Digging for diseases, past and present

Scientists are turning to ancient grave sites to unravel the mysteries of human ailments

Students excavate human remains buried in the post-medieval churchyard at Badia Pozzeveri in Tuscany, Italy (Photographs: Ohio State University)

The abandoned medieval church of Badia Pozzeveri in Tuscany, Italy, which is surrounded by a 1,000-year-old cemetery, has had some unique visitors in the past four summers. Led by scientist Clark Spencer Larsen from the Ohio State University in the US, these researchers and students have been excavating the site where they have found a mass grave of victims of cholera epidemic of the early 1800s.

The deceased were buried in a casing of lime to contain further spread of the infection. “The lime encasing is amazing for bone preservation. These are the best preserved remains of cholera victims from this time period ever found. We are very excited about what we may be able to learn,” says Larsen.

So far, the researchers have found DNA of microbes in the bone remains. These microbes were present in the bodies at the time of death and could be Vibrio cholerae that causes cholera.

Analysis of the DNA will help trace the evolution of cholera over the centuries and its spread across Europe in the 18th century. The information can also be vital in understanding the bacteria’s current form, and possibly, how to combat it. Says Larsen, “The pathogen’s past strains can reveal an important record of the evolution of the pathogenic bacteria in comparison with the modern bacteria. Evolutionary history can provide a tool for addressing the pathogenicity of the bacteria and its treatment.”

The researchers are also excavating other graves in the site, which are presumed to be of victims of the Black Death, the pandemic that killed millions of people across Asia and Europe in the 14th century.

A unique science

Larsen’s team is not the first one to study modern diseases using archaeological remains, also known as palaeopathology. Scientists are increasingly using this field of science to predict the course of a disease in the future by understanding its history based on the evidence from ancient remains, including bones, teeth and dental tissue.

Students clean remains found in the Badia Pozzeveri churchyard

Diseases often leave direct or indirect imprints on the skeletal system, as in the case of osteoporosis, and sometimes, tuberculosis. While skeletal remains inform about the past, advance tools, such as biotechnology, help map and study diseases of the past. Helen Donahue, from the University College London School of Life and Medical Sciences, explains the relevance of studying ancient remains to modern medicine. “Paleopathology can provide evidence of the epidemiology and past geographical range of ancient infections,” she says. “It can also give insights into the social context of past human infections. For example, leprosy is linked with rural populations and mud floors, whereas TB is linked to the density of population so it increases in cities. This is seen as long ago as ancient Egypt,” she adds.

Donahue has extensively researched the history of tuberculosis and leprosy. A recent work was a 2012 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study conducted on bodies found in a sealed crypt in Vac, Hungary. The bodies were buried between the late 18th century and early 19th century, and were found to have been naturally mummified due to conditions prevalent in the crypt. A large percentage of the bodies were found to have been infected with tuberculosis and the samples obtained were sufficiently intact to enable molecular fingerprinting of the strain of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB). “We have found that several individuals were infected with more than one strain of MTB, and one individual had three different strains,” she says.

“They were all from modern lineage-4 (European) but can be distinguished from each other. Today, this pattern of infection is found in sub-Saharan Africa and there was speculation that it may have been driven by HIV and/or the impact of antimicrobial therapy. Our data from the 18th century suggest that this phenomenon arises whenever there is a high level of infection in the population,” she continues.

In certain cases, the disease in question may not affect the same demographic as it did in the past. A 2012 paper by Mauro Rubini from the University of Foggia, Italy, studied the case of childhood leprosy in two mummies excavated from the second-third century BC and 8th-10th century BC, one of which yielded the DNA of Mycobacterium leprae. The study was published in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology. While childhood leprosy is now a rare occurrence, the study of the disease is nevertheless important due to a lack of historical literature on the subject. “These are real-time markers of genetic changes, thus enabling better understanding of the evolution of human pathogens,” says Donahue.

There have also been instances where DNA evidence from remains has been used to prove or verify theories about the history of a disease. Kirsten Bos, physical anthropologist from Canada’s McMaster University used DNA obtained from a burial site in London to prove that the culprit behind the Black Death was Yersinia pestis, the highly virulent bacterium responsible for bubonic plague. She thus silenced opposition to the theory from researchers who claimed that the medieval pandemic was caused by a virus similar to Ebola, an idea that received some traction, thanks to the book published on the topic.

Bos further proved that all modern strains of the disease had evolved from the strain responsible for the Black Death. This information may be imperative in understanding a disease which has still not been completely eradicated. India’s last recorded plague outbreak occurred 20 years ago in Surat, claiming numerous lives. Minor outbreaks are reported each year all over the world, including a major one in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2006, indicating the continuing need for further study of the disease’s history to truly understand its propagation dynamics.

Studying these diseases may even give us clues about human history. Studying obligate pathogens, such as M leprae that have co-evolved with their hosts, may provide information about human migration across continents.

Nothing to bank on

The government’s much-hyped Direct Benefit Transfer programme has hit a roadblock. Banks have failed to meet the huge demand for opening accounts for welfare cash transfer. This threatens to derail the welfare delivery programme and the country’s mega plan of financial inclusion.Jitendra pores over government files and travels to Madhya Pradesh to analyse the crisis.

Alok Gupta reports from Jharkhand, Aparna Pallavi from Maharashtra and M Suchitra from Hyderabad

Kheriveer village in Madhya Pradesh’s Sagar district has one bank, but people have to travel five kilometres to avail banking services. Reason: the banking correspondent now operates out of his stationery shop in the market area

Barkoti Kalan has still not recovered from the freak hailstorm that wiped out many hectares of standing crop in northern and central India in March. The village is some 55 kilometres from Sagar district in Madhya Pradesh, one of the worst-hit states. People here are witnessing a financial crisis like never before. But instead of hurrying to prepare the next crop, farmers are rushing to open their first bank account.

Soon after the natural calamity, the state government announced compensation to those who lost their crop. The amount can be easily transferred to the victims’ bank accounts. The Centre’s much-celebrated Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) programme promises to electronically transfer welfare amounts, like old age pension, students’ scholarships and even daily wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), in people’s bank accounts.

But transfer of benefits is easier said than done. Most people in Barkoti Kalan, like in the rest of India, do not have a bank account. Many villages across the country do not even have a bank. Census 2011 recorded that nearly 500 million people in India are not included in the formal banking system. Of these, 370 million live in rural India. Without bank accounts, the poor, old and the needy will lose the much-needed cash.

Way back in 2008, a high level committee headed by C Rangarajan, former governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RIB), recommended a comprehensive plan to include each one in the country in the formal banking system. In 2010, the Centre launched the Financial Inclusion Plan (FIP) under RBI’s supervision. Its objective is to make core banking services accessible to the low income and disadvantaged rural population. In the first phase, that ended in March 2013, it aimed at bringing all villages with more than 2,000 people within the formal banking system.

