Pankaj Sekhsaria's Blog, page 10

Jan 1, 2005; a post on andamanicobar@yahoogroups.co.in; relationship between whale strandings and earthquake?

Jan 1, 2005

The item which I have pasted below is interesting and gives a whole new
angle to the earthquake!
shree venkatram


Earthquake: Coincidence or a Corporate Oil Tragedy?
December 28, 2004
By: Andrew Limburg
Independent Media TV
http://www.independent-media.tv/item....
ronment

Now I don't claim to be an expert on seismic activity, but there has been a series of events which led up to the 9.0 earthquake of the coast of Indonesia which can not be ignored. This all could be an enormous coincidence, but one must look at the information and choose for themselves whether there is anything to it. On November 28th, one month ago, Reuters reported that during a 3 day span 169 whales and dolphins beached themselves in Tasmania, an island of the southern coast of mainland Australia and in New Zealand. The cause for these beachings is not known, but Bob Brown, a senator in the Australian parliament, said "sound bombing" or seismic tests of
ocean floors to test for oil and gas had been carried out near the sites of the Tasmanian beachings recently.

According to Jim Cummings of the Acoustic Ecology Institute, Seismic surveys utilizing airguns have been taking place in mineral-rich areas of the world's oceans since 1968. Among the areas that have experienced the most intense survey activity are the North Sea, the Beaufort Sea (off Alaska's North Slope), and the Gulf of Mexico; areas around Australia and South America are also current hot-spots of activity.

The impulses created by the release of air from arrays of up to 24 airguns create low frequency sound waves powerful enough to penetrate  up to 40km below the seafloor. The "source level" of these sound waves is generally over 200dB (and often 230dB or more), roughly comparable to a sound of at least 140-170dB in air.  According to the Australian Conservation Foundation, these 200dB - 230dB shots from the airguns are fired every 10 seconds or so, from 10 meters below the surface, 24 hours a day, for 2 week periods of time, weather permitting.

These types of tests are known to affect whales and dolphins, whose acute hearing and use of sonar is very sensitive. On December 24th there was a magnitude 8.1 earthquake more than 500 miles southeast of Tasmania near New Zealand, with a subsequent aftershock 6.1 a little later in the morning that same day.  On December 26th, the magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck at the intersection of the Australian tectonic plate and the Indian tectonic plate. This is the devastating tsunami tragedy that we have all heard about in the Indian Ocean. The death toll of this horrific event has reached 120,000 souls and continues to rise.

On December 27th, 20 whales beached themselves 110 miles west of Hobart on the southern island state of Tasmania.  What is interesting about this is that the same place where the whale beachings have been taking place over the last 30 days is the same general area where the 8.1 Australian earthquake took place, and this is the same area where they are doing these seismic tests. Then 2 days after the Australian tectonic plate shifted, the 9.0 earthquake shook the coast of Indonesia.

A great deal of interest and seismic testing has been taking place in this area, as the government of Australia has given great tax breaks to encourage the oil exploration.
Two Geologists that I spoke to felt that it was highly unlikely that these seismic tests would have had enough energy to induce the Australian quake. On the other hand there is strong evidence that suggests that oil exploration activities have induced earthquakes in the past.

Again, I don't claim to be an expert. I'm writing this story to bring attention to some interesting facts, so that those who are experts can investigate this fully.
We will be following up on this story as more information is gathered.

A Colloquy On Books: The Last Wave by: Pankaj Sekhsaria

A Colloquy On Books: The Last Wave by: Pankaj Sekhsaria: Harish has always been an aimless drifter, but he finds the anchor to his life when he sees the slow but sure destruction of everything...

Jan 1, 2005: a post on andamanicobar@yahoogroups.co.in; revisiting the tsunami of Dec 2004

Jan 1, 2005

Manmohan deputes two Ministers to Andamans

By Our Special Correspondent
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, DEC. 30. The Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, has deputed his Minister of State for Home, Prakash Jaiswal, and the Minister of State for Information Technology and Communications, Shakeel Ahmed, to Port Blair and Car Nicobar to oversee the relief and rescue operations there following the devastation wrought by Sunday's tsunami.

At a press conference here this evening, Dr. Singh said the two Ministers would be stationed there for six to seven days. A Central team would visit the affected States and undertake an assessment of the damage and loss. Dr. Singh addressed the press at the Raj Bhavan after visits to Colachel and Tiruchi and a one-hour discussion with the Kerala Chief Minister, Oommen Chandy, and his Cabinet Colleagues.

