India's Nuclear Saga

There is a saying in Thirukkural "கனிருப்பக் காய்கவர்ந் தற்று " which means "you chose the worse though you have the good". This seems to be is the case with India's energy crisis.

Tamilnadu, like most other states of India is struggling to cope up with the growing energy demand. The direction of the rulers of the land to solve this problem points to the N-way. It has been a year since my last post, which was about the regular railway mishaps that haunt the middle and lower class citizens of India who cannot afford the rising petrol prices to avail a private transport. Despite the monstrous growth of science and technology, and having failed to even ensure the basic safety of railway lines, they promise the absolute safety of N-reactors.

I see this as "A Bhopal has collaborated with Chernobyl with an updated safety benchmark of Fukushima".

Is this the right way ?

I recently attended a lecture given by a member of scientific advisory committee of Germany, where they have advised Germany to invest in Wind and Solar arena rather than N-arena. Germany has now started shutting down its N-plants with a goal of becoming N-free by 2030. And India has just started to open up new ones (pass that bill whatever it costs).

My Assessment

A single wind mill can produce upto 7 MW power. But the common ones today in India, made by Suzlon produce 2.1 MW, which cost about 10.5 cr (in retail single unit price, if ordered bulk will be cheaper, perhaps even cheaper if produced by Government itself).

Alright here is the equation. Koodankulam (The largest Indian N-plant, about to begin) = 13000 cr with a Capacity = 2 GW. For the same price, you can buy 13000/10.5 = 1238 mills which is equivalent to 1238*2.1 = 2.6 GW.

The wind mill technology is growing tremendously. Already the energy cost is cheaper than conventional plants and the N-plants. India is a versatile country, we may have monsoon in Kerala and at the same time have the most drying days in the adjacent Tamilnadu. We have the extremes from the ever snowing Himalayas, to the driest Thar desert, and to the ever raining Chirapunjee. This versatility creates great winds. We have such a huge coast line. The windy season is not uniform at any given place. But the windmills throughout the country can be networked together to have a steady supply of power (This windmill grid was actually suggested by the German scientific advisory board to have it realized by connecting the whole Europe).


I am at the end of my PhD thesis and totally packed up. Despite the volume of work that is burdening my head, it did not prevent me writing this post. I don't know how many are gonna read it, but it makes me feel good for that I have spoken out what has been irking me from long time.

Indian railway accidents

I guess many of my fellow citizens would be feeling the same as I am upon reading a today's news about the madhya pradesh accident . I made an approximate estimate of railway accidents world wide. In the year 2010(till today), of 43 accidents reported world wide 14 happened in India.

Total fatalities world wide except india : 146
Total fatalities in India alone : 207

If the blame is on the usual reason of high population, then China had just 9 fatalities this year. I can also observe that the nature of accidents in the rest of the world are just accidents, whereas in our case most of the fatalities are because of sheer negligence. It never happens anywhere else two trains collapse on the same track, again and again. Being an engineer, I am aware, that there are several cost effective accident prevention technologies available, but still they seem far beyond the values of the lives of our people.

May be they are not counted, because the rich don't have to travel in the trains.

Bapu´s Property: For Sale

It was literally "Bapu for Sale"

Our beloved Bapu, Great Soul, Father of Nation´s properties went on auction recently. In fact i wanted to make a post on the amount of expenditure India does on defense that has boosted the per capita debt of indians to cross Rs.30000/-. Anyway, this was not the focus of this post but Mr. Otis, who sold our bapu´s properties, negotiated seriously with our government and demanded that If they want to stop auctioning bapu, let them increase the budget allocation to help poor rather than to invest so much into defense (after the mumbai attacks Govt increased the budget allocation for the defense once again). whatever , things have been auctioned and our savior hero Mr. Mallaya has fought and bought them for $1.8 million.

Though i am happy that our father of nation´s belongings will be in our museum, I am not happy the way it was auctioned, I am not happy for making a materialistic business out of a man whose life´s important message is to live simple and non-materialistic.

I think that the property of bapu is not his spectacles/sandals/blood report, but his real property he has given to all of us are his preachings (Though i don't completely agree with all of his teachings).

Note: Bapu said not to take liquor, on Gandhi jayanthi all the liquor shops are closed, now the one who recovered the things back happens to be Mr. Mallya the liquor king of india :) , from the money earned through the drinking of millions of indians. Thats why i mean, 'Bapu for Sale', we have left all his preachings but spend millions just to keep his spectacles / sandals in museum.

A basket of Brinjal or an ounce of Gold

My parents during their child hood have used 'ana' (One sixteenth of a rupee), In my child hood I have used 'five paise', 'ten paise', 'twenty paise' coins, todays children may perhaps not even have seen them.

A few decades back one whole day living of a joint family used to get accomodated in a rupee or two. There was a period when people used to admire at "Latchathipathy"(owner of one lakh) as some kind of astonishing achievement.


During my recent trip to India, a kg tomato was about 50 rupees, land prices are just a few folds costlier than last year. On an average , be it a basket of Brinjal or an ounce of Gold, prices and living cost have been ever increasing. "Inflation" an uncertainty that can affect drastically any economy is affecting every one, especially the developing and poor countries. The value of a currency ("purchasing ability per unit of currency") is decreasing every year.
I am not a technocrat of economics, and there can be numerous factors that influence inflation rate, but in my opinion the very basic issue that acts as a root of the whole problem is the present "Interest based financial system" we are following all over the world.

A man lends money, does no effort on his behalf but expects a higher return ...
" money --> NO effort --> more money return --> decrease in the value of money "

Richer gets richer , and finally all the burden falls on the back of poor lying at the very end of the financial chain. Unless the financial system is changed from interest based to investment based (invest and share both the profit as well as the loss), the value of money will keep decreasing and the burden on the poor will keep increasing for ever.

Bismillah

Begining in the name of Allah (s.w.t) , may allah guide me the right way ....

Assalaamu Alaikum Warahmathullahi wabarkathuhu every one :))