{"id":59742,"date":"2016-10-13T20:58:54","date_gmt":"2016-10-14T02:58:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=59742"},"modified":"2016-10-13T13:57:56","modified_gmt":"2016-10-13T20:57:56","slug":"304million-indians-without-electricity-but-india-wants-to-supply-sri-lanka-electricity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/10\/13\/304million-indians-without-electricity-but-india-wants-to-supply-sri-lanka-electricity\/","title":{"rendered":"304million Indians without electricity but India wants to supply Sri Lanka electricity!"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em><strong>Shenali D Waduge<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><em>Nearly 400\u00a0million Indians have no access to electricity.\u00a0Although India has less than a fifth of the world\u2019s population, it has close to 40 percent of the world\u2019s population without access to electricity.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>So says Sunila S. Kale, assistant professor of international studies. Without spending money to provide for Indians, the Indian Government wants to supply Sri Lanka electricity through a submarine cable. How fair is this by the Indian people? This suggestion has been mooted over several years but has been delayed in view of Sri Lanka having to bear the cost of laying the submarine cable under the Sethusamuram canal. All we can say is that this proposal looks to be another sell-out if Sri Lanka agrees for no country hands over national security assets like food security, energy security, water security, port\/airport security into foreign hands \u2013 especially to a neighbor that created, trained and funded 30 years of terrorism and is continuing to destabalize Sri Lanka. Just imagine how much we would have to suffer without electricity when Chief Ministers of India start throwing tantrums against Sri Lanka! The thought itself suffices to enter into minimum nationally non-detrimental dealings with India.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Facts about India<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Population 1.3billion (2<sup>nd<\/sup> populace country in the world)<\/li>\n<li>more than 50% of its population below the age of 25<\/li>\n<li>more than 2000 ethnic groups<\/li>\n<li>80% are Hindus \/ 13.4% are Muslim \/ 2.3% Christian \/ 2% Sikh \/ 0.8% Buddhists<\/li>\n<li>41.03% of the Indians speak Hindi<\/li>\n<li>Literacy 74%<\/li>\n<li>22% of population below poverty line<\/li>\n<li>7.8% unemployed<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Electricity in India <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=P90yDhODiXE\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=P90yDhODiXE<\/a> &#8211; 5 Indian state villages without electricity<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>304million Indians do not have electricity (some figures say 400million)<\/li>\n<li>India is the third largest electricity producer &amp; consumer in the world, only after US &amp; China<\/li>\n<li>In India a village is considered electrified if public places in the village and 10 per cent of its households have access to electricity<\/li>\n<li>As of April 1, 2015, according to government numbers, 18,452 Indian villages were still un-electrified.<\/li>\n<li>as of March 10, 2016, for around 300 villages, the status said: Village declared electrified by discom [power distribution company]. GVA yet to visit the village for verification.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>The villages Panalomali, Kusadangar, Patyetapali in Odisha and Sunwara in Madhya Pradesh \u2014 all counted as electrified villages \u2014 have no people residing there. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/opinion\/op-ed\/on-paper-electrified-villages-in-reality-darkness\/article8397038.ece\">http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/opinion\/op-ed\/on-paper-electrified-villages-in-reality-darkness\/article8397038.ece<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Frequent power outages lasts for a whopping 10 hours!<\/li>\n<li>Meghalaya, Jammu &amp; Kashmir, Andaman &amp; Nicober, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu are, among states, affected to a significant level due to power cuts &#8211; Power shortages are most prominent in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Odish<\/li>\n<li>Bloomberg report says India has missed every annual target to electricity production capacity since 1951<\/li>\n<li>Due to frequent power cuts 61% companies suffer more than 10% loss in production<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Security guards have to be trained to pull out screaming people from elevators when they get stuck in between floors.\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dnaindia.com\/analysis\/standpoint-how-do-people-in-india-cope-with-power-cuts-2133519\">http:\/\/www.dnaindia.com\/analysis\/standpoint-how-do-people-in-india-cope-with-power-cuts-2133519<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-59745\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/shenali13101601.png\" alt=\"shenali13101601\" width=\"558\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/shenali13101601.png 558w, https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/shenali13101601-300x215.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 558px) 100vw, 558px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-59746\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/shenali13101601-1.png\" alt=\"shenali13101601\" width=\"558\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/shenali13101601-1.png 558w, https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/shenali13101601-1-300x215.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 558px) 100vw, 558px\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-59747\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/shenali13101602.png\" alt=\"shenali13101602\" width=\"639\" height=\"326\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/shenali13101602.png 639w, https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/shenali13101602-300x153.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 639px) 100vw, 639px\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-59748\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/shenali13101603.png\" alt=\"shenali13101603\" width=\"476\" height=\"472\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/shenali13101603.png 476w, https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/shenali13101603-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/shenali13101603-300x297.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 476px) 100vw, 476px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Water in India<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>India ranks 120th out of 122<\/strong> nations for its water quality and 133rd out of 180 nations for its water availability.