Dr. Singh said the Government was considering a long-term rehabilitation plan that would emphasise on not only full rehabilitation but also better quality of life. "Professional expertise will be inducted for developing rehabilitation projects. House reconstruction will focus on improving the quality of habitat as well. Focus would be on area development."
The Centre would look into the need to improve the disaster forecasting and warning systems at the national and State levels and through international cooperation. Terming the tsunami tragedy a "national calamity", Dr. Singh said the Centre was committed to providing all possible help to ensure relief and rehabilitation. The Centre and the States would have to work together to bring out an environment-friendly development strategy.

New mechanisms

To a question on whether the Centre proposed to follow the same traditional path of rehabilitation, Dr. Singh said all innovative means would be considered, aimed at providing protection to the people from disasters. "This would include new mechanisms, including new insurance mechanism," he said. The Union Home Minister, Shivraj Patil, had already announced the decision to bring in a law to set up a National Disaster Management Authority. This would enable the country to handle national calamities.

Asked whether the Coastal Zone Regulation Act should not be enforced more strictly, Dr. Singh said all efforts should be directed in that direction. On whether he was satisfied with the international response to India's plight, he said several countries had offered assistance. The United States President, George W. Bush, had spoken to him personally offering his country's assistance. "But I told them we have enough resources and would be happy to receive assistance when needed."

Dr. Singh will visit the affected areas in Kollam and Alapuzha on Friday.

http://www.hindu.com/2004/12/31/stori...
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Debi Goenka
Bombay Environmental Action Group

Jan 1, 2005; a post on andamanicobar@yahoogroups.co.in; revisiting the tsunami of Dec 2004

on andamanicobar@yahoogroups.co.in
Jan 1, 2005

http://www.htnext.com/news/5922_1178504,001500230000.htm
Delhi housewife is 'Angel of Seas' in Andaman
AFP
Port Blair, December 31

A Delhi-based housewife in the Andaman islands has become the centre of a multi-nation effort by ham operators to unite thousands of families separated by the killer waves.
 The Andamans account for about a third of India's reported death toll of 11,330, but thousands more are missing or have been separated from families in the archipelago's 572 islands because of massive damage to harbours, bridges and local ferry services.
Ham radio buffs had not been permitted to operate in the Andamans since 1987 but the ban was lifted in November. Prasad was among the first to arrive to help establish a radio footrprint in the string of islands.
"We arrived here on December 15 to support Andamans as a radio country ...Amateur stations across the world wanted a footprint in these beautiful islands," Prasad said.
 "I did not expect a disaster like this. It is no longer a game and now we must help," Prasad said as her headset crackled with tsunami-related traffic from a high-frequency radio band.
Amateur stations in Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai are now linked with Prasad and the network is growing beyond Indian territory, said Suresh Babu, one of her five co-volunteers.

Jan 1, 2005: a post on andamanicobar@yahoogroups.co.in; revisiting the tsunami of Dec 2004

Jan 1, 2005

http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/dec/3...
Centre plans Integrated Relief Command for A&N

Syed Amin Jafri in Vijayawada/PTI | December 31, 2004 18:16 IST
Last Updated: December 31, 2004 18:33 IST

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday announced that the central government has decided to set up a four-member Integrated Relief Command for Andaman & Nicobar Islands in view of the situation prevailing there following the extraordinary devastation wrought by an earthquake and tsunamis. A&N Lt Governor Ram Kapse would head the IRC as the chairman while the commander-in-chief of integrated services would be the vice-chairman and head of the operations.

The chief secretary of the Union territory will be its Member Secretary and the fourth member will be a Union home ministry official.  The IRC will organize and oversee relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction work in the Union territory.

On a visit to Andhra Pradesh, the prime minister told mediapersons in Vijayawada that two Union ministers have also been deputed to the archipelago in the Indian Ocean till the relief work is completed.
He also intends to convene an all-party meeting in New Delhi 'in a day or two' to mobilise the 'collective will of the people' to meet the challenge.

