tony Abbott has in mind when he claimed that “sufficient safeguards” have been put in place to ensure that Australian uranium is not diverted for military use.

What Abbott fails to – rather chooses not to – understand is that India has not placed all its nuclear facilities under IAEA supervision and its indigenously developed reactors are out of bounds of the IAEA and hence there is opacity about the use of nuclear technology and fuel in India and no “safeguards” can take care of this. If a gigantic Malaysian Airliner can disappear into thin air without a trace, it is very much plausible for a few containers of yellow cake to go missing in India and end up in a secret military location for enrichment. This is not fanciful – just a week ago a container carrying highly radioactive Cesium 132 has gone missing without a trace in Kazakhstan. 

The export of uranium to India will eventually trigger off a nuclear arms race between the three neighboring countries. This fact is known AND accepted by the Australians at the highest level. There is strong domestic resistance to export of uranium by Australia especially after it became evident that the fuel used in the Fukushima reactors had its origins in Australia. But The Tony Abbott government has turned a blind eye to its own people, people of India and many others across the globe and is behaving in a spineless manner for pure commercial and geo-political gains for itself and its masters. Obviously, the eye is not only on the export revenue which would accrue because uranium makes for less than a billion dollars out of the over hundred billion dollar total mineral export and may touch one billion in 2018 if this deal is signed, sealed and delivered. So, economically, it is of almost negligible consequence when compared to iron ore, coal, copper, nickel etc which have a far greater share of export earnings. It is sheer politics that is driving this deal.

In this context it is safe to say that Australia is behaving in a unethical, immoral, reckless, dangerous, negligent and wanton manner and is thus willfully pushing Asia, nay the whole world, towards disaster and destruction. Australia is just not playing the gentleman's game of cricket straight.

Contact the Author on benchmark.anuj@gmail.com

Uruguay's president José Mujica: No palace, No motorcade, No frills sustainable environmentalist

Lauded for a speech at the UN's Rio+20 global sustainability conference in which he calls for a fight against the hyper-consumption that is destroying the environment. 

"The cause is the model of civilization that we have created. And the thing we have to re-examine is our way of life."

If anyone could claim to be leading by example in an age of austerity, it is José Mujica, Uruguay's president, who has forsworn a state palace in favour of a farmhouse, donates the vast bulk of his salary to social projects, flies economy class and drives an old Volkswagen Beetle.

But the former guerrilla fighter is clearly disgruntled by those who tag him "the world's poorest president" and – much as he would like others to adopt a more sober lifestyle – the 78-year-old has been in politics long enough to recognise the folly of claiming to be a model for anyone.

"If I asked people to live as I live, they would kill me," Mujica said during an interview in his small but cosy one-bedroom home set amid chrysanthemum fields outside Montevideo.

The president is a former member of the Tupamaros guerrilla group, which was notorious in the early 1970s for bank robberies, kidnappings and distributing stolen food and money among the poor. He was shot by police six times and spent 14 years in a military prison, much of it in dungeon-like conditions.

Since becoming leader of Uruguay in 2010, however, he has won plaudits worldwide for living within his means, decrying excessive consumption and pushing ahead with policies on same-sex marriage, abortion and cannabis legalisation that have reaffirmed Uruguay as the most socially liberal country in Latin America.

Praise has rolled in from all sides of the political spectrum. Mujica may be the only leftwing leader on the planet to win the favour of the Daily Mail, which lauded him as a trustworthy and charismatic figurehead in an article headlined: "Finally, A politician who DOESN'T fiddle his expenses."

But the man who is best known as Pepe says those who consider him poor fail to understand the meaning of wealth. "I'm not the poorest president. The poorest is the one who needs a lot to live," he said. "My lifestyle is a consequence of my wounds. I'm the son of my history. There have been years when I would have been happy just to have a mattress."

He shares the home with his wife, Lucía Topolansky, a leading member of Congress who has also served as acting president.

As I near the home of Uruguay's first couple, the only security detail is two guards parked on the approach road, and Mujica's three-legged dog, Manuela.

Mujica cuts an impressively unpolished figure. Wearing lived-in clothes and well-used footwear, the bushy-browed farmer who strolls out from the porch resembles an elderly Bilbo Baggins emerging from his Hobbit hole to scold an intrusive neighbour.

In conversation, he exudes a mix of warmth and cantankerousness, idealism about humanity's potential and a weariness with the modern world – at least outside the eminently sensible shire in which he lives.

He is proud of his homeland – one of the safest and least corrupt in the region – and describes Uruguay as "an island of refugees in a world of crazy people".

The country is proud of its social traditions. The government sets prices for essential commodities such as milk and provides free computers and education for every child.

