A matter of propriety

In India, the most common method of disposal of a dead human body is by its cremation. I am not really aware, when this practice started, but today Hindus widely follow this method of disposal. In every town and village in India, there is a place, mostly on the bank of a river, reserved for cremation. Mostly this is done by a wooden funeral pyre constructed with wooden logs. The dead body is kept on it and lit. In major cities or towns however, electric or diesel operated furnaces have become very common these days, due to general scarcity of wood.

It is a usual practice in India that friends, acquaintances and relatives usually gather at these funeral places to bid good bye to the departed soul. If the departed person is a social bigwig or someone very important, usually a condolence meeting also is held at funeral place, where speeches would be made by people. Since this is a grievous sombre occasion, most of the people gathered at these funeral places maintain decorum and see that sort of dignity of the occasion is maintained. People generally do not talk lightheartedly and are mostly serious. This is done so as to sympathise with the grieved near and dear ones of the departed person.

I have had witnessed many such occasions, as most of the senior members of my family as well as many friends and acquaintances are no more and I have bade them final good bye. During all these occasions, I have come across some individuals, who behave in a rather strange fashion, unmindful of the feelings and sentiments of the grieved family. They would talk loudly, even laugh and in general treat the whole experience with a lighthearted manner, even when their behaviour is considered as highly improper by others.

I am very much reminded of these people, after having read about an incident that happened at the site of memorial service in memory of Late Nelson Mandela in South Africa and the persons involved in this improper demeanor were no less that the President of US and Prime Ministers of Great Britain and Denmark. International media immediately called it as 'Selfie-gate,' and social media erupted in condemnation.

At the Mandela memorial service in South Africa, US President Obama and British Prime Minister Cameron were found sitting on either side of Ms. Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Prime Minister of Denmark in the stands at the FNB stadium in Johannesburg. The US president's wife, Michelle Obama, was sitting next to Obama. Ms. Thorning-Schmidt is married to Briton Stephen Kinnock, son of the former Labour leader Neil Kinnock and is called as “Gucci Helle," by many Danes for her sense of style. She seems to have everything like Beauty, brains, family, power and appears to be enjoying it at the same time. Press Photographers were seen clicking the pictures of the trio.

All hell broke loose, when Photos surfaced in social media showing grinning Pressident Obama with Gucci Helle and a stone faced US president's wife, Michelle Obama. The next photograph showed the Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt snapping a selfie of herself, nestled in between UK Prime Minister David Cameron and U.S. President Barack Obama. As the President laughed away with the Danish leader, at least one photograph showed the First Lady flash a disapproving glare in their direction.

The Danish leader's selfie picture went viral on Twitter, with scores of comments on the total lack of propriety shown by the three leaders. The Times wrote that Obama tested the limits of "funeral etiquette" (despite the memorial not being a funeral) with the self-portrait. New York counterpart Post headlined as "Flirting with Dane-ger." The Sun called it "No Selfie Respect." Reactions on Twitter were harsher with one Tweeter writing: "What selfish morons take a 'selfie' at a memorial service? Oh yeah that's right, Barack Obama and David Cameron."

The photographer, who clicked the photographs, gave a clarification later saying: "For me, the behaviour of these leaders in snapping a selfie seems perfectly natural. I see nothing to complain about.” However the damage was already done.

Many South Africans sad from the bottom of their heart with loss of their greatest leader, are not going to be bemused with this incidence. A sombre occasion like a memorial service requires a proper response, in particular, when the persons are such high dignitaries. The US president, whose approval ratings are declining rapidly mainly on account of the healthcare fiasco, is going to see a further fall for sure.

13 December 2013

Water: from toilets to tap

The island country of Singapore, even since it became independent in 1965 from Malaysian federation, always had one vulnerability; inadequate availability of water for use of its citizens. Even though there is substantial rain fall over the island, it has little or limited land to collect and store rainwater. Authorities in Singapore, realising that the local catchment water is the main strength of sustainable water supply, have been making a dedicated effort to increase the water storage capacity by building new reservoirs.. Since 2011, the water catchment area has been increased from half to two-thirds of Singapore’s land surface with the completion of the Marina, Punggol and Serangoon Reservoirs. Singapore collects rainwater through a comprehensive network of drains, canals, rivers, storm-water collection ponds and reservoirs before it is treated for drinking water supply. This makes Singapore one of the few countries in the world to harvest urban storm-water on a large-scale for its water supply.