Jan 1, 2005 - a field report from the islands on andamanicobar@yahoogroups.co.in; revisiting the tsunami of Dec 2004

Jan 1, 2005
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/fromt...
Field Report from Andamans 311204 1930hrs IST
31 Dec 2004 14:05:00 GMT

Source: NGO latest
SEEDS India

Sustainable Environment and Ecological Development Society (SEEDS) – India Website: http://www.seedsindia.org Field Report from Andamans

SEEDS, Port Blair. 31 December 2004. 1800 hrs IST

The SEEDS field assessment team reached Tamil Nadu on 27 December. We realised that there are some credible NGOs extending aid there. Meanwhile the toll in Andaman and Nicobar was rising and no assistance had reached there due to logistics problems. As such, we moved to the Andamans on 28 December and started relief operations here. Our update is below.

1. We are continuing our relief activities in the two relief camps in Port Blair where evacuees from three locations - Hutbay, Campbell bay, Nancowrie and Car Nicobar Island are being given shelter. These relief camps are being run in Nirmala school and School Line, both in Port Blair, where we have more than 1300 people in the camps right now and more keep coming in. People in the relief camps are being provided shelter, food, toilets and basic cleanliness and sanitation services.
2. Nicobar area is worst hit. The people were washed out, and these being islands in the middle of the ocean, many bodies did not wash back ashore. From back calculations (by counting heads and assuming missing persons as dead), the rough estimates of casualties are about 15,000 in this group of islands alone. Most of the evacuees from these islands are coconut farmers or run piggeries back on their islands.
3. The administration is still evacuating people from vulnerable areas and bringing them to Port Blair under fear of another tsunami. A false alert caused great panic yesterday.
4. There is still no other NGO doing relief work in Andaman and Nicobar. Some NGOs have come for reconnaissance work. There are two more camps being run in Port Blair, both by the administration. Only the administration and some small local groups are working. They are grossly inadequate.
5. There is damage in Port Blair in terms of infrastructure. The administration is busy with putting things back in place. These are primarily facilities that have been damaged, like communications, roads, airport and jetty.
6. We may take up a third relief camp if required.
7. There is an acute shortage of water as the pipe from the dam to the treatment plant has got damaged and not being repaired yet. We are not yet able to sort the problem of water and trying to get some technical expertise on the same.
8. We have put up tents, and are operating the kitchen, distributing food, organising local transport of material, and providing sanitation facilities. We need continued supply of basic provisions to carry this on, and need additional provisions like disposable plates etc. People need other specific things of basic necessity such as soap, towels, foot slippers, bedsheets,
torches, and bags to keep their belongings in. These are not available locally and will need to be transported to Port Blair by air urgently.
9. Taking relief from the mainland is a difficult process. Moving to remote islands is virtually impossible. For the time being SEEDS will run the two relief camps for evacuees in Port Blair.
10. Lakshmi, our logistics officer in the Delhi office accompanied by Sumati, a volunteer from ERM Delhi, is now in Chennai and procured our first load of commodities: soap, toothpaste and towels. This consignment is at the airport waiting to be airlifted. More relief material has been procured today and is currently being packed. It includes foot slippers and torches. The team will deliver this second consignment at the airport tonight and try to get it airlifted tomorrow. Tomorrow they will procure bedsheets and also bags for the evacuees to keep their belongings in.
11. The mission running the Nirmala School is very efficient and is playing a good role in management of the camp. We have provided tents, toilets etc. here and are extending full support for other things. The second camp also is running well now. Yuva Shakti, a local voluntary group is assisting us us, and 20 volunteers are working round the clock to improve and manage the camp.
12. Facilities like T.V , Radio and News Papers are being provided to the people in the camps.
13. Psychosocial Counselling to the victims has been started. Ms. Kanan, the owner of a local restaurant "Annaporna" is organising this with her team.
14. We are also tying up with local cultural groups for organising cultural evenings in the camps.
15. We have mobilised National Cadet Corps youth for monitoring the security and food supplies.
16. The District Administration has requested SEEDS to do a damage assessment and submit a report. We are organising a technical team for this. We will extend all possible cooperation to the District Administration as they are under tremendous pressure right now.
17. SEEDS has initiated its step towards taking up housing reconstruction work in the Islands. For this we have started some data action. Map Action from U.K. is supporting us on mapping the islands on which we intend to start work. At noon today our team also had a coordination meeting with the District Collector for discussions on the further steps.
18. Many concerned persons are contacting us from India and abroad through our Delhi office to find out about their friends or family missing in the Andamans. We are putting up the details of missing persons on a common board at a central location, and also get them aired on local radio. Any information required for any missing person in Andaman and Nicobar Islands
can be mailed to us at info@seedsindia.org with details and photograph of
the person and his/ her last whereabouts known.
 19. We are also getting offers from many volunteers willing to work for relief. We do not need them in Port Blair as there is shortage of accommodation, high cost of transport, and we are currently depending on local volunteers. We have up a volunteer roster on our website wherefrom any ngo needing support can directly access these volunteers. These volunteers include doctors.