Key energy and telecommunications industries are nationalised. Under Mujica's predecessor, Uruguay led the world in moves to restrict tobacco consumption. Earlier this week, it passed the world's most sweeping marijuana regulation law, which will give the state a major role in the legal production, distribution and sale of the drug.

Such actions have won praise and – along with progressive policies on abortion and gay marriage – strengthened Uruguay's reputation as a liberal country. But Mujica is almost as reluctant to accept this tag as he is to agree with the "poorest president" label.

"My country is not particularly open. These measures are logical," he said. "With marijuana, this is not about being more liberal. We want to take users away from clandestine dealers. But we will also restrict their right to smoke if they exceed sensible amounts of consumption. It is like alcohol. If you drink a bottle of whisky a day, then you should be treated as a sick person."

Uruguay's options to improve society are limited, he believes, by the power of global capital.

"I'm just sick of the way things are. We're in an age in which we can't live without accepting the logic of the market," he said. "Contemporary politics is all about short-term pragmatism. We have abandoned religion and philosophy … What we have left is the automatisation of doing what the market tells us."

The president lives within his means and promotes the use of renewable energy and recycling in his government's policies. At the United Nations' Rio+20 conference on sustainable development last year, he railed against the "blind obsession" to achieve growth through greater consumption. But, with Uruguay's economy ticking along at a growth rate of more than 3%, Mujica – somewhat grudgingly, it seems – accepts he must deliver material expansion. "I'm president. I'm fighting for more work and more investment because people ask for more and more," he said. "I am trying to expand consumption but to diminish unnecessary consumption … I'm opposed to waste – of energy, or resources, or time. We need to build things that last. That's an ideal, but it may not be realistic because we live in an age of accumulation."

Asked for a solution to this contradiction, the president admits he doesn't have the answers, but the former Marxist said the search for a solution must be political. "We can almost recycle everything now. If we lived within our means – by being prudent – the 7 billion people in the world could have everything they needed. Global politics should be moving in that direction," he said. "But we think as people and countries, not as a species."

Mujica and his wife chat fondly about meetings with Che Guevara, and the president guesses he is probably the last leader in power to have met Mao Zedong, but he has mixed feelings about the recent revolts and protests in Brazil, Turkey, Egypt and elsewhere. "The world will always need revolution. That doesn't mean shooting and violence. A revolution is when you change your thinking. Confucianism and Christianity were both revolutionary," he said.

But he is cynical about demonstrations organised by social networks that quickly dissolve before they have a capacity to build anything lasting. "The protesters will probably finish up working for multinationals and dying of modern diseases. I hope that I am wrong about that."

Life history
Shot, arrested, jailed and elected

1969 Active in the Tupamaros revolutionary group, which earned a reputation as the "Robin Hood guerrillas" by robbing delivery trucks and banks and distributing the food and money among the poor.

1970 Arrested for the first of four times. Mujica escapes Punta Carretas prison in a daring jailbreak. Shot and wounded numerous times in conflicts with security forces.

1972 Imprisoned again. Remains in jail for more than a decade, including two years' solitary confinement at the bottom of a well, where he speaks to frogs and insects to maintain his sanity.

1985 Constitutional democracy is restored in Uruguay and Mujica is released under an amnesty law.

1994 Elected deputy and arrives at the parliament building on a Vespa scooter. A surprised parking attendant asks: "Are you going to be here long?" Mujica replies: "I certainly hope so."

2009 Wins presidential election. Only words to the media that day: "Despite all this lip service, the world is not going to change." Adopts a ruling style closer to centre-left administrations of Lula in Brazil and Bachelet in Chile, rather than harder-left leaders such as Hugo Chávez.

2012 Lauded for a speech at the UN's Rio+20 global sustainability conference in which he calls for a fight against the hyper-consumption that is destroying the environment. "The cause is the model of civilization that we have created. And the thing we have to re-examine is our way of life."

2012 Announces that the presidential palace would be included among the state shelters for the homeless. Meanwhile, Mujica continues to live in his small farmhouse outside Montevideo.

2013 Mujica's government pushes the world's most progressive cannabis legalisation bill through Congress. "This is not about being free and open. It's a logical step. We want to take users away from clandestine business," he says.

Courtesy: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/13/uruguay-president-jose-mujica

UNLEASHING WAR ON ITS OWN PEOPLE - POLICE LATHICHARGE PEACEFUL PROTESTERS AT TURAMDI URANIUM MINES

The Prime Minister of India trots around the globe and proudly signs contracts for uranium supplies to India He himself visits or calls upon delegations from various continents and nations like Australia, Canada, France, USA, Kazakhstan etc. to discuss uranium related issues. Sadly, he is turning a blind eye to illegalities and gross human rights violations happening right under his nose and in his own country. 