Hem Raj Prasad Mishra (left) runs a kindergarten school in Barkoti Kalan in Madhya Pradesh. Each time he goes to the bank kiosk to open an account, the banking correspondent’s laptop displays nothing more than “Reconnecting...” on its screen (Photo: Jitendra)

In the second phase, that will end in March 2016, villages with less than 2,000 people will be brought under FIP. To simplify the process of opening a bank account, government banks closest to these villages either open a branch, set up a banking kiosk, or place a banking correspondent there. People have the advantage of opening accounts with zero balance. The account makes availing development benefits easy. The sudden hailstorm made the need for banks just more urgent. Barkoti Kalan, however, has been struggling to implement FIP for the past two-and-a-half years. Dharmendra Kumar, banking correspondent for Central Bank of India, came as the messenger of hope. His task is to open accounts of 10,000 people in five panchayats. This means, if he fails to do his job, each of these people may lose government benefits.

Dharmendra has a one-room office adjoining a grocery shop, a biometric machine to access thumb impressions and a laptop, a crucial link between people and the bank. Yet, opening an account is a distant dream. Chandrabhushan Dubey, 25, has been meeting Dharmendra for the past three months to get an account opened. “Earlier, he would complain of electricity problem and show the discharged laptop. Since seven days, the Internet connection has been weak. The laptop has an almost perpetual display on its screen saying ‘Reconnecting...’,” says Dubey.

Technological glitches have slowed down Dharmendra’s work pace substantially. “In the past seven months, I have not been able to meet the needs of people in my own village. How will I go to the remaining four panchayats under my jurisdiction?” he says.

Barkoti Kalan is not alone in its struggle. Purio panchayat in Ranchi’s Ratu block marked the beginning of FIP in Jharkhand. What followed was sudden, high-level bureaucratic activities in the panchayat. Bank and political stalwarts kept making rounds of the village to monitor the programme’s progress. “They said a bank account will curb corruption and ensure that compensation money reaches no one but us,” says Sati Devi, daily wage labourer under MGNREGS. But two years later, her passbook is blank. “I went to the banking correspondent to get my wages, but he said my fingerprints did not match the records. He told me to contact the base branch of Bank of India. I walked 12 km to reach the bank, but got no help from there either,” she says.

Source: Reserve Bank of IndiaIn Narsinghpur district in Madhya Pradesh, 32-year-old Sandhya Kori is not even aware of FIP. The Dalit woman is a tailor by profession and finds it unsafe to keep her earnings in her thatched house. “When my husband went to open a bank account, they did not entertain him,” she says.

Despite DBT, dearth of banks is a problem across the country. As a trend, the poorer the region the more severe the shortage. The inconvenient coincidence is that poor areas are also the regions where maximum beneficiaries live, making a need for banks more acute.

The country aims to give an account to every Indian by 2016. But in the past three years, only 100 million accounts were opened. The country is still one of the least banked countries in the world. In fact, banking infrastructure in India is one of the worst in the world (see ‘Where India stands’). According to the finance ministry, for every 12,500 people there is just one bank.

Currently, there are 28 Centrally-funded schemes under DBT, which covers 4 million people. The government is already faltering in managing this. How will it manage when its four major programmes—Right To Education, MGNREGS, LPG and National Social Assistance Programme—are included which will cover 650 million people? (see ‘Challenge for India’).

Burden on banks

Most bankers admit they are not ready for FIP. “In Narsinghpur, UCO Bank, Punjab National Bank and Canara Bank have not even started appointing banking correspondents,” says Ashok Kumar Chakrabarty, lead district bank manager. Others, who evaluate the performance of their banks on the basis of profit and volume of business, say opening zero-balance accounts is not a profitable proposition. Maintaining account registers, paying banking correspondents and Internet support companies involves costs. A bank spends Rs 50 for opening one account. It spends another Rs 40 per year for managing accounts, says R L Naik, lead district manager in Sagar, Central Bank of India. Banks do not see its recovery.

Further, with a pathetic infrastructure, banks find the huge task of reaching banking services to the last person in the country nearly impossible. When Naik joined the district branch two years ago, it had a staff of only two. “After FIP, the number of clients is growing steadily but the volume of business has not increased. We are unable to manage it with the limited staff,” he says. FIP makes it mandatory for base branch managers to visit villages and motivate people to open accounts. “With the limited staff, it is impractical,” he says.

K Lavanya works as a banking correspondent from her house in Kanakamamidi village in Andhra Pradesh. She gets only Rs 500 as monthly salary (Photo: M Suchitra)

Jain Bhushan, general manager of state level banker’s committee, Bank of India, Jharkhand, says the biggest challenge in FIP is maintaining correct data that testifies the identity of a beneficiary. Banking correspondents submit forms and other documents at the base branch. The bank sends data, such as addresses, names, fingerprints and bank account numbers, to the respective district administrations for verification. But problems like mismatch in names and addresses are rampant. Nearly, 70 per cent of the data is wrong, says Bhushan.

The problem is compounded because of financial illiteracy among beneficiaries and banking correspondents. Saurav Jain, assistant manager at the rural branch of Central Bank of India in Sagar, says every day at least five people reach the bank for opening their accounts to get relief for crop loss. But most already have their accounts so the bank server refuses to accept their data. The beneficiaries give a series of excuses like having lost their previous passbook in natural calamities.

Then there are those who are never satisfied that they have received cash till they get it in their hand, says Jain. They would first get their passbook updated. Then they would withdraw the amount. Happy with the money, they would deposit it back in the bank for safety. It increases work load of banks staffs, he says.

“Financial illiteracy also leads to one-sided transactions,” says Charan Singh, Reserve Bank of India chair professor, IIM Bengaluru. “People use their accounts only to withdraw subsidy. They are not motivated enough to do transactions,” he says. Banking correspondents also accept too much of unnecessary documents from people. “Clearing junk data consumes a lot of our time,” says Bhushan.

Naik complains that banking correspondents keep making phone calls asking if their accounts have opened or not. “There is already too much workload. How do we ask our potential customers to wait so that we can answer the banking correspondent?” he asks.

Unsustainable proposition

Twenty-one-year-old K Lavanya has been working for the past four years as a banking correspondent for Andhra Bank in Kanakamamidi village, about 30 km from Hyderabad. She deals with 450 accounts. She starts work at 8 am. Most of the days, her work stretches till 8 in the night.

Lavanya works from home with a handy electronic machine given by her employer, Bartronics India Limited, IT service provider. All the account holders have smart cards which are inserted in the machine to access account details and to do transactions. People can credit and debit up to Rs 5,000 with the help of this handy machine. Lavanya also disburses loans up to Rs 25,000 and collects their repayments. About 40 people have recurring deposits in “Lavanya’s Bank”.