In spite of all this effort, the country is still deficient of water and needs to import water from the Johor state of Malaysia. Singapore has been importing water under two bilateral agreements. The first agreement expired in August 2011 and second agreement will expire in 2061. Some elements in Johor are not happy with this arrangement and keep making noise against the agreements. Singapore has always felt strategic vulnerability because of this dependence on Malaysia and has been trying to create alternate additional sources of water.

Singapore has one of Asia’s largest seawater reverse-osmosis plant, which produces 30 million gallons of water a day (136,000 cubic metres) to meet about 10% of Singapore’s water needs. A second and larger desalination plant with a capacity of 70 million or 318,500 cubic metres of desalinated water per day, the Tuaspring Desalination Plant opened in September 2013.

Another significant step taken by Singapore Government towards self sufficiency in water is the project to produce high-grade reclaimed water produced from treated used wastewater that is further purified using advanced membrane technologies and ultra-violet disinfection, making it ultra-clean and safe to drink. The project is named as NEWater and the first plant was opened in 2004. This plant has been now closed but during last 9 years, 4 new plants were added. Together, Singapore's four NEWater plants can meet 30% of the nation’s water needs. Singapore Government wants to expand the current NEWater capacity by 2060, so that NEWater can meet up to 55% of future water demand.

However Singapore's water deficiency is essentially related to non availability of enough landmass to store water. It gets abundant rainfall but is unable to retain it. But there are many countries in the world, which have huge landmass available but water itself is not available. The port city of Durban in South Africa is one such city facing acute shortage of water. City's municipality relies on the Umgeni river system for water. But demand on the system, which supplies drinking water to about five million people and fuels industry in the economic hubs of Durban and Pietermaritzburg, a town 66 kilometers from the coast, has outstripped supply for the past seven years.

To tide over the difficulty, municipality has been investigating use of desalination plants as done in Singapore. But these are very expensive to build and run as an individual plant may cost around $300 Million. Left with no other option, the city wants to make use of recycled wastewater like Singapore's NEWater. The city would upgrade two of its wastewater plants with a three-stage system that uses filtration, reverse osmosis, ultraviolet light and chlorination would be used get the water to drinking quality. The treated water would also be stored and tested before being released. It plans to mix this purified water with conventional drinking water at a ratio of 30 percent to 70 percent before supplying it to some parts of the city. Reusing wastewater in this way, will add 116 megaliters of tap water to the municipality’s supply daily.

However people do not like to consume purified wastewater. In Singapore, most of it is used for industrial consumption. In Durham there has been opposition to the plan, including the submission of a 5,000-signature petition from the public. Citizens have raised concerns about the safety of drinking the reused water. “Recycling of toilet water to drinking water is a death sentence to the general public because of health implications,” says one person.

I have purposely taken here two examples, one from an affluent country and another from a poor developing economy just to highlight the fact that in future water is going to be a commodity that would be in perpetual shortage. In future, many human habitations would be forced to recycle their wastewater, whether they like it or not.

5^th October 2013

New Harbingers from India

About 2400 years back, Emperor Ashoka sent all over South East Asia, including China, Japan and Korea, his messengers to spread the divine light, brought to humans by Shakyamuni Siddharth Goutam Buddha, born three hundred years before his time, in form of a new religion known as Buddhism. Similar to this deed by the emperor Ashoka, new and young businessmen of India are now spending their new message of Nepotism, favouritism and skills of bending the rules to virgin lands of Africa as the new Mantra of success.

Ajay, Atul and Rajesh Gupta are three brothers, who arrived in South Africa in the early 1990s from Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh state of India, shortly before the end of apartheid. They rapidly made contact with rising stars of the new black elite coming to power. Today they have a huge business empire in South Africa with business interests that cover mining, aviation, technology and the media. Guptas live in a 52 million rand mansion in Saxonwold, a Johannesburg suburb lined with century-old oak trees. The Gupta brothers are alleged to have close political links and two of President Jacob Zuma's children have served as directors of Gupta-owned firms.

Last week Gupta family celebrated the marriage of one of the offspring in a lavish affair reminiscent of such marriages held by super rich in India, in the Sun City resort. Gupta family had invited about 200 guests from India for the wedding and flew them by a special chartered airplane from India. It is believed that some politicians, Indian Government officials and few Bollywood stars such as actor Anil Kapoor and singer Shankar Mahadevan were also invited to South Africa for the wedding.