Is it because the original landowners (the adivasis) are less human than white skinned foreigners? 

Read on.....

Five Injured,Hospitalized after police brutality – Workers on indefinite hunger fast

Turamdi, Nr. Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, India

The atrocities perpetuated by the Uranium Corporation of India (UCIL) management against hapless and displaced indigenous people in Jharkhand continue unabated. 

Behaving in a roughshod manner, mindless of any concept of natural justice and is behaving in a completely illegal manner with the people around the mining areas which is tantamount to Human Rights violations and the Acts on Atrocities against Adivasis.

After acquiring land and causing untold havoc with the lives, medical and social fabric of locals since 1960’s in Jadugoda, UCIL trained its eyes on the Turamdi mines area which is about 20kms away from Jadugoda and a mere 5kms from the bustling industrial city of Jamshedpur (Tatanagar).

The Turamdi open cast mine

UCIL acquired vast stretches of land for building the Turamdi and Bandohurang mines besides building a huge tailing pond, a milling and a uranium processing plant since the 1990’s

Gross irregularities have occurred during the land acquisition process. Many adivasis (indigenous) people are still not adequately compensated nor have they received the promised “permanent” jobs at UCIL. In fact, people who did not belong to the Project Affected People (PAP) category have got jobs reserved for these PAP families.

At the Turamdi mines, there was an original promise of hundreds of permanent jobs mentioned in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Detailed Project report. However, only a few permanent jobs were created when the mines were operationalized and the balance jobs were offered on a contract basis to the displaced people.

After going through two changes in the contracts lasting over the last eight odd years, now these experienced contract workers are being rendered jobless by UCIL which has negotiated a new contract with another company from Gujarat. The new contractor claims that it will neither hire the original workers nor will it need as many workers as were hired before.

To add insult to injury, now,UCIL is offering these contractual jobs to people who have no experience of working in uranium mines nor do these people belong to the project affected areas thereby causing one to wonder if UCIL is working in the interests of the contractors rather than the workers. Hiving off complete mining activities to an outsourced contractor – especially in hazardous industries – is also tantamount to negligence and an open invitation to potential disaster.

The contract workers have been made to work for years in core production areas of the mining business and to summarily discharge from duty is against the labor laws of the country. Prima facie, these workers are eligible for permanent job status with ALL attendant facilities. Now they are being thrown out of their only source of livelihood.

Ever since news of job losses was conveyed to the contract workers earlier this year, they have been on a silent sit-in demonstration at the mines and have been trying to negotiate with the UCIL management and the newly appointed contractor.None of their pleas have been heard by either party who have adamantly stuck to their stand of not allowing the earlier workers back to work. 

Displaced and jobless families on a silent sit-in (Oct 2013)

Upon seeing that their jobs were being offered to people having no relationship with any PAP (some even hail from neighbouring states) the desperate and aggrieved workers approached for help from the district administration, labour office. They even met the Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren a few days back who asked his officers to intervene in this matter for an early and amicable solution. Even this did not move the District Collector who maintained that this is an issue between UCIL management and the workers and he would not intervene!

Left to fend for themselves and nobody to listen to their pleas, the workers then moved their agitation to the gates of the project and continued their peaceful and silent sit-in protest. Perhaps as retribution to their actions, the UCIL summarily dismissed a few permanent workers from its staff on vague charges creating complete unrest at the mining site. If the UCIL management imagined that dismissing its permanent workers would create a rift between them and the contract workers, it was grossly mistake. It in fact, brought them together to fight for the legitimate rights of the workers.

But the workers were not prepared for the sudden and brutal police action against them on the morning of November 21^st 2013 when police at the behest of the state administration/UCIL management began to beat them up with lathis (batons) in the process injuring 5 workers so grievously that they had to be hospitalized.

Protest in Ranchi (21st Nov 2013)

Hunger fast - Ranchi 22 Nov 2013

The local workers in association with JMACC (Jharkhand Mines Area Coordination Committee) held a protest march on the same day in the capital city of Ranchi. With no respite from any quarters, the workers have now started an indefinite fast outside the Jharkhand Governors official residence in the hope that they will finally get back their jobs and livelihood. 

Their grievances and issues were also studied and found genuine by an independent Fact Finding Team in 2008. They have already lost their lands for no fault of theirs and now they have lost their jobs too - again for no fault. And yet, they have to fight again and again and again for what was and still is their legitimate right.  

The Government of India, the Prime Minister’s Office (to which UCIL reports) the State & District administration, local police and of course, the top management at UCIL are all equally culpable for this injustice perpetrated on the adivasis who are already dying a slow death due to the radiation from the mining activities.

You can also read my earlier article “A Nightmare Called Jadugoda” at:

http://www.dianuke.org/a-nightmare-called-jaduguda/