Current indications of needs in Andaman and Nicobar are as follows:
Short Term Mid Term Long Term
§ Drinking Water
§ Soap and toiletteries
§ Towels
§ Bedsheets
§ Torches and batteries
§ Foot slippers
§ Expandable bags § Tents
§ Beddings
§ Utensils
§ Housing
§ Livelihood re-establishment
§ Community facilities
§ Disaster Mitigation and Preparedness programmes

We will try to wind up the relief camps by around 10 January, and facilitate the movement of the people back to their islands. By then we have to start planning assistance for reconstruction of houses and community facilities.

A parikrama around the Jarawa Reserve' - An extract from The Last Wave

"A parikrama around the Jarawa Tribal Reserve'
An extract from 'The Last Wave'
Pgs 236-237




(Illustration by Madhuvanti Anantharajan)

He now knew a little more about the islands, of the Jarawas, the settlers, about David, Uncle and Seema and, most important of all, himself. He had been on a parikrama both of the islands and of himself. If his emotions had betrayed him, they had also brought him a measure of acceptance – of his faults and his failures. Very importantly, however, he had a sense now of the direction his compass was pointing.
The fate of the Jarawa, as far as he could see, had been sealed and he wondered if there was anything he could do about it. All he had learnt of the Jarawa was only from the fringes of their lives, society and land – from the people occupying these fringes and the changing landscape around their forests. This fringe was now threatening to overwhelm the core, the original people were on their way to becoming the had-beens.
‘Something has to be done about this,’ he thought, ‘something can be done.’
He didn’t know what the Jarawa wanted, but did it matter? There was a fundamental reality to be acknowledged: that the Jarawa could not be asked, at least not for now. There was no language for that yet.
The world around the Jarawa, that of the settlers, the outsiders, was itself changing so rapidly that it too was bewildered. It had been trying in its own way to deal and engage with the Jarawa, with their much smaller, more intimate and ancient world, one that was mysterious and unwilling to yield with ease. Two worlds existed alongside each other, but they inhabited time zones and realities so distinct, they could have been on different planets. There was little, if anything at all, in common. When one did not know even how to communicate with the other, where was the question of a fair negotiation?

‘How would the Jarawa negotiate with this world?’ Harish had asked Seema on the bus journey back. This, he now realized, was not about the Jarawa anymore. It had perhaps never been about them – it was about him and the world that he came from. How could this world negotiate fairly with the Jarawa? That was the question and therein lay the challenge. Did it have the inclination? Did it even have the capacity and the understanding – the world that he belonged to, the world of Uncle Pame, Felix of Ranchi Basti, Pintu the boatman, Shiva the other boatman, Chandrashekhar Kumar the policeman, Michael Ross the British photographer, the balding middle-aged Jarawa tourist from a respectable middle-class Indian family, Basu the politician, Seema, David, Justice Singh . . .

This world knew, but it was refusing to see. The other original islanders, the Onge and the Great Andamanese, who had cohabited these forests with the Jarawas, had all but gone. The Jarawa were now being dragged down the same path. There was the evidence and the weight of history – the Jarawa would be pushed down the road to annihilation – that was the word David had used in their first meeting. What do the annihilated feel? That was not the question Harish wanted to ask. What does the annihilator feel? How would he, himself, feel when the Jarawa were no more? Not because he wanted them to be vanquished, but because he could do nothing about their slide into oblivion. The world he belonged to did not want to annihilate the Jarawa, but it did not seem to know better. That was the tragedy and Harish felt he had some idea of what could be done, at least what he wanted to do, of where he could perhaps start.


