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Correspondent

21 August 2024 at 3:50:16 pm

Himalayan Warning

The Himalayas are becoming a graveyard of warnings ignored. Nepal’s latest flash floods have killed at least 165 people and left more than 800 missing, including hundreds of Indian tourists. What makes the catastrophe especially disturbing is that the torrent was not an entirely unforeseeable act of nature. The flash floods that tore through the Bhotekoshi River corridor were initially attributed to a 4.4-magnitude earthquake. The US Geological Survey has since concluded that the seismic...

Himalayan Warning

The Himalayas are becoming a graveyard of warnings ignored. Nepal’s latest flash floods have killed at least 165 people and left more than 800 missing, including hundreds of Indian tourists. What makes the catastrophe especially disturbing is that the torrent was not an entirely unforeseeable act of nature. The flash floods that tore through the Bhotekoshi River corridor were initially attributed to a 4.4-magnitude earthquake. The US Geological Survey has since concluded that the seismic signal was generated by a glacial collapse and debris flow. An avalanche blocked the Lhende tributary before the resulting torrent burst downstream, striking Timure and the Rasuwagadhi area near Nepal’s border with China with devastating force. The Himalayan disaster landscape is changing, while the systems meant to anticipate it remain dangerously behind. The Himalayas are not merely experiencing more disasters; the disasters themselves are becoming harder to predict because several hazards can cascade into one another like an ice collapse, landslides, temporary river blockages, sudden releases of water and torrents carrying enormous quantities of rock and debris. Nepal has seen this pattern before. The 2021 Melamchi floods demonstrated how glacial deposits, landslide dams, extreme rainfall and rapid snowmelt can combine to produce destruction vastly greater than any single trigger might suggest. Research into the disaster found that the flood generated a cascading process of erosion and landsliding that dramatically reshaped the valley. There is therefore something profoundly unsettling about the familiar language of surprise that follows every Himalayan disaster. Nepal’s geography has always made it vulnerable, but climate change is complicating that vulnerability. The World Bank has identified glacial lake outburst floods, floods and water-related hazards intensified by torrential rain and snowmelt among the country's major climate risks. For India, the tragedy is particularly sobering. The missing include large numbers of Indian nationals, including pilgrims and tourists from Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and several other states travelling through one of the region’s most difficult and strategically sensitive corridors. This should prompt more than condolences and rescue operations. India and Nepal need a much more serious Himalayan disaster architecture of shared monitoring of glaciers and unstable slopes, real-time river and debris-flow warnings, better communications in remote valleys, clearly marked evacuation routes and regular coordination between disaster agencies, border authorities and tourism operators. The Himalayas do not respect political boundaries. A warning missed in Tibet or Nepal can become a humanitarian emergency downstream. India cannot afford to treat Himalayan risk as Nepal’s problem until the flood reaches its own territory. While the immediate priority is rescue, once the survivors are accounted for, the harder question that must be asked is how many more warnings does the Himalayas have to deliver before South Asia treats them as warnings rather than surprises?

Clever seat selection helped BJP to secure historic win

The party won 65 seats against Congress, 37 against NCP (SP) and 29 against Shiv Sena (UBT)

Clever seat selection

Mumbai: The BJP’s strategic seat sharing with the allies has proved beneficial for the party. An analysis of the Assembly election results show that the BJP has scored over its main rival, the Congress, in a big way because of the direct fights.


The analysis shows that BJP defeated all three constituents of the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) – Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP) – in the direct fights. This is attributed as one of the reasons for the BJP’s historic poll success.


The BJP contested 147 out of 288 seats. In 76 constituencies, it faced Congress. BJP secured victory in 65 seats and lost only 11 seats, making it a whopping 86 per cent of the total direct fights. This was followed by an even stronger performance against NCP (SP). Of the total 39 fights with Sharad Pawar’s party, BJP captured 37 seats making it 95 per cent of the total fights with NCP (SP). BJP and Shiv Sena (UBT) were head-to-head in 32 constituencies, of which BJP emerged victorious in 29 seats, making this 91 per cent of the total direct contests.


According to a BJP strategist the party had bargained hard with its allies, Shiv Sena and NCP to get the desired constituencies in the seat sharing formula. “We had studied to potential candidates of the MVA. That helped us in choosing the seats where we can register comfortable victories,” the strategist said.


BJP spokesperson Niranjan Shetty attributed the success to all the party workers who worked hard to boost development, infrastructure in the state. He gave credit to Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for his contribution to the party’s success.


Shetty pointed out that in 2019, Uddhav Thackeray had stalled all the “novel” and “legendary” projects that Fadnavis had started when he had taken over as CM, making it very easy for the people of Maharashtra to strike a comparison between both the leaders and the potential they had for serving the people. “Devendra Fadnavis gave up his post very easily for the larger good. There are many such examples like Venkaiah Naidu who was BJP National President and later worked as the Vice President of India because that was the need of the hour. We seldom care about our posts,” Shetty told The Perfect Voice.


Congress spokesperson Atul Londhe refused to call the election results as the people’s mandate. “This is not at all a Janata mandate. Despite Maharashtra struggling with so many basic social issues, how can BJP acquire such a huge mandate is the question. If a student copies and fails with just passing marks, it can go unnoticed, but if a student copies and bags the number one position, something is fishy. Why is the BJP scared of ballot papers?” he said.

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