“I have a 24-hour job. All the customers live closeby. I cannot refuse anyone even if they come in the night,” she says. For her full-time job, Lavanya gets a pittance Rs 500 as monthly salary and 0.5 per cent commission on every transaction. “I can earn only up to Rs 1,500 a month,” she says.

Banking correspondents, the backbone of FIP, have got a raw deal in the programme. Durgesh Pharkade, banking correspondent at Manikwada branch of Bank of India in Maharashtra’s Wardha district, says he is paid 0.5 per cent commission on every transaction up to Rs 10,000. “For higher amounts, Rs 25 is all we get per transaction,” he says.

A banking correspondent’s income varies from bank to bank, says L M Deshmukh, who works in Bank of Maharashtra and is member secretary of the state-level bankers’ committee, the nodal body for the implementation of FIP. “Commissions vary from 0.15 per cent to 1.80 per cent. Bank of Maharashtra pays fixed monthly remuneration of Rs 2,500,” he says.

Dharmendra of Barkoti Kalan, however, has not received anything since he joined seven months back despite being promised Rs 12 for every account he got opened, Rs 15 for Aadhaar seeded account and 2.5 per cent commission for every transaction. Dharmendra was appointed as a banking correspondent by MPCON, IT service provider for Central Bank of India.

Tulsi Kuriy, banking correspondent at Purio panchayat, says he was promised monthly salary of Rs 2,100 and 0.3 per cent commission per transaction. “I have not received a single paisa for the last two years.”

“We are expected to be in the field from 8 am till 2 pm. After that, bank officials ask us to work at the branch office to prepare loan proposals, and vouchers and to update files. We are not paid anything for this,” says a banking correspondent who did not wish to be named.

Deshmukh says that the average commission of 0.4 per cent is not a bad bet for the banking correspondent. But he can earn about Rs 10,000 for 25 days’ work in a month only if his transactions are worth Rs 1 lakh daily. To make this possible, government must hasten the process of transferring remunerative subsidies on fertilisers and kerosene through direct benefit transfer. “The bulk of transactions has to go up sufficiently to make the model sustainable, and soon, before too many correspondents lose faith and quit,” he says.

Green lore

Environment has been intrinsic to our oral traditions much before we developed writing. But it is only in the past decade or two that environmental literature has become mainstream

Illustrations: Sunita Verma

We are our stories

Stories, storytelling and environmental attitudes

Salil Mukhia is co-founder of Acoustic Traditions, an initiative to revive ancient storytelling traditions

Oral tradition is the oldest form of passing down human experiences from one generation to another. Traditionally, it has been at the core of all societies. There is not one culture in the world where oral literature has not preceded written literature. Stories and storytelling have been at the forefront of every evolving society providing new generations with an ever-increasing pool of experiential knowledge tried and perfected by preceding generations of community members, shamans and medicine people. They transmit social values and spiritual philosophies, inform about history, describe complex scientific wisdom and environmental knowledge, and further conservation ethics. The ways in which traditional stories are linked with us and the world around us are, perhaps, unfathomably deep.

Stories open up vast areas of re-evaluating our attitude towards the natural world. Very often, they provide clues to address challenges related to complex environment and sustainability issues. Tribal folklore has much to offer in this respect, with much of the belief system of indigenous groups around the world still rooted in shamanism and nature worship. Take the case of people in the Eastern Himalayas who speak the Kiranti group of languages—a family of Tibeto-Burman languages. Oral narratives influence attitudes towards the environment and their conservation ethics. While much of the traditional narratives of the Kirantis are now lost, their tradition of storytelling, especially the sacred lore, Mundums and rituals associated with it, continue to instil practical ideas of living in balance with nature. Mundums are recited lyrically by shamans of each Kiranti tribe at events associated with nature or during a socially important ritual.

During Ubhauli (also called Sakela or Sakewa), celebrated for around 15 days in April-May, members of Kiranti-speaking communities do not fish because their sacred narratives forbid them from doing so. Ubh-auli indicates the beginning of farming season and coincides with the northward migration of birds. It is interesting that fish swim upstream to lay eggs at this time. During Ubhauli, shamans recite the sacred Mundums which describe the origin of Kirantis, the story of their ancestors and their spiritual place in the natural world. Prayers are offered to rivers, mountains, rainbows, land and animals.

One sacred narrative in the Mundum of the small Koinch tribe (belonging to the Kiranti group) lays down that a member of the tribe can cut a tree to build a house provided he plants 10 trees as a token of gratitude to Mother Earth. Their belief that higher knowledge enters various plant species as transcendental energy (thung in their language) after leaving the body of a shaman (poibo in their language) prohibits them from mindlessly cutting certain varieties of fern (which have medicinal properties), bamboo and cane. This is yet another example of how oral narratives influence the cultural attitude of a community towards environment.

Other stories in the Koinch Mundum describe ethical concerns pertaining to hunting: killing pregnant animals is forbidden and the Koinch pray for forgiveness to animals wounded in a hunt. People of the tribe regard the porcupine as their foster mother—in one story, she breastfeeds a Koinch chief. For this reason porcupines are seldom hunted by the people of the tribe.

The Paniyar tribe of Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu, one of the oldest tribes of India, was once nature worshipper. Amalee, the tribe’s last surviving shaman, describes how his people never harm tigers. According to Paniyar legends, tigers were once guardians of forests. Paniyar tribesmen often take remains of animal hunted by the tiger as a sign of respect for the animal. Amalee also says the pepper tree is at the heart of the Paniyar’s nature worship tradition. People of the community do not walk into a grove of pepper trees lest the tree appears in their dreams and asks them what brought them to the grove. If a Paniyar tribesman does walk into the sacred territory, he or she must offer something and seek forgiveness.

The environmental content and narrative forms of traditional stories can vary from culture to culture. But the values garnered after listening to each story are something no modern system of education can provide.

The storytelling tradition of the Lepcha tribe is unique in educational content and worth highlighting. Every aspect of the natural world is expressed as a human form in Lepcha stories. Perhaps the only tribe to worship the legendary mountain half-human, the Yeti, Lepcha’s traditional stories are replete with environmental knowledge. Even complex social issues are addressed using elements from nature. In some stories the flea and lice are described as husband and wife. Some lyrical narratives portray the beginning of the entire Himalayas. For example, some stories begin with a soft song that says, “This story is of a time when Konchen Chu (Mt Kanchenzonga) was as small as a musk deer’s tooth.”

Many researchers (from anthropologists to environmentalists) look at traditional wisdom, folklore and conservational tools within oral traditions, but very few have turned to them for understanding environmental history. Oral tradition embodied in traditional stories is also a repository of environmental history. They describe the changes and calamities in the natural world. Lepcha folklore describes how the world was once flooded and how Tendong Hill (bordering Darjeeling and Sikkim) saved the tribe by offering refuge. Till date, the tribe celebrates the Tendong Rum Faat in August to mark their great escape.