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Order a copy on Amazon.in: http://tinyurl.com/oaaaarr

Communication link restored at Campbell Bay, Car Nicobar; Jan 1, 2005; revisiting the tsunami of Dec 2004 on andamanicobar@yahoogroups.co.in

Jan 1, 2005

http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp...
Ministry of Communications & Information Technology
COMMUNICATION LINK RESTORED AT CAMPBELL BAY AND CAR NICOBAR WITH THE
COMMISSIONING OF INMARSATS & TELEPHONE EXCHANGE

EFFORTS ON TO RESTORE COMMUNICATION FACILITIES IN THE REST OF THE ISLANDS
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Jan. 1, 2005
15:46 IST
The Minister of Communications & Information Technology, Shri Dayanidhi Maran, reviewed the progress made in restoring of communication facilities in Andaman & Nicobar Islands, here today at a high level meeting. The Minister of State for Communications & Information Technology, Dr. Shakeel Ahmad, who reached Port Blair yesterday afternoon to over see the relief and restoration work, visited the affected areas and directed the officials to make all out efforts to restore the telephone exchanges and satellite communications in the Tsunami affected areas of the Island.
Meanwhile, Satellite Telephones have been commissioned at Campbell Bay and Car Nicobar with the installation of INMARSAT terminals by the team of engineers deputed by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL). The Satellite phones are now available to public for making calls. In addition to this a new telephone exchange of 256 lines (CDOT 256 Port) at Campbell Bay has been commissioned and is working with the telephone network of Andaman & Nicobar.
One MCPC (Multiple Channel Per Carrier) equipment shipped to Car Nicobar yesterday is under installation. One VSAT has been airlifted today to Car Nicobar Island with engineers.
Three teams with 7 INMARSAT terminals have already left for Kamrota, Katchal, Terassa and Champin islands. Another separate team with INMARSAT terminals has left for Hutbay Island. They will commission additional satellite phone services by tomorrow.
Efforts are on to provide PCOs in Bambooflat using Port Blair WLL systems' coverage. It may be recalled that Bambooflat telephone exchange was completely washed out by the tidal waves.
In order to reduce congestion at Port Blair exchange, more than 200 additional circuits have been commissioned from Port Blair to Chennai and Kolkata. Four numbers of power plants (25A), six engine alternators and 10 battery sets are being air-lifted to Port Blair in addition to 8 numbers of power plants (25A) already sent to Port Blair yesterday. Seven numbers of CDOT 256 port switches, two numbers of power plants and five numbers of INMARSAT terminals have been airlifted to Port Blair. In addition, three more 256 port exchanges with MDF (Main Distribution Frame) and 14 numbers of optimux (optical fibre equipment) are being airlifted to Port Blair for installation in the affected areas.   The entire operation of restoration of communication facilities in Andaman & Nicobar Islands is being supervised by a team of two senior officers of Department of Telecom, specially sent from Delhi.

Dec 31, 2004: a post on andamanicobar@yahoogroups.co.in; revisiting the tsunami of Dec 2004

Dec 31, 2004

Dear Friends,
This is the mail that Dr. Milind Bokil had sent yesterday, but did not come
through.
pankaj

GENDER NEEDS AND CONSTRAINTS DURING EARTHQUAKES


Dr. Milind Bokil Dr. Neelam Gorhe
OCAA – DST , Pune (India) Stree Aadhar Kendra, Pune (India)

Practical Gender Needs

Human beings have certain bodily needs but women have specific body cycles, which affect their physiological response. During the rescue and relief phases when the physical and biological spheres are affected the bodily phenomena need to be taken into consideration. The practical gender needs have close bearings on these physiological aspects.

