On Dec 9, 2010, at 11:02 AM, uttam borthakur wrote: > I have read somewhere, either in this forum or in Friends of Assam, a person > (probably Apurba Bora) from California has narrated his own first hand > experience in respect of a smaller dam generating 25MW in Ca. Beside other > problems, entire fauna of the down stream area vanished. It would take 30 > years more to regenerate the fish population in that particular river though > they have started the process right earnest. > > Another pitfall of a deterministic view, which in fact is romantic, that man > can change, subjugate and put nature to its expditious benefits at will. Yes, > a river desecrated cannot be undone easily. And here the desecration is out > of greed and corruption.
*** You are absolutely correct Uttam. Unfortunately the proponents always wrap their mission in the garbs of 'progress' and 'development'. Not to demonize progress and development here, but it must NOT be at the cost of destroying that last remaining sources of clean water and life-sustaining rivers of our region. India has permanently destroyed most of its rivers. Most of them are dry better part of the year. What remain flowing are filthy and polluted beyond imagination with the pollutants concentrated in the much reduced flow. Decades pouring money after purported cleaning up has produced NOTHING ! Our region's water resources are priceless. As the world goes dry and potable water availability gets rapidly worse in every corner of the world, it is of critical importance for Arunachal, Assam, Meghalaya--everybody to plan carefully and intelligently how to use it for their 'progress' and 'development'. It is not at all hards to imagine that there will be massive conflicts, even wars, over water in the coming decades as global warming complicates the thirst for ever increasing population of the earth. India's thirst for water could be quenched, if only our water resources are used carefully. Building mega-dams will just destroy it, being used for unimaginatively limited uses, like hydro-power gen. and nothing else. Assam' opposition to such mega dams should not be to deprive Arunachal of the benefits of its natural resources. But at the same time it must not be by putting huge populations at risk and by destroying the rivers that have sustained the valleys of Assam for millenia. > > > > Hiu U: > > One thing we have to remember that is special about dams is that a river > desecrated with a dam is not easily undone. > > c-da > > > > > > > > > On Dec 9, 2010, at 9:44 AM, uttam borthakur wrote: > >> Mahanta Da, >> >> Is not this obvious after the ever unfolding scams, which >> are more discernible now due to competition in the media for viewership and >> readership and due to loss of one party hegemony at the centre, that all >> maladies ( naxalism, secessionist tendencies, terror, horse-tradings, >> communalism, disparity in income-wealth distribution, ineptitude, building >> mega-dams with myopic gain for short-term gain of a few business houses in >> order to light up a waste-land of near future ,,,,,,,,) in India are innate >> in its system, namely, crony capitalism, of which even the PM is a glorious >> example being placed in the commanding heights by the World Bank /IMF rider >> to implement the neo-liberal regime that began with the foreign reserve >> fiasco in 1991? Or do we need a compartmentalzed view here so that we can >> avert our interested eyes from the Pandora's Box in order to avoid conflict >> of interest somewhere down the line? >> >> >> Uttam Kumar Borthakur > > > > Uttam Kumar Borthakur > > _______________________________________________ > assam mailing list > [email protected] > http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org _______________________________________________ assam mailing list [email protected] http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