While it makes tremendous sense to revitalise such traditions and build crossovers with the modern psyche, we may have begun too late. Today, most traditional cultures are facing the risk of getting lost. This would mean complete extinction of their vast wealth of insights and experiences. The loss is even more acute if we consider the fact that many cultures have not been documented. Another critical area that poses a significant challenge is the loss of ethnic languages in which traditional narratives are told. With researchers pointing out that every hour two languages die, the task at hand is huge and, perhaps, a battle already lost.

In 2011, Sangdup Taso, the last Lepcha shaman to conduct an 800-year-old ritual, died of heart attack leaving behind a mere 48-minute recording. His demise ended an invaluable piece of cultural history. Amalee, the last shaman of the Paniyar, says, “If we do not have our stories, what do we have? How will we know that the tiger is our great guardian? How will my grandchildren know that these Blue Mountains are our homeland? How will we know who we were?”

Much time has been wasted in making the scientific journey from considering such traditions superstitious and narratives insignificant pieces of primitive cultures to scientifically relevant. The only question now is: do we have enough time left to learn and pass on the knowledge embodied in these traditions to our children?”

30 years of Bhopal gas tragedy: A continuing disaster

An appraisal by Sunita Narain and Chandra Bhushan, exclusively extracted from the recently released book, Bhopal Gas Tragedy, After 30 Years

Rows of people whose lives were snuffed out on the fateful night of December 2-3, 1984 (Photo: Ashok Chaddha)

It was on the night of December 2, 1984, when Bhopal died a million deaths. The chemical, methyl isocyanate (MIC), that spilled out from Union Carbide India Ltd’s (UCIL’s) pesticide factory turned the city into a vast gas chamber. People ran on the streets, vomiting and dying. The city ran out of cremation grounds. It was India’s first (and so far, the only) major industrial disaster. Till then, governments had handled floods, cyclones and even earthquakes. They had no clue how to respond in this case. The US-based multinational company, Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), which owned the plant through its subsidiary UCIL, did little to help deal with the human tragedy. Thirty years later, there is no closure. Not because of what happened that fateful night, but because our response has been incompetent and callous.

Bhopal was struck by two tragedies: the one that happened immediately, and the other that unfolded in the years that followed. 

The problem was nobody knew much about the toxin or its antidote. Within weeks of the accident many claimed that the worst was over—that people were suffering from common ailments of the poor, such as tuberculosis and anaemia. But till date nobody knows the health impacts of MIC and how to treat patients exposed to the gas. The health burden is compounded by two more variables—one, children born after the disaster are also its victims because of exposure to the deadly gas while they were in their mothers’ wombs; two, chemical wastes remain dumped in and around the premises of UCIL factory, contaminating the water that people drink.

Illustrations: Sorit

All this could have been managed if the government had information about the chemical and treatment for it. But even in 2014, all that the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in Delhi can say is the “exact causative agent of the Bhopal Gas Disease is unknown”. Why?

Union Carbide used trade secrecy as a prerogative to withhold information on the exact composition of the leaked gases. Though it was known that MIC, when reacts with water at high temperatures, could release as many as 300 highly toxic chemicals, research was carried out only to check the toxicity of pure MIC—that also on animals. So, the treatment has been symptomatic. This is criminal negligence. In the first few days, there was evidence that people could be suffering from cyanide poisoning—intravenous injections of sodium thiosulphate, an antidote,was found to be working on the patients. But soon, it was discontinued, many say, under pressure from UCC and its team of lawyers.

The diseases could also have been managed had the government conducted medical research to understand the long-term impacts of the gas. The responsibility was given to ICMR, which had initiated 24 studies.Some of the studies had found high incidence of lung, eye disease and morbidity in the victims. But the studies were summarily discontinued in 1994. All research work was left to Madhya Pradesh government’s Centre for Rehabilitation Studies, which did some uninspired research. Meanwhile, some independent studies had also pointed to serious health crises, from cancer and mental problems to birth defects. But since there is no epidemiological study, it is easy to dismiss these as ailments caused by poverty and lack of hygiene. This is when the Supreme Court has repeatedly asked for the patient records to be computerised and for studies to determine health impacts of this toxic exposure.

Photo: Vikas Choudhary
 

Ongoing struggle for relief

In 1989, UCC paid some US $470 million (worth Rs 750 crore that year. Then the rupee devalued. This, along with interest, swelled to Rs 3,058.40 crore by 2009) as compensation for the disaster—one-seventh of the original demand from the Indian government. In return, under the Supreme Court brokered deal, all civil and criminal cases against the company were terminated. The apex court also laid down guidelines for the money—the family of the dead were to be given Rs 1-3 lakh, which was three times higher than compensation for deaths in motor vehicle accident cases, said the court. In addition, fully or partially disabled were to get Rs 50,000-2 lakh and those with temporary injury, Rs 25,000-1 lakh.

When the case began, the government said there were some 3,000 deaths and 30,000 cases of injury. Later, it was realised that many more were suffering from exposure to the poisonous gas. So, when the case was decided, compensation was doled out to virtually the entire city. Some 573,588 people got money as “affected” by the gas leakage—many times above the number of claims filed, and representing some 70 per cent of the city population in 1980. Of them, 5,295 were death cases, in which families of the victims got a paltry Rs 2-3 lakh as compensation. The rest—568,293—were classified as injured. As the government deducted what was paid over six years as interim relief, the final settlement was less than Rs 15,000 per victim.

This meant nothing to the victims whose medical bills have continued to mount. They say many deaths have not been counted. But courts and governments have continued to dismiss their plea to reopen the case of compensation settlement. Then in 2010, the Group of Ministers (GoM) on the Bhopal gas tragedy decided that it would only agree to enhance payments to the already counted victims. It agreed to an additional compensation of Rs 10 lakh in the 5,295 cases of death and Rs 1 lakh-5 lakh in the cases of disability, renal failure and cancer. But it added that the amount already paid should be deducted. The affected who have lost their lives and livelihoods say the GoM only rubbed salt in their wound— paid compensation to people who are not affected and neglected the many who suffer every day as they are not listed among those with serious and permanent disability.

Bhopal disaster 2.0

People of Bhopal are suffering another legacy of UCIL. The factory used to manufacture three pesticides: carbaryl (trade name Sevin), aldicarb (trade name Temik) and a formulation of carbaryl and gamma-hexachlorocyclohexane (g-HCH), sold under the trade name, Sevidol. For 15 years till the disaster, it dumped process wastes, by-products, solvents, sub-standard products, wastes from machinery and polluted water at dump sites inside and outside the plant. Another 350 tonnes of waste has been kept in a leaking shed at the site. These wastes are still lying at the site, polluting soil and groundwater. This second legacy—Bhopal Disaster 2.0—now threatens even a larger number of people than the first one. Many of the chemicals degrade slowly and are likely to remain in the environment for hundreds of years. They will keep spreading unless they are taken out and the site is decontaminated.