So far so good! Nothing objectionable in all this. Guptas have loads and loads of rands, and there is nothing objectionable if they decided to spend it on a family wedding. But the problem came when it was found out that this chartered plane coming from India did not land at the Johannesburg international airport, as would have been expected but at Waterkloof Air Force base. From here, South African Police escorted the guests to the casino resort of Sun City for the wedding of 23-year-old Vega Gupta, the Gupta brothers' niece, to Indian-born Aaskash Jahajgarhia.

All hell broke loose when news of this plane's landing at an air force base leaked out to the press. Guptas have denied any wrong doing. They say that they had requested the Indian Embassy in Johannesburg to obtain permission of authorities to receive foreign dignitaries, including some ministers at the Waterkloof Air Force base and only after such permission was received, the plane landed at the air force base.

The governing African National Congress (ANC) party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) have now demanded an investigation into how the guests of the family flew from India to the Waterkloof Air Force Base near Pretoria. ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe says:

"The African National Congress, driven by the concern for the safety and sovereignty of South Africa, shall never allow a situation where our ports of entry and National Key Points are penetrated with impunity.”

Even Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu has also expressed his disquiet over the relationship and says: "Perhaps the Gupta family would make all those lucrative deals and it is merely coincidental that the president's son is a beneficiary," Archbishop Tutu said. "It may be above board but it is worrisome."

I am not much surprised by this Modus operandi used by the Guptas in South Africa. This is how things are done and run in India. This is how businessmen and politicians collude in India, as has been proved by number of scams that have come to light recently in India and this is how rules are bent commonly in India.

Guptas may be the biggest success story of post apartheid South Africa, but they also appear to be new messengers from India, who are spreading the new Mantra of India, money power, nepotism and corruption are the true winners, if you want to succeed.

3^rd May 2013

The curse of Fong Kong

2011 was not a good year for Chinese Automobile companies. From dizzying growth rates of more than 30 percent in the previous two years, growth slumped this year to just 2.5%. According to a 2012 report by the international consultants KPMG, China’s auto industry is now the world’s biggest. Falling new vehicle sales therefore have forced the automakers to set their eyes on markets overseas. As per data published by the China Chamber of Commerce for the Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products, Chinese automobile exports in 2011 have soared by 50 percent to reach a figure of 8,49,900 vehicles. Chinese automakers see Africa, along with Latin America and Southeast Asia, as key markets with long-term growth potential.

Chinese auto companies have launched number of new projects in Africa. China’s First Automobile Works (FAW) is building a US$25 million plant for manufacture of light trucks and passenger cars in an industrial development zone near the southern coastal city of Port Elizabeth in South Africa. Chinese automaker Foton Motor group, opened an assembly plant in Nairobi, East Africa, in March 2012, for its pickup trucks and light vehicles. With this plant, company hopes to keep car prices low because it means that the company will avoid paying a 25 percent duty on fully built imported units.

Chinese cars are attractive to consumers because of the rock-bottom price. A chinese automobile costs anything between $6,000 and $15,000. Chinese companies like Gonow, Geely, Chery and Great Wall have entered African markets of Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria and Ethiopia in a big way and hope that their low cast cars would lure the customers in these countries.

In spite of the ambitious plans for investments, things do not appear to be very rosy for the Chinese automakers. It is mainly because of the poor quality and shoddy workmanship of their cars. Chinese cars have bad a reputation in Africa: “rubbish” quality, “appalling” design and a disturbing smell of glue. A reviewer recently described a slightly better car as “ Cheap and not at all nasty.” The problems that are routinely reported are about cooling components in engines not working in hot African climate, rubber trims and gaskets falling off after exposure to salty air during transshipment across oceans.

South Africans have devised a slang word for for cheap made-in-China products that fall apart soon after purchase. They call that these products have the “fong kong” curse. Similarly, Zimbabweans call low-quality Chinese products as “zhing zhong.” A Chinese Government magazine “Africa” was forced to take notice of the poor quality of cars and described export of cars to Africa full of constant contact and frictions. This report mentioned further that “A client took some pictures and sent them to Gonow, asking if the company was selling them used cars,” and commented surprisingly that the the automaker has grown stronger from its experiences in Africa.

Besides poor quality, other two problem areas for the Chinese carmakers are poor after sales service and lack of instant availability of spare parts. The troubles faced by Chinese automakers are typical woes faced by a manufacture launching a product in a market, without adequate research and preparation. If Chinese cars get a bad name in Africa, it would be very difficult to reestablish themselves in this market again.

21^st May 2012