Nuclear Power India's Salvation?

In the short history of our nuclear age another page was recently scrawled when Manmohan Singh and President Sarkozy sealed a pact of atomic collaboration. The genesis of this optimism was 65 years ago when the father of the nuclear bomb, Robert Oppenheimer, awed by the blinding power he unleashed, recalled the Bhagavad-Gita “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one.”

Oppenheimer, fluent in Sanskrit and proud to admit the Bhagavad-Gita was strongly influential in forming his character, was intrigued by the epics of salvation and damnation in the holy Hindu scriptures. His initial euphoria at seeing a manifestation of the Lord was because he believed, with conviction, that this was their vehicle to salvation, a deliverance from the horror and sins of the Second World War. Should India see this fire of the Gods as an enlightenment to solve her famine of electricity? Or another damnation?

It is astounding how many strong religious references have been made in the nuclear scramble. 28 years after Oppenheimer’s blast at the New Mexico desert site, that he named Trinity, after a central Christian belief, the 8 kiloton ‘Smiling Buddha’ was denoted at Pokaran on Buddha Jayanti. Were these placating gestures? Remorse for letting infant politicians steal from God’s gun safe?

For no one with an IQ higher than the room temperature would argue that nuclear power sits comfortably in the hands of mere mortals. Ajit Pawar the Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra is resigned to proving this beyond ambiguity by forcefully arguing for the construction of the two French nuclear plants in Jaitapur, with blatant lies.

The real fresh one from Mr. Pawar was “There has not been even a single case of an accident in India’s 18 nuclear reactors.”

India’s atomic energy program is highly classified however the Atomic Energy Department is obliged to report shutdowns of plants to the International Atomic Energy Agency where they are made a matter of public record. Here we depressingly find the first of two accidents that stand out amongst a crowd of others.

In 1993, the Narora nuclear plant in Uttar Pradesh was saved from a cataclysmic event only by a forgiving God. Ignoring warnings of catastrophic turbine failure by the manufacturers, the plant management pushed the system sufficiently enough for the turbine blades to explode. These cut a hydrogen carrying pipe that exploded on cue, in turn igniting a sizeable oil leak that had been neglected. The oil fire incinerated the power cables rendering all systems, including safety systems off-line. There was of course a reserve set of power cables but they were bewilderingly placed within close proximity to the primary cables and were not in anyway fireproofed. Without electricity to power the pumps to circulate coolant around the fast overheating core, staff were lotto lucky to manage to manually shut down the plant.

The second accident bares naked the undeniable fact that antiquated bureaucratic organizations like the AED cannot be within a mushroom cloud of a nuclear plant of any size. Kalpakkam Atomic Processing Plant, 2003. A valve failure allows highly radioactive material to enter a tank of lower radioactive material. No sensors to detect either the valve failure or the now lethal amounts of radiation that the plant’s workers unknowingly bathe in. The leak was only discovered, after a criminally long time, when a fuel sample is examined in another section of the plant.

This incident, little known as it is, would have not have seen any light had the worker’s union at the plant not become proactive. They presented a letter to the plants governing body, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, after this organistion had disregarded a committee’s strong recommendation that the plant be immediately shut down after evidence of continued wildly excessive radiation leakage. The letter amongst other safety recommendations demanded a full time safety officer. BARC’s constructive critique was to blame the workers for not wearing their thermal badges (That are designed to detect long term exposure not sudden catastrophic exposure) and for entering the room (that was part of the duties demanded of them). The workers went on strike until their leaders fell victim to the time honoured babu weapon of choice; they were transferred. BARC got the last scientific word in “If the place was not safe they would not have joined back.”

The only consolation for trailing behind the West in development is the precious opportunity to not repeat it’s foolhardiness. India must stop equating wealth with intelligence and blindly duplicating the West’s sometimes mad as a March hare technological experiments. But if it must, then these all powerful nuclear reactors, with the radiation of a thousand Hiroshimas, must be administrated by India’s world beating managerial talent not bitter old men.