The worst part is cleaning and decontamination of the site has got embroiled in legal wrangles of how to clean the site, what should be done with the wastes and who should pay for it— state governments, the Centre, successor buyer of the factory, Dow Chemical, waste disposal and incineration companies, research institutes or non-profits.

In the past few years, particularly since the release of a study by Delhi non-profit Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), another controversy has erupted—whether or not the contamination has spread through groundwater. Most studies found groundwater surrounding the UCIL site to be contaminated with chlorinated benzenes and HCH isomers. Carbaryl, aldicarb, carbon tetrachloride and chloroform were also detected in some studies. All these can be linked to the wastes dumped by UCIL plant.

But in a study in 2010 by two key government institutes—National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) and National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI)—no groundwater contamination was found. These institutes only found isolated contamination, which they attributed to the annual surface runoff during monsoon. They concluded that due to extremely low permeability of the black and yellow silty clay, there is limited movement of contaminants towards the groundwater. Interestingly, this type of soil was only found at UCIL site. In surrounding areas, other studies have found far higher permeability. The implication of NEERI-NGRI study is huge. If the site is unique, and hence there is no groundwater contamination happening from the site, then the site can be cleaned-up easily and at a much lower cost. If that is not the case, then groundwater too will have to be decontaminated, which will be very expensive.

From the very beginning, UCC has shed its liability towards its Indian subsidiary, arguing that it had nothing to do with the disaster. As recently as August 2014, the US courts decided that UCC (and so Dow chemical) cannot be held responsible for the management of the Indian subsidiary. But one case still continues. In 2004, a resident of Bhopal, Alok Pratap Singh, filed a case in the Madhya Pradesh high court, demanding Dow be held responsible for the pollution. The Union government supported this position by filing an application in this case and asking Dow to deposit Rs 100 crore for environmental remediation. Dow has continued frantic lobbying to get the Indian government to withdraw its application—with everyone from industrialist Ratan Tata to former chairperson of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, and former finance minister, P Chidambaram, petitioning on behalf of the company.

But as of now, the high court has not deleted Dow from the list of respondents. So, maybe, in this case, the liability of the company, at least in terms of the hazardous waste it has left behind, will be established. The company will be required to pay for remediation or restoration at the very least. Then maybe, just maybe, the victims of Bhopal will get some closure. After 30 years.

WHY NO CLOSURE

This is because everything that could have gone wrong in the initial years after the tragedy went wrong. After this, all that the people and activists have done is to try and reverse those fatally damaging actions—with little success.

The Indian judiciary succumbed, many would say, by agreeing to a paltry compensation and by settling all civil and criminal liability of the company. Then the company did everything to ensure that its complicity and responsibility was diluted. One such instance is of not informing doctors of the real toxicity of the chemicals released and the treatment for them. ICMR failed the victims by not completing the studies that would have established the cause of their ailments and suggesting treatment protocols. So, there is a name for the disease—Bhopal Gas Disease—but no identification of who the affected are or what their treatment status is. The Union government, as a result, continues to argue that only 5,295 people died—in the first instance and never later—and 6,199 have been permanently disabled. It refuses to accept, without medical history, that the tragedy has been much more enormous and that death and disability stalk every house in the localities close to the factory. The state government put the final nail in their coffin by distributing the compensation amount so widely that it does not matter who is the actual victim and who is not.

But there are more reasons for the failure. First, there are too many institutions involved, and they have little interest in fixing the problem. In the case of medical relief, on paper, all has been provided to ensure that people get timely and best treatment. A super-speciality hospital has been set up. Treatment has been assured without payment. The Supreme Court even set up two committees—one to monitor the functioning of the medical system and the other to advise on what needs to be done for the best care of the victims. The state government has a separate department for gas relief and usually a senior minister is in charge of the department. Even at the Centre there is a clear mandate with the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers to oversee all affairs. Yet, medical care is abysmal. The victims continue to say they do not even have water to drink.

Take the issue of decontamination. The case is being heard by the Supreme Court and the Madhya Pradesh high court, who issue regular directions in this regard. Then there is a task force for removal of toxic waste from the plant, headed by the secretary of the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals at the Centre. An Oversight Committee is coordinating and monitoring activities relating to waste disposal, decontamination and remediation. The minister of state for environment chairs this committee. At the bottom of the rung are the Central and state pollution control boards, that are supposed to monitor the site and provide technical support for the decontamination work. The institutional logjam is such that there is no one institution that can be held responsible and accountable for decontaminating the site.

Secondly, over time, most residents of the city have moved away and beyond the disaster. The civil society groups that remain are intensely committed and driven by the injustice and lack of action. But there is such deep distrust between the government and activists working in Bhopal that every action proposed is obstructed—mainly by taking the matter to court. As national and international media interest remains high in the case, each incident is played out and charges and counter-charges are made on television and in newspapers. The result is everything has been left to the courts to decide; the state and the Central agencies have taken the backseat.

After the 1989 decision, which rewrote history of jurisprudence by absolving UCC of corporate criminal liability, the courts have given directions on relief and rehabilitation. But in the polarised and indifferent environment, even their directions have come to naught. This is partly because there is no clarity about what needs to be done and what can be done given the past mess-ups.

Photo: Surya Sen

What stands out is that Indian institutions are incapable of resolving conflicts. But there is learning for activists and non-profits. In no way should the fight become an end in itself so that issues remain unresolved.

BHOPALS IN OUR LIFE

The disaster had impacts far beyond the boundary of the ill-fated city and its people. It made a difference worldwide to the way that chemical and hazardous waste management was reinforced; workers’ safety precautions mandated; and legislation for environmental management strengthened. Perhaps, this is why we have not seen another Bhopal-like disaster in the past 30 years.

But the work is not over yet. In India we continue to see smaller industrial accidents—mini-Bhopals. Hazardous wastes are piling up in many parts, contaminating land and water and endangering lives. But we do not have the means or methods to remediate these toxic sites. How do we prevent not just another Bhopal but also the mini-Bhopals from happening?

Laws changed but not followed

The first major legislation that came post-Bhopal was the Environment (Protection) Act (EPA) of 1986. “EPA bears the stamp of the legislature’s immediate concern after Bhopal to strengthen the regulatory framework for hazardous industry and pollution control,” write lawyers, Shyam Divan and Armin Rosencranz, in their critique, Environmental Law and Policy in India. EPA is India’s first legislation that gave authority to the Centre to issue direct orders to close, prohibit or regulate any industry. It is also an enabling law, which delegates wide powers to the executive, allowing it to make rules to manage different issues. Over the years, EPA has been translated into a range of Central rules and regulations, laying down pollution norms and setting rules for the management of hazardous waste.

