IN INDIA DISCUSSION ON CASTE HEATS UP AS ALWAYS

[ Government help is no longer needed, a few readers of The New York Times said. “If this is the golden period for Dalits then why do they still need reservation in government jobs and education?,” writes Sapan Kapoor from India. “Reservation has done its job and now is the time to have a level playing field,” he said]

By The New York Times

A Dalit drinks water from some upper caste people (sic).
Image courtesy: Dalits in India 

Writing about caste in India often generates a heated response, and “India’s Boom Creates Openings for Untouchables,” a recent article in The New York Times about successful Dalit, or “untouchable,” entrepreneurs, was no exception. Readers weighed in on social mobility in India today and the role caste continues to play in the country, often in stark and argumentative terms.

“We Indians are the biggest racists,” wrote Paul George from India in the comment other readers recommended most. “We discriminate on the basis of caste, colour, religion, north-south divide, you name it.Yes, money erases the caste and temple doors will open,” he wrote.

“All the talk from Indians about Indian culture and religion amount to nothing but rubbish,” wrote Kalidan from New York. “There is no culture that I have seen or experienced, in which people treat each other with more contempt. Ask any Indian who flies Air India how they are treated.”

Others argued that the fact that Ashok Khade, the main businessman in the article, was able to transform himself from poverty-stricken child to millionaire businessman was inspiring proof that the system is improving.

The UP Chief Minister Mayawati. Reuters has dubbed her
India's  "Untouchables Queen"

“It is very important to credit the Indian government for putting in place the world’s largest affirmative action system early on to tackle this enormous problem,” wrote Dhakai Porotha from Boston, Mass.

That system has been so successful that more people want in, the Wall Street Journal reported recently. The number of so-called “backward classes” in India has almost doubled since 1993, the Wall Street Journal reported, increasing the number of people “that are entitled to 27% of central-government jobs and university admissions, and a varying proportion of state jobs.”

Government help is no longer needed, a few readers of The New York Times said. “If this is the golden period for Dalits then why do they still need reservation in government jobs and education?,” writes Sapan Kapoor from India. “Reservation has done its job and now is the time to have a level playing field,” he said.

Is Mr. Khade’s rags-to-riches tale an inspirational example of what’s possible in modern India or an anomaly? Why does the subject, after decades of discussion, still raise such heated response?

@ The New York Times

REPORT CONDEMNS JAPAN’S RESPONSE TO NUCLEAR ACCIDENT

[According to the report, a final version of which is due by mid-2012, the authorities grossly underestimated the risks tsunamis posed to the plant. The charges echoed previous charges made by nuclear critics and acknowledged by the operator of the plant, Tokyo Electric Power.]

By Hiroko Tabuchi

TOKYO — From inspectors who abandoned the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant as it succumbed to disaster to a delay in disclosing radiation leaks, Japan’s response to the nuclear accident caused by the March tsunami fell tragically short, a government-appointed investigative panel said on Monday.

The problems, which the panel said had exacerbated the extent of the disaster, were outlined in a 500-page interim report detailing an investigation into Japan’s response to the calamitous events that unfolded at the Fukushima plant after the March 11 quake and tsunami knocked out all of the site’s power.

Three of the plant’s six reactors overheated and suffered fuel meltdowns, and hydrogen explosions blew the tops off three reactor buildings, leading to a massive leak of radiation at levels not seen since Chernobyl in 1986.

The panel attacked the use of the term “soteigai,” which translates to “unforeseen,” by plant and government officials to describe the unprecedented scale of the disaster and to explain why they were unable to stop it. Running a nuclear power plant required officials to foresee the unforeseen, said the panel’s chairman, Yotaro Hatamura, a professor emeritus in engineering at the University of Tokyo.

“There was a lot of talk of soteigai, but that only bred perceptions among the public that officials were shirking their responsibilities,” Mr. Hatamura said.

According to the report, a final version of which is due by mid-2012, the authorities grossly underestimated the risks tsunamis posed to the plant. The charges echoed previous charges made by nuclear critics and acknowledged by the operator of the plant, Tokyo Electric Power.

Tokyo Electric had assumed that no wave would reach more than about 20 feet. The tsunami hit at more than twice that height.

Officials of Japan’s nuclear regulator present at the plant during the quake quickly left the site, and when ordered to return by the government, they proved of little help to plant workers racing to restore power and find cooling water, the report said.

Also, the workers left at Fukushima Daiichi had not been trained to handle multiple failures, with no clear manual to follow, the report said. A communications breakdown meant that workers at the plant had no clear sense of what was happening.

In particular, an erroneous assumption that an emergency cooling system was working led to an hours-long delay in finding alternative ways to draw cooling water to the plant, the report said. All the while, the system was not working, and the uranium fuel rods at the cores were starting to melt.

And devastatingly, the government failed to make use of radiation data to predict the movements of the radioactive plumes released from the plant to warn local towns and direct evacuations, the report said. The failure helped expose entire communities to harmful radiation, the report said.

“Authorities failed to think of the disaster response from the perspective of victims,” Mr. Hatamura said.

But the interim report seems to leave ultimate responsibility for the disaster ambiguous. Even if workers had realized that the emergency cooling system was not working, they might have not been able to prevent the meltdowns.

The panel limited itself to suggesting that a quicker response might have mitigated the core damage and lessened the release of radiation into the environment.

“The aim of this panel is not to demand responsibility,” Mr. Hatamura said. He also said the panel’s findings should not affect debate on the safety of Japan’s four dozen other nuclear reactors.

Taro Umemura contributed reporting.

@ The New York Times