- During the rescue phase, women and children are given precedence over men. Their rescue and protection is given highest priority. This is a welcome civil feature. However, the same attitude is not maintained afterwards.
- During the relief phase, which lasts for about two to four weeks many women undergo menstrual cycles. The homeless women are extremely handicapped in this regard. The necessary sanitary clothing is not made available, as this need is not recognised as a part of relief items. It is found that most of the relief gatherers and providers are men and they do not understand this need. As this topic is a taboo in Indian society, it is
not expressed openly and remedial action is not attempted. The lack of sanitary clothing can pose serious health hazards.
- In the same phase, women face grave problems due to lack of toilets and bathing facilities. Although most of the Indian villages are without latrines and people are habituated to use open spaces, this need becomes acute during disasters as the conventional order and arrangements are broken. The sites of disasters are thronged by relief providers and spectators as a result of whom the necessary privacy is lost. In urban areas this is the predominant difficulty. Relief operations seldom start with construction of toilets and bathrooms. In most cases they are constructed last, as appendages to shelters.
- Relief items do not reflect the priorities and preferences of women. The usual relief items include blankets, plastic sheets, tarpaulins, buckets, metal and plastic cans, water containers and so on. However, the specific cooking equipment like stoves, small pots and vessels, spoons, plates, katoris, fry pans, etc. do not necessarily form the list of supplies. Stoves without kerosene are useless. Fuel wood is seldom supplied.
- Similarly, women’s needs and priorities are not attended to while providing clothing. Sarees are provided but not petticoats and readymade blouses. Sarees are of no use without these ancillaries. The need is also for under-garments, which are often not provided. The most notable deficiency is that the donors do not think about the cultural acceptability of clothing. Problems arise when supplies come from overseas. Similarly, the needs of young girls are not specifically catered to. Young girls need readymade dresses like salwar and kameez but they come in short supply.
- Relief operations also do not consider the needs of pregnant and newly delivered women as well as the post-operative cases. These women are most vulnerable to physical and psychological shocks, and hence, need to be cared for. They need special diet, medical care and hygienic environment which is difficult to obtain even in normal times.
- The medicines sent out to the disaster areas are not sorted and classified. As a result, a good deal of energy is wasted in identifying a correct medicine. Many times, irrelevant medicines are sent which compound the problem rather than solving it. Similarly time-barred and obsolete medicines are received. Medication on hypertension and diabetes is often wanting. These two ailments pose a big health hazard in any post-disaster situation. As these medicines need to be taken punctually, their absence can cause physiological and surgical emergency. Women, due to  their emotional nature, are prone to hysterics. Psychological counselling is required but at the same time anti-depressant, anti-hysteric drugs and sedatives need to be administered which are often in short supply. These drugs need to receive priority over tonics and vitamin tablets.
- Spectacles are the first items lost or broken during any disaster. Though it is difficult to provide customised lenses, most of the people above of forty require reading glasses, which can be provided on large scale. Here again, gender biases play a role as women are not encouraged to check up their eye-sights regularly or wear spectacles. Many of them have impaired vision and night blindness. The latter is the direct outcome of nutritional deficiency.
 - Another need that is urgent but goes unnoticed is footwear, which is the first casualty in any disaster. Relief supplies seldom contain footwear, as traditionally anything that is connected with leather is considered inauspicious. Although rubber and synthetic materials have long replaced leather, this stigma has not vanished. There are also differences in men and women’s types of footwear. Even when such supplies arrive (mostly from overseas) they are ill suited to local conditions. Leather boots, sports shoes or high heeled footwear are not useful. Slippers or sandals are most suitable and it is also possible to supply them in bulk. This is unisex footwear and does not cause any discrimination.
After the first phase of relief and before the onset of rehabilitation
phase, there ensues an interim phase which also entails certain gender
needs. These are as follows.

- During the interim phase, the affected families need basic amenities like shelter, sanitary arrangements, drinking water, electricity, transportation, and communication. Some of the amenities like sanitation and drinking water are transformed into specific gender needs. Traditionally, Indian villages are not adequately equipped with sanitary arrangements and, hence, this need is not fulfilled during the interim process. The critical issue is that of drinking water as fetching the water is considered to be a woman’s duty. The unavailability or inadequacy of clean, potable drinking water not only increases the work burden on women but also jeopardises their productive activities. This is also true of fuel. Relief items do not necessarily consist of wood or any other fuel. This need has to be fulfilled immediately if the affected families are to resume their normal life.
- Another practical need is employment. The employment needs in the post-disaster situation are critical as traditional means and sources are
destroyed. Most of the relief and rehabilitation activities, particularly those related to building and construction of infrastructure, are male centred and male-intensive. Women do not receive adequate employment in these activities. At the same time, specific employment generation programs for women are neither undertaken nor conceived.