By 1989, the country got the Hazardous Waste (Management and Handling) Rules for management, storage and import of hazardous chemicals. Even the protection of coastal areas is done under EPA as its subordinate rules. In 1987, amendments were made in the Factories Act, 1948, which empowers states to appoint site appraisal committees to advise on the location of factories using hazardous processes. It also sets up systems for the safety of workers and residents nearby and specifies emergency disaster control plans. In 1991, the Public Liability Insurance Act was enacted to provide for immediate relief to persons affected by accidents while handling hazardous substances. Under the Act, an environment relief fund was set up to compensate affected people.

Despite these legislation in place, India is fast losing the battle of environmental protection and management of hazardous waste.

Take the Factories Act. According to the latest data published by the Ministry of Labour and Employment, in 2011, the total dead and injured in 2011 were 10,441. That year, over 1,000 people lost their lives in factory accidents. Not surprising that the states with the worst worker safety records were the industrialised Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Gujarat was the worst, with close to 250 dead and 3,000 injured. A review of past years’ newspaper reports shows industrial accidents continue to take place across the country. Just in the 10 months of 2014, there are reports of as many as eight industrial incidents, where workers have died or been hospitalised. Many more cases would have gone unreported.

In addition, there is the problem of growing toxic contamination of land and water. This means, even though hazardous waste management rules provide for inventories, storage and safe disposal of such toxic substances, these work more in the breach. As waste continues to stockpile, more areas are contaminated. In 2010, with great fanfare the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) launched a project for remediation of hazardous waste contaminated sites (see ‘Bhopal-like disasters in the making’). A total of 10 toxic sites were identified. Consultants were hired to plan for remediation and the matter has stopped there. These sites hold thousands of tonnes of highly toxic waste—like Bhopal’s UCIL factory.

Bhopal-like disasters in the making   Hazardous waste contaminated sites identified by the Central Pollution Control Board     Eloor-Edyar area, Cochin, Kerala: Sits over 200,000 tonnes of highly hazardous chemicals, pesticides waste Ranipet chromium contaminated area, Tamil Nadu: About 220,000 tonnes of chromium waste piles, of 2-4 metres high, cover 3 hectares Ratlam Industrial area, Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh:Contaminated with effluents from pharma industry, manufacturing H-Acid Chromium contaminated area, Sundargarh, Odisha: 50,000 tonnes of chromium waste dumped in open land Talcher chromium contaminated area, Talcher, Odisha:60,000 tonnes of waste from closed chrome salt manufacturing unit dumped in the open Ganjam mercury contaminated area, Ganjam, Odisha: Over 50,000 tonnes of mercury waste from closed caustic soda plants at different locations Juhi-Baburaiya-Rakhi-Mandi, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh: about 2 hectares of soil contaminated with roughly 10,000 tonnes of hexavalent chromium within densely populated settlement; owners not known Rania, Kanpur Dehat, Uttar Pradesh: About 45,000 tonnes of hexavalent chromium waste pile up on 200 hectares of private land Nibra Village, West Bengal: 4,440 tonnes of chromium waste dumped; owners not known Persistent Organic Pollutants contaminated area, Lucknow: Indian Pesticide Ltd generated 36,432 tonnes of hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) waste

The problem is institutional management provisions of legislation remain only on paper. For instance, the Chemical Accidents Rule provides for setting up a central crisis group. The information on the website of MoEF, its nodal ministry, shows just how inconsequential this has become for the government. The name and phone number of the head of the crisis group is given as T K A Nair, who was secretary in the mid-1990s. But the group does not exist, not even on paper. This is the real crisis of India. We have set up the framework but have nothing to fill it up with.

Agenda: 30 years hence

To chart this out, let’s understand the situation today. The state pollution control boards are required to give the industry consent to establish and then consent to operate. In addition, they must give authorisations under various EPA rules for plastic, battery, municipal waste and, now, e-waste. But all that the pollution boards do is to process the consent and authorisation. They do not have time to monitor compliance with standards for pollution or enforce their directions. This paperwork—processing consent applications—brings them their main source of income.

Our analysis shows that on an average, a state pollution board collects about one water sample per factory and surveys less than 25 per cent of the units for air quality. In fact, the entire environmental monitoring depends on self-reporting by industries, which are required to get samples of effluents tested in private laboratories and submit the data to the pollution board. It is another matter that the laboratories are, in many cases, extremely inadequate and unskilled. It is another matter that the pollution board officials do not even have time to look at the reports. It is about paperwork, not about controlling pollution. It is not about enforcement.

What really hurts is these self-monitored samples cannot even be used for enforcement. So, even if a report submitted by an industry shows that it exceeds the norms, the board cannot use this for enforcement. Instead, what is required is a cumbersome and highly suspect sampling protocol under which the board officials first have to inform the industry that they will be visiting—time and place—for inspection, and only this sample can be used for enforcement. It is, therefore, no surprise that only 2 per cent of the show cause notices get converted into legal action.

There is also no deterrence in the system. The maximum penalty imposed by courts under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act is Rs 10,000 and under EPA, it is Rs 1 lakh. But only courts can impose this penalty. So all the boards can do is to either deny the consent to operate or issue closure notice for 30 days. Both options are not feasible. So, very little is done to act against the polluter. Without effective enforcement, the system is not even worth the paper on which the many forms are filled and filed.

This is the case with clearances—environment, forest, coastal and wildlife—required for projects. These key instruments ensure that environmental damage is mitigated. These procedures have become riddled with processes, but no outcome. In the case of environmental clearances there is a near-zero rejection rate; instead, conditions are set at the time of sanctioning a project knowing fully well that there is no capacity or will to monitor compliance.

Forest clearance is an even bigger paper tiger—94 per cent of projects are cleared without an impact assessment of the project in terms of forest, biodiversity or livelihoods of the many who live in these habitats. Then, it is stipulated that compensatory afforestation will be done for each hectare diverted. But nobody really knows if the trees are even planted, let alone if they survive. The system continues with this farce of taking action—as if laws and processes are enough to make a difference. This can be fixed. Changing this requires strengthening institutions. This is the agenda for environmental governance 30 years after Bhopal.

Today pollution boards have high number of vacancies—from 30 per cent in states like Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Odisha to 60 per cent in Bihar and Karnataka. The Central Pollution Control Board is without a full time chairperson for the past some years. Working conditions across these institutions is poor. But all governments run away from this agenda. Instead of fixing what is broken, they make new institutions, adding to multiplicity and confusion.

