Sand slips

Kudankulam meltdown

Words are biotic

“When metaphors die, ideas pass away and a way of thinking is buried,” says Sakar Khan. He is not a linguist. He is a musician. He plays the Khamaicha — a four-string instrument. Somewhere in his eighties, he is arguably the most revered of the musicians in his tribe — the langas of Rajasthan. Reticently he shares his feelings, “I see today’s generation ignore the khamaicha. I can’t help it. Music, like language, can provide only a metaphor for a way of life.

Time for an overhaul

Cradles of hope

At least 103 babies die for every 1,000 live births in Shravasti, a district in Uttar Pradesh that borders Nepal, reports the Annual Health Survey 2010-11. Though this first-of-its-kind district-wise survey is limited to nine most backward states, the number is the worst in the country. Infant mortality rate (IMR) is less than six in the European Union.

In deep water

Conflict over Krishna Third floor of Trikoot Bhawan in Delhi’s Bhikaji Cama Place, which houses the second Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal, will turn into a war zone by February-end. A battery of lawyers, technical staff and irrigation department officials from Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh will fight hard to win the maximum allocation of the Krishna river water for their respective states.

The truth about solar mission

Investment terror

The New Year may not have started cheerily for the claims brigade. An international arbitration panel awarded US oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp just $908 million in compensation for Venezuela’s nationalisation of its assets in 2007, less than 10 per cent of what the behemoth had reportedly sought. It was presumed that Venezuela’s feisty president Hugo Chavez, known for his America-baiting, would be celebrating.

A million opportunities lost

This is the little known big story of India’s nationwide rural employment programme. In the past five years the programme has sought to create tanks, ponds, wells and revive traditional water conservation structures at a scale and pace not witnessed before in the country. Millions of people in the countryside seeking jobs under the programme embarked on building or reviving 3.4 million water conservation structures, according to the Union rural development ministry. This is unprecedented given that before 2005, all the public wage schemes together created just about two million structures in six decades.

Time-out

At Durban, the European Union (EU) pushed hard for a legally binding agreement for all. The aim, it said, was that this legal instrument would bring the US on board, as it would include China, India and other big developing countries to commit to cut emissions.