On that day of the world’s first nuclear blast, even before the gates of hell had fully closed, many of the greatest minds of the age openly wept and Oppenheimer recalled another verse from the Bhavagad Gita. ‘I am become death, the destroyer of worlds’.

Where Is The Knowledge We have Lost In Information?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?


Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? -Eliot

The ‘Radia Tapes’ and Wikileaks aggressively ask these questions. 5,000 taped conversations of Radia administrating the country and untold lakh cables of diplomats sending their reports Stateside, many of which seem to be after a bloody good bottle of red. Does this unprecedented access to sensitive information make us wiser political citizens than generations before us?

Eliot wrote those immortal words in 1934 when the information revolution was barely at the smelly student, getting grumpy at the coffee house stage. During this era, Pandit Nehru was writing considerably more than 140 characters, but only when his fellow convicts would return his stolen Parker pen. His receipt of information was through smuggled newspapers and Chinese whispers. A drop, of a drop of the bottomless oceans of zeros and ones that now entomb us. Did this make him less effective?

Gandhiji would have ruled Twitter. He would have made Stephen Fry’s disciple count look like a rent a crowd after the cheque had bounced. His immortal sayings are well below 140 characters -What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea. #Swaraj #Mountbatton #Quitindia. Devastatingly effective, even whilst largely starved of formal information dissemination, we can only speculate how all encompassing his power would have been with a Facebook account.

But was that the quality of the man? Was he a lesser political activist for not having high speed broadband? Would Jinnah have backed down on his demands if he could have read the New York Times on-line? No! Because their subjective wisdom, with varying degrees of quality, was founded on knowledge. Not information.

In this information age we are so terribly under tooled to mine for this erstwhile wisdom in a swamp of information posing as Wikipedia knowledge. Mountain ranges of gravel, with every man and his dog with a shovel, but no pans to sift the elusive shining nugget. No all wise, Google equivalent, search engine that instantly churns out a one page philosophical analysis of a billion results.

The explosive Twitter reaction to the Radia Tapes is typical. The Twitterati became a million strong posse before Vir Sanghvi could even reach and draw for his Blackberry. He was shot dead standing. His slow and clumsy defence, made in the traditional media, was just too glacial and unfashionable for Twitter, and demanded some linear concentration without any toilet breaks. Because of his attempt to take time and put wisdom in the information, even if he didn’t suffer from miraculous co-coincidences of opinion with Radia, (After asking her what he should write) he would have been strung up.

If you are older than thirty and spend five minutes analyzing Barkha Dutt's involvement in the scandal you can only conclude she is considerably less tainted by the corporate, media nexus. Tell that to a pimply citizen journalist, sitting on the throne blogging, who has only known information.

Would Eliot pen another line if he were still alive? ‘Where is the information we have lost in time?’. Time is the penultimate consideration for the new citizen journalist. Even more so for the matrix of Indian news channels. To get the information out before you can say “Tweet” is so much more important than any considerations of accuracy (knowledge) never mind a thoughtful analysis.

This surging compulsion to set free the flimsiest of information in the internet zoo, in a Mumbai minute, can be electrifying. Like the ‘Radia Tapes’ Wikileak’s Cablegate again set Twitter well ablaze. Julian Assange was the best thing since the MacBook. But like the machine he can miraculously store information not process it into abstract thought. A living illustration of the information, wisdom paradox. Commendably setting loose information that he believed citizens should enjoy but very unwisely further upsetting the relationship between the nuclear powers of Iran and the US, not to mention her Gulf neighbours.

In ancient times, ships leaving the Port of Alexandria would be searched to see if any of the precious scrolls from her legendary library were being smuggled to the outside world. The Greeks jealously guarded their written knowledge. Well meaning, half-wits like Assange threaten the introduction of a contemporary equivalent. It may be necessary. Our unprecedented access to a web of information has not made us wise and better citizens. It has made it drive thru easy to scream our stupidity. ‘Power to the People’ cannot be power to the twits.