Gender Constraints
In the rescue phase, when the most important thing is to save one’s life, gender constraints prove a handicap. Although, men and women have certain bodily differences, nature does not differentiate between the sexes as far as human abilities are concerned. The abilities or lack of abilities, to be precise, are a product of culture and, hence, could be appropriately analysed from the gender perspective.
- Although women are given a priority in the rescue process, they face considerable obstacles in rescuing themselves. This is because they are not trained in essential, life saving skills like swimming, tree-climbing, jumping, running, etc. The practice of gender discrimination prevents girls from acquiring these skills and this turns out to be a fatal handicap. The traditional Indian clothing (five-yard saree) also makes things difficult for them.
- The traditional practices of keeping women away from death and funeral related rituals prove a handicap in disaster situations. The tradition not only deprives women from attending the funeral rites but also creates difficulties in identifying the deceased.
- Another handicap is the low level of literacy among women and subsequent lack of exposure to outside world. The women get confounded after the disaster, especially when they are accommodated in relief camps outside their villages or taken to hospitals at far off places. They are at a loss after being discharged from the hospitals, as they cannot easily reach their homes. The lack of exposure to communication and transportation links creates these disadvantages.
- It is noticed that women withstand the disaster better than men due to
better tensile strength and higher levels of endurance. However, their malnourished status and nutritional deficiencies pose a handicap in post-disaster situations, especially in post-operative or convalescent stages and also in the wake of epidemics.
- Although, no discrimination is made in administering professional medical treatment, the injured or convalescing women do not get the mandatory rest or respite from domestic chores. They are not only expected to look after their homes but also care for the injured or hospitalised relatives.
- During the relief and rehabilitation phases, schools are reopened but it is observed that girl-students often drop out at this stage. Conventionally, the proportion of girls dropping out of schools is high, especially among poor, labouring classes. Their vulnerability increases manifold after the disasters.

Review of The Last Wave

BLENDING FICTION WITH FACTS: SHOWCASING THE JARAWA TRIBE’S PLIGHT
August 11, 2014    by K Naresh Kumar
New genres in book publishing, especially in English language, have been a constantly evolving trend. While on the one hand Indian authors are beneficiaries of a new young readership, both within India and abroad, they have also been encouraged to go beyond the ordinary to write and unearth new forms of fiction and non-fiction, with largely successful results.
Pankaj Sekhsaria and his new book ‘The Last Wave’ is one such effort. An environmental activist, Sekhsaria has a basic degree in Mechanical Engineering from Pune University and has followed it with a Master’s Degree in Mass Communication from Jamia Milia Islamia, New Delhi.
Having been actively involved with the civil society movement for a considerable stretch of time, it can be assumed that such outputs are commonplace for the authors of Pankaj’s ilk. However, hearing him outline the reasons for his recent endeavour makes you feel it has been a multi-pronged initiative.
During the book reading session on Saturday evening at Lamakaan which had an audience comprising a few from abroad as well, Pankaj elaborated on the background of his book which was primarily a throwback to the frustrating times which he faced when highest judicial activism failed to protect the people it was intended for. He was alluding to the fate of Jarawas, the indigenous tribe of Andaman and Nicobar, who have been forced to re-alter their lifestyle to end up as entertainers for the mainstream visitors from India, getting corrupted with addictives generously shared by the outsiders and being susceptible to other forms of exploitation. Ironically, the order of the Supreme Court, passed in 2002, ordering the closure of theGreat Andaman Trunk Road, connecting the mainland to the Jarawa settlement – the biggest threat to the Jarawa tribe in recent years- is still functional, a good 12 years after it was passed.
So what is the book, listed among the top ten selling books in the fiction category in Hyderabad, all about? As its blurb says: ‘Ever the aimless drifter, Harish finds the anchor his life needs in a chance encounter with members of the ancient – and threatened – Jarawa community: the ‘original people’ of the Andaman Islands and its tropical rainforests. As he observes the slow but sure destruction of everything the Jarawa require for their survival, Harish is moved by a need to understand, to do something. His unlikely friend and partner on this quest is Uncle Pame, a seventy-year-old Karen boatman whose father was brought to the islands from Burma by the British in the 1920s.
The islands also bring him to Seema, a ‘local born’ – a descendant of the convicts who were lodged in the infamous Cellular Jail of Port Blair. Seema has seen the world, but unlike most educated islanders of her generation, she has decided to return home. Harish’s earnestness, his fascination and growing love for the islands, their shared attempt to understand the Jarawa and the loss of her own first love all draw Seema closer to Harish.
As many things seem to fall in place and parallel journeys converge, an unknown contender appears: the giant tsunami of December 2004. The Last Wave is a story of lost loves, but also of a culture, a community, ecology poised on the sharp edge of time and history. The book is published by Harper Collins and priced at Rs. 350.

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