A nation where poverty has been totally eradicated,illiteracy removed and crimes against women and children are absent and no one in society feels alienated.
This point of Kalam's vision provokes us to think about the welfare of everyone this Diwali.I would like to throw some light on only two recent problems to check our extravagant spendings during Diwali....so that we can think of a Diwali which bring hapiness to the people beyond our near and dear ones.
Bihar flood
This article highlights the destruction due to the flood.I have directly pasted a few points from the original article uploaded on the site igoverment.in
Bihar's flood of fury: End of Kosi civilisation?
The quantum of the severity of this flood of fury is yet to completely seep in. Most of the areas under Kosi's new, course may now never resurface.
Published on 8/29/2008 7:52:54 PM
By Om Prakash Yadav
Over one lakh people in 102 relief camps, about 2.5 lakh houses destroyed, crops in 1.06 lakh hectare wiped off, and while the government claims it has so far evacuated nearly three lakh people, the total number of population affected has swelled to 1.2 crore.
This is day thirteen of the catastrophe that hit Bihar on August 18. And while relief measures and funds have started flowing in, it seems the quantum of the severity of this flood of fury is yet to completely seep in, even though the overflowing Kosi—the sorrow of Bihar—has been sinking most of the human habitat that has come on the way of its new, changed course.
A close look at the history of this North Bihar river, and one realises that the worst is yet not over.
According to experts and the data of rainfall and water discharged from the Bhimnagar Kosi barrage every year, an additional 2.1 lakh cusecs of water is likely to flood in from Nepal between September and October.
And what does that mean? Experts suggest that it is just the beginning of the problem, for one, the changed course of the river has swallowed millions of hectares of land and which are hardly going to resurface even after the water recedes.
Two, these inundated areas are technically in the river bed, thereby completely uprooting those living in these areas—not to talk about the loss of agriculture land, houses, livestock, ponds, wells and above all their dreams.
Three, the devastation of this magnitude is unheard in modern civilisation, with the entire Kosi civilisation on the verge of eclipse.
Magnitude of the problem
With over 20 blocks of six districts in the state badly in the grip of the ferocious flowing Kosi water, the magnitude of problem is not difficult to estimate. About 15 lakh people are trapped in different places, and there is an urgent need to evacuate them, or else the state might lose them forever.
Even if all such persons are rescued, huge numbers of relief camps are required to be set up. A rough calculation of the displaced based on the number of blocks and villages affected suggest that the state government would need to chalk out plans for rehabilitating over 1.2 crore affected population.
Rescuing the marooned population, providing relief and arranging rehabilitation is a herculean job, because almost entire infrastructure has been destroyed. Worse, the state government has neither the manpower nor the resources to meet this unprecedented situation.
The immediate question, however, is to find out enough space to set up relief camps and make arrangements for the basic needs, including adequate food, for supporting over 15 lakh people.
Carrying the entire population and shifting them to distant and safer places has never been an easy task, not to talk about running the relief camps on such a large scale and for a long time; experts in WRD suggest that the situation is likely to remain unaltered till October.
And while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has declared it as a national calamity and aids have been flowing in—from Rs 1,000-crore package central government assistance to free rail services and relief material being supplied by the Indian Railways and financial assistance announced by the governments of Maharashtra, Delhi, the United State, Britain and Unicef—the distribution of the relief on such large scale is a huge challenge in itself.
The changed course of the river has swallowed millions of hectares of land that are hardly going to resurface even after the water recedes, posing a massive challenge of shifting and rehabilitating a huge population.
It is not hard to guess the cost of this rehabilitation programme, both in terms of money and time. And while experts say that it would be possible to bring back Kosi to its original course, what if they fail to reverse the situation?
While the failure to do so will mean that there would be sand dunes everywhere in the old course, it also means that the state and its people will permanently lose their properties, fertile lands, infrastructure, and all.
This also means that unless the situation is handled with precision care of a surgeon doing an open heart surgery, Bihar will witness a pre-1963 like situation when the Kosi belt was known for drought and famine.
The impact of this catastrophe is also manifold—the pace of development of Bihar is certainly going to come to a grinding halt, or may even get reversed.
Many would agree that history is going to repeat itself. The irony is that the international community is sitting quite and except for few announcements there has been no initiative as such to help the nation and the state tide over the disaster that is fast turning severe than the recent Tsunami.
The magnitude of devastation and destruction is such that no government will be able to tackle it single handedly. The job is enormous and response so far has been cold.
This is the time to fight back; Bihar is looking for help from all corners, all agencies and many nations. And while Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the entire state machinery are struggling hard, so are the denizens of entire North Bihar.
Let helping hands come out and take Bihar out of this 'national calamity'.
After the above article let's move to the fear recession in the economy.
The fear of a recession looms over the United States. And as the clich goes, whenever the US sneezes, the world catches a cold. This is evident from the way the Indian markets crashed taking a cue from a probable recession in the US and a global economic slowdown.
Finally I have shown two problems but DIWALI is a festival of lighting lamps of hope and optimism so lets celebrate it in our unique ways.
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