The other agenda is to improve tools for compliance and enforcement. This requires taking hard decisions to decriminalise the current Acts, so that enforcement by civil administration is easier. Everything does not have to go to court for decision. But at the same time it means penalties need to be increased and processes must be made transparent. All this cannot be done unless there is a credible, rigorous system for collecting samples as you cannot hold a polluter responsible without proof.

The last, but most critical agenda post 30 years of Bhopal, is to do everything that increases the participation of local people, worst impacted by environmental degradation and toxification, in governance. This can be done through more transparent public hearings, more public data dissemination and ways in which people are heard, not just listened to.

The bottom-line is that India’s environmental management system is a half done job. It requires to be finished so that we can meet the challenges of growth in a way that is both sustainable and inclusive. Only then will we really learn the lessons of the world’s most horrific industrial disaster in Bhopal.

Liability cannot be forgotten

After 30 years, the government of India is still struggling to establish the liability of UCIL, its parent company UCC and its buyer, Dow Chemical. Shame.

Consider the difference. In 2009, when petroleum giant BP’s oil drilling led to a devastating spill in the Gulf of Mexico, US President Barack Obama did not need to ask, whose “ass he should kick”. His government held those responsible to pay for the damage and reversed the earlier decision to cap liability in such cases. In 1989, when Exxon spilled gallons of oil off the coast of Alaska, the compensation for economic loss and punitive damages was fixed at US $1 billion, as against the Bhopal “relief” of US $470 million. The dead seals of the Atlantic were valued higher than the thousands of humans who lost lives in Bhopal and continue to suffer even today.

In Bhopal, the US multinational company UCC argued sabotage. The Indian government could not (or would not) prove negligence or regulatory failure or even lack of responsible adherence to internal safety standards. The liability was never established, partly because of ignorance, combined with powerlessness. Today, when the government is faced with the cost of remediation of toxic waste—left behind by the company—it is still not able to establish the liability of the company. The GoM, led by former home minister P Chidambaram, recommended “that the government should request the courts to expeditiously decide the question of liability of Dow Chemical Company and/or any other successor to UCC/UCIL.” In other words, the government is not even prepared to look the facts in the face and decide that the company that polluted and left behind hazardous waste has to be held liable for cleaning it up.

The courts have also been vacillating on this issue. As lawyers Divan and Rosencranz explain, the Supreme Court replaced traditional doctrine of liability with the rule of “absolute” liability. In the Shriram gas leak case, decided by the Supreme Court in 1986, the then chief justice P N Bhagwati observed that the principles and norms for determining the liability of large enterprises engaged in the manufacture and sale of hazardous products were questions of greatest importance. So, in its judgement the Supreme Court bench established that the “enterprise owes an absolute and non-delegable duty to the community to ensure that no harm results to anyone on account of hazardous or inherently dangerous nature of the activity which it has undertaken”. The justices go on to say, “we would hold that enterprise strictly and absolutely liable to compensate all those who are affected by the accident and such liability is not subject to any of the exceptions which operate vis-à-vis the tortious principle of strict liability under the rule in Rylandsv Fletcher.” Under this rule, strict liability is subject to a number of exceptions, like sabotage or the plaintiff’s own fault, which reduce its scope. This principle was applied by the Madhya Pradesh high court to support its award of interim compensation to Bhopal gas leak victims. The court ruled that the liability of the enterprise is “unquestionable”.

But this principle of “absolute liability” was questioned and then subsequently whittled down by the Supreme Court, ironically when it was asked to review the Bhopal settlement. Justice Ranganath Misra and Justice M N Venkatachaliah rejected the “absolute” liability, saying UCC was entitled to its day in court when its defences, if factual, would be heard and tested. “Indeed”, said the justices, “we should not proceed on the premise that the liability of UCC has been firmly established. UCC has seriously contested the basis of its alleged liability.” By recognising UCC’s right to raise and urge defences, the court, say Divan and Rosencranz, stepped out from the “without exception” absolute liability principle, which it had earlier agreed to.

Corporate liability is a must

Bhopal is about our collective shame. It is also about how systems of corporate liability remain grossly inadequate in a world where technology is high-risk and unknown.

The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damages Act 2010 is about who will foot the bill for accidents from such hazardous technologies. Even today, this provision to hold the operator liable for nuclear damage is a bugbear in Indo-US talks. Why?

Why should we not demand that the operator must pay the cost of safety, even if it increases insurance premiums and so, raises the cost of energy that is supplied? If it makes nuclear energy unviable then it only reflects the cost of generation—in real and safe terms. In other words, why should we not demand that if we must continue to use high-risk technologies then we must take on expensive safeguards, even if it makes technology uncompetitive. In the post-Bhopal age, all technologies must pay the real cost of their present and future dangers. Only then will we, as a society, try and understand the risks better. Only then will we, as a society, make better technology choices.

Many countries have adopted the principle of absolute liability when it comes to the introduction of genetically modified organisms. The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (under the convention on biological diversity) is the world’s first such attempt to hold operators responsible for damage—both from imminent and real threats—from the use of new technology.

More importantly, the issue of corporate liability is crucial, for only then will powerful companies worry about the implications of their actions on tomorrow’s generations. Today, they think of short-term and run-away profits—in chemicals, GM foods, nuclear energy or mining and drilling—in ways where no one (or science) has ever gone. We need tough corporate liability so that companies think twice before they expose us to dangers. Let them fret; we want to sleep in peace.

This is why Bhopal must never be forgotten, indeed must be fixed. Dow Chemical must be held liable for the toxic waste still present in the abandoned factory. It must pay for the plant site’s remediation. It must do this quickly, before toxins spread more poison, travelling through groundwater, into people’s bodies. This is also why Bhopal is not just about Bhopal, but about our collective action to bring justice to the people and do right to the environment across the world.

After Gujarat, more states to harness solar power from canal-top

Haryana, Odisha explore possible sites

After the success of the canal-top solar plant in Gujarat, more states are planning similar projects. The Gujarat State Electricity Board’s 10 megawatt (MW) plant is built over a 3.6-kilometre stretch of the Sardar Sarovar Canal System. During the inauguration of this 10 MW plant in January this year, the Central government announced it would promote similar projects in other parts of the country and sanctioned Rs 228 crore to construct 50 MW of canal-top and 50 MW of canal-bank solar projects. SunEdison, one of the biggest solar power companies, based in the US, had also commissioned a 1 MW plant on the banks of the Krishna river for the Karnataka government.

Earlier this month, Haryana government announced the start of extensive feasibility study for the state to develop canal-top solar power project. “We are working to adopt the ‘green power generation’ project as commissioned by the Gujarat government on the Narmada River. Surveys by experts from HAREDA [Haryana Renewable Energy Department] and irrigation departments are under way to find suitable places across the state to place solar power grids,” HAREDA director Balraj Singh told media. 

