India, China and the Tibetan unrest

How far can you go, just to assert and highlight your nationalistic demands?

A teenage Tibetan monk (18-year-old!) in Sichuan Province of China, died last week after setting himself on fire.

Now it emerges that, it was the 44th self-immolation since the suicidal protests began in 2009.

According to the activists for independent Tibet, self-immolations are protests against China's heavy-handed rule in Tibet.

Chinese Government has blamed the Dalai Lama for his provocative stand against them.

On the other hand, Dalai Lama maintains that activists are aggravated by a widely held conviction that policies in Tibet, curb religious practices and are a threat to Tibetan culture and language.

Why is this news important to India? There are geo-political reasons. And then there is ever growing lack of trust between India & China.

After the Dalai Lama fled to Dharamsala, in India, during the 1959 Tibetan Rebellion, Tibetans established a rival government-in-exile here.

Several thousand Tibetan exiles are settled in the area, and most live in and around McLeodGanj in Upper Dharamsala, in Himachal Pradesh.

As per Chinese experts, India intrudes into many of the issues the Chinese military sees as important. Tibet is one of them. And not to forget, the border dispute with no-solutions-in-sight status.

Some of my more knowledgeable friends, claim that principal agenda of China, is to keep India preoccupied with the events in its neighborhood. This could effectively mean, India, is eventually constrained to play a larger role in Asia or the world. 

However from a humanitarian standpoint, I kept thinking, about that young monk, who destroyed himself by fire.

What could have been his thoughts? How can one set himself on fire, for a cause as far-fetched as patriotic fervor?

It indicates, may be, the conviction about self-destruction on account of coercing tendencies and policies of China. Although, Tibet is a autonomous region, within China.

Back home in India, I sometimes feel, we need some war-like situation or even catastrophe, to remind ourselves that we are actually a big nation of continent size. Remember Kargil? 

Pani pani re...

Mornings are good. You are fresh and it is the beginning of the day.

I generally use the company transport to commute to my workplace. And after I go to the office first thing I do is, go downstairs, with my friends, to grab a bite of breakfast. 

Then the discussion, invariably, veers to hot topics - news of the day, politics, social problems, movies and cricket.

So there was a discussion about a recent news item that detailed how there is escalating expenditure on irrigation projects in Maharashtra, without significant changes on the ground.

As usual it prompted me to think over.

It is pretty hard what is more outrageous?

The ever-increasing problems of day-to-day life or the general degrading water conditions in Maharashtra.

Now some facts - Maharashtra has 1427 large dams, highest number in the country.

Based on various assessments studies done by Water Resources Department, the 75% dependable yield is 131562 Mm3 . The permissible use of water in the state is 125936 Mm3. 

And there are five major river basins in Maharashtra - Tapi, Narmada, Krishna, Godavari and rivers in Konkan.

Add to that, the dispute of sharing the water in Krishna basin. The second Krishna Water Dispute Tribunal gave its verdict on December 31, 2010. And Maharashtra was given 666 tmc of water. Next hearing is scheduled in the year 2050!

Despite all this, almost every year, we start facing shortage of water in the months of April, May if not in March.

That economy, availability of food grains, almost everything depends on a good monsoon in India and Maharashtra, is a age-old piece of reality.    

But equally frustrating fact is that there are same problems occurring almost every year, especially in case of water resources.

There are issues of water distribution to ever-increasing number of city-dwellers and the needy farmers.

The balance to keep between the two, is extremely tricky.

And to add to the woes, India's monsoon rainfall plummeted up to 31% by July 2nd this year and has affected the sowing of rice, pulses, cotton, oil seeds in the country.

Solutions? Ram bharosay!

Surely rainfall is not in human being's control, but water conservation and judicious usage, is the least we can do.