Tweet:- Radia picked up the phone. God! Oh God! It wasn't her imagination. She looked at the van outside and the phone clicked again.

State And Business Class Show The Way

Very recently, at the Indira Gandhi 10th Annual Conference, Sonia Gandhi pleaded for “the state, business and labour onto a common platform in pursuit of a shared vision — the vision of a more equal, more caring society”. Is this sincere plea possible?

What divisions of society are they working with? Who are these State, business and labour people? Rahul’s very effective catch phrase of “two Indias” attempts to paraphrase the new Indian paradigm of the Esteem drivers and the Atlas bicycle riders. But to claim that India is only divided in two is calling a half filled glass of water a 12 year old bottle of scotch.

In fact, a single division would be an earth shattering achievement. Anyone reading this will know that Indian politics is fractured into a wildly complicated matrix of splinters that belong to caste, class and regional loyalties. Which is a head spinner. In fact, in this dumbing down age, I’m fast warming to this new idea of only three divisions.

Though it has to be said that Mrs. Gandhi’s usage of the term “platform” is unfortunate because these new castes would not be seen dead sharing a common platform, never mind a waiting room. It conjures up images, for me at least, of hordes of laborer’s waiting, with increasing impatience, for the Indian Economic Miracle Rajdhani Express, clutching tickets given to them by the Congress.

But they are increasingly resigned to the realisation that those tickets, to what is rightfully their passage, are worthless 60 year old I.O.U. notes. In return for no water, no education, no health and no electricity whilst the agents of the State made ends meet by slumming it out in Lutyen bungalows and London private hospitals.

The new business caste’s stoic social commitment? Will they answer Madam’s call for a much greater sense of social responsibility? If you asked them to share a platform with the labour classes they would kill themselves by laughing their guts out. Why in hell would they do that when you can bloody fly? You don’t get frequent flyer points for mixing with those types.

However, if there is a airline strike, which is known to happen, I can very clearly, with no degree at all of opacity, the State and the Business classes cozily sharing a common railway platform. This relationship is alive and kicking furiously. Jesus, get a room!

This unperturbed display of intimate relations between the State class and the business class has not escaped our leader’s attention. Mrs. Gandhi ominously said, “Graft and greed are on the rise.”

The wildly lucrative 2G spectrum and Commonwealth Games construction graft was a glaring example of how well the business and State classes work together. Kalmadi, reportedly, help bribe an unprecedented 72 States to secure the Games, displaying a legendary, God given talent for cementing the business, State relationship. Yes, finally a common indivisible vision! Yes, even the labour class was involved in the construction! A glorious victory march towards a more equal, more caring society.

Well, it’s undeniable Kalmadi and Raja, the former Telecommunications minister, are now equally filthy rich and equally caring about their country. In fact they’re probably so concerned about India that they will likely team up, buy a small Pacific country, with small change, and settle there.

But Mrs. Gandhi’s belief that the cancer is growing is wrong. The corrupt have never left the corridors of power and don’t increase in number. It is the sheer scale of easy pickings that has grown in every dimension, to a size that is sublime. ‘Commissions’ that have been made possible by the new economic powerhouse in amounts that can only be marveled at.

Ironically, Mrs. Gandhi’s proposed antidote to this divisive poison is to have “greater probity, more transparency”. A cleaned window to the gears of government and business practice. This may be counterproductive. The less the public know about the workings of this Government, the better the chance of re-election.

The hard to find positive side of the Orwellian nature of the Indian press coverage is that corruption scandals are far more likely to be reported than in the old days of Doordhashan rule. Importantly the audience reach of these televised corruption exposes’ increases exponentially every year. Deep into the remote heartland of backward States like Chattisgarh that are experiencing intense ‘insurgency’.

For Mrs. Gandhi’s plea for a more caring, equal society has been, in no small way, prompted by this view of increased corruption. She knows that a unified country, with one vision, can never happen with the business, State nexus unapologetically piddling in the village tank.