An official of the irrigation department says such innovative renewable power generation options may also reduce wastage of water on account of evaporation during summers. “But it will be a challenge to protect the expensive glass panels and other metal structures stationed in the isolated locations.”  According to Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd, the 10 MW Gujarat plant has saved on 16 hectares of land, and will potentially prevent 90 million litres of water from evaporating each year.

The Haryana government says power generated from these plants would be costlier than the average solar power plant because of the cost of peripheral structures. The Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy will play a key role in the HAREDA project.

Another state to take cue from Gujarat is Odisha where the Odisha Hydro Power Corporation (OHPC) Limited has proposed to set up canal top solar power plants on experimental basis. “We are going to set up solar power plants on a 10 km length canal stretch on pilot-basis. The process of identification of suitable canal stretches has been undertaken.” says Prakash Kumar Nanda, Superintending Engineer. The water resource department is looking at Rengali irrigation project, Subarnarekha irrigation project and Puri canal to identify suitable space.

Canal-top projects have unique advantage of not using any land. In a country like India, land is scarce and heavily contested. So, these projects provide an alternative and also save water.

Question of viability

However, all the projects that have been installed have been financed entirely by state governments. So, finance is a key. The first MW installed on Sardar Sarover in Gujarat was estimated to cost Rs 17.71 crore. The cost of generation of power was Rs 6.20 per unit. Central Electricity Regulatory Commission announced the benchmark for levelized tariff of solar PV (tariff realised over the span of the project) at Rs. 6.86 per unit at the capital cost of Rs 12 crores per MW. The question is whether these projects can be commercially viable without the support of government subsidy.

UPDATED CURRENT AFFAIRS APRIL/28/2015

CURRENT AFFAIRS APRIL/28/2015

• INS Tarangini Departs for “Lokayan-2015”
  • INS Tarangini the Sail Training Ship of Indian Navy left Kochi on an eight month voyage through Europe to participate in the annual Tall Ship Races organised by Sail Training International 
  • During these eight months the ship will travel approximately 17 thousand miles under sails This year’s Tall Ship Races will be conducted primarily off the coast of United Kingdom, Norway, Denmark, Germany and Netherlands.
  • About 300 Sail ships of various sizes from all over the world are expected to participate in this year’s events.
  • Tarangini forms a part of Class A Sail Ships, the largest of the sailing fleet.
  • During this voyage, the Indian trainees would also get an opportunity to sail on foreign vessels as part of exchange of trainees.
           The theme for LOKAYAN -15 has thus been chosen as “TACKING FOR A BROADER REACH”. 
• Capgemini acquires iGATE for $4 billion
  • French IT services company Cap Gemini announced the acquisition of US-based IGATE for $4.04 billion in a combination of cash, stock and debt deal
  • This acquisition will boost the presence of Capgemini in North America which the largest IT-services market in the world.
  • IGATE is US-listed IT services company headquartered in New Jersey with revenues of $1.3 billion in 2014 North America is the largest market of IGATE accounting for 79 percent of its total revenue in 2014 followed by Europe (14 percent) and Asia-Pacific (7 percent).
  • Capgemini that reported total revenues of 10.573 billion euros in 2014 and has more than 145,000 employees in over 40 countries.
  • This deal will create an organization with €12.5 billion in combined revenue and 190,000 employees.
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets people of South Africa on their freedom day
  • Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeted the people of South Africa on their freedom day by remembering Madiba (Nelson Mandela).
  • Narendra Modi said "On Freedom Day we remember the beloved Madiba, an inspiration and a harbinger of change who strived to bring a better tomorrow for his people"
  • President Pranab Mukherjee had also extended his greetings and felicitations to the government and opend his arms for better relationship
• Afghan President arrives in India on 3-day visit PM Modi to hold bilateral talks
  • Ashraf Ghani is arriving on his first state visit to India,Seven months after took over as Afghanistan President
  • After he assumed his office he visited China and Pakistan which is seen in different meaniings by political analyst
  • He has already met Modi during the SAARC summit in Kathmandu last November
  • Mr.Ghani said Afghanistan is going to be a platform for regional and global cooperation, not a battlefield for proxy wars,
  • Mr Ghani emerged victorious in the Afghanistan presidential election
  Afghan President will be accorded a ceremonial welcome at Rashtrapati Bhavan and later go to Rajghat to lay a wreath at the memorial to Mahatma Gandhi
• Defence exercise " Akraman 2" conducted by Chetak Corps of South Western Command
  • The armed forces conducted major defence exercise "Akraman-II" in Rajasthan
  • The exercise was conducted by Bhatinda based chetak corps which is a part of South Western Command.
  • This exercise will provide ‘real time battle and situational awareness’ to its commanders.
  • About 300 Combat Vehicles, Main Battle Tanks, Long Range Arty Guns and about 10,000 troops are participating in the exercise
  • It will also test the capabilities of Indian Air Force in launching deep insertion of airborne and helicopter-borne army unit
• India not in race to hold 2024 Olympics bid
  • There was meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach at 7 RCR but there was no Concrete result regarding participation of India IN bid for holding 2024 Olympics in the country.
  • President Thomas Bach told "it's too early for India to host Games" A tripartite agreement is signed between Government of India, IOC and IOA for the development of Indian sports
  • Although India is world's second most populous nation, India has a poor record in Olympic competition
• Yashwant Sinha choosen for highest French civilian honour Officier de la Legion dHonneur
  • Yashwant Sinha a former finance minister of India a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has choosen for highest French civilian honour Officier de la Legion dHonneur (Officer of the Legion of Honour
  • As Minister of External Affairs, and Chair of the Indo-French Parliamentary Friendship Group since its very inception (2009-2014) Indo-French strategic
  • partnership launched during the visit of Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Paris (September 1998) has been made more strong by Yashwant Sinha
  • Yashwant Sinha has played importent role in strengthening the relationship between the two countries
  • The honour would be conferred on Mr Sinha by French Ambassador Francois Richier on behalf of the President of the country 
• Indian origin scientist,Sangeeta N Bhatia wins $ 250,000 Heinz Award
  Sangeeta N Bhatia an Indian-origin scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has developed artificial human microlivers for drug testing, has won a prestigious 250,000 dollars Heinz award for her significant work in tissue engineering and disease detection
  Sangeeta Bhatia has been named the recipient of the 2015 Heinz Award for Technology, the Economy, and Employment The artificial human micro livers made by Ms Bhatia's team are being used by many bio-pharmaceutical companies to test the toxicity of drug candidates which will open a new scope for medicine technology
  Ms Bhatia will receive her award on May 13 at a ceremony in Pittsburgh
  About the award:-
  The Heinz Awards annually recognise individuals for their extraordinary contributions to arts and humanities; environment; human condition; public policy; and technology, the economy, and employment and includes an unrestricted prize of 250,000 dollars