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>only 18% <\/strong>of a total rural population of 833 million Indians have access to treated water. However, 41% of the rural population, or 346 million people, own mobile phones. (Source &#8211; UNITUS Seed Fund)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>one-third of rural households<\/strong> in India are reached by piped water supplies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>2011 census estimates that 138 million rural households, or about 685\u2013690 million people, lack access to safe drinking water.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>in <strong>Bihar, less than 2%<\/strong> of the rural population receives treated water.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>WHO estimates that, in India, about <strong>38 million people are affected by waterborne diseases each year, of which over 75% are children<\/strong>; 780,000 deaths are attributable to contaminated water and <strong>more than 400,000 can be attributed <\/strong><strong>\u2028<\/strong><strong>to diarrhea alone.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Health, hygiene &amp; sanitation<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>638 million people defecate in the open<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>According to the Public Health Association, only 53 per cent of the population wash hands with soap after defecation, 38 per cent wash hands with soap before eating and only 30 per cent wash hands with soap before preparing food<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Only 11 per cent of the Indian rural families dispose child stools safely. 80 per cent children\u2019s stools are left in the open or thrown into the garbage.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>only 32% of rural households have their own toilets<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>less than half of Indian households have a toilet at home<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>A staggering 70% of the rural population have minimal access to health care that are miles away from their home town<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>According to the Medical Council of India (MCI), the total number of registered doctors in the country is 9,36,488 as on December 31, 2014. as on 31.12.2013 auxiliary nurses midwives are 7,56,937 &amp; registered nurses\/midwives are 16,73,338<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>India produces 50,000 doctors a year<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>2.1million Indians suffer HIV<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-59749\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/shenali13101604.png\" alt=\"shenali13101604\" width=\"544\" height=\"412\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/shenali13101604.png 544w, https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/shenali13101604-300x227.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 544px) 100vw, 544px\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-59750\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/shenali13101605.png\" alt=\"shenali13101605\" width=\"507\" height=\"415\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/shenali13101605.png 507w, https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/shenali13101605-300x246.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 507px) 100vw, 507px\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-59751\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/shenali13101606.png\" alt=\"shenali13101606\" width=\"523\" height=\"402\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/shenali13101606.png 523w, https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/shenali13101606-300x231.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 523px) 100vw, 523px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Food<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>India ranked 97th of 118 in hunger index194million Indians are starving for food (but India dropped parippu over Sri Lanka\u2019s North in 1987 just to show its might)<\/li>\n<li>23021% of its population undernourished21% of its population undernourished21% of its population undernourished21% of its population undernourished21% of its population undernourished<\/li>\n<li>44% of under-5 children underweight44% of under-5 children underweight<\/li>\n<li>7% of them dying before they reach five years<\/li>\n<li>More than a million Indians are millionaires, yet, most Indians live on less than Rs 100 a day. An estimated 29.8% of India\u2019s population lives below the national poverty line.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-59752\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/shenali13101607.png\" alt=\"shenali13101607\" width=\"649\" height=\"459\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/shenali13101607.png 649w, https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/shenali13101607-300x212.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 649px) 100vw, 649px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Women<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>India is one of the 5 countries where its unsafe for women<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>India has the highest number of street children in the world, as per the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights<\/li>\n<li>rape cases have risen from 16,075 in 2001 to 24,923 in 2012, the rates of conviction have dropped from 40.8% to 24.2% in the same period.<\/li>\n<li>India leads the world with the most murders (32,719) per year<\/li>\n<li>More than 2.3 million girls and women are believed to be in the sex industry in India, and more than 200,000 persons were trafficked into the country annually<\/li>\n<li>15 percent of the country\u2019s estimated 2.3 million prostitutes were children<\/li>\n<li>UN reported that an estimated 40 percent of prostitutes were below 18 years of age.<\/li>\n<li>According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), one woman dies every hour in dowry-related crimes in India<\/li>\n<li>estimated 2.4 million child workers<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These statistics clearly highlights that Indian Governments have much to do to look after their own citizens who number 1.3billion rather than poking their noses into foreign countries who have governments elected to look after their citizens.<\/p>\n<p>Sri Lankan advisors and consultants may be taken to India and given a paid holiday and spoon fed on the wonders of the proposal to effectively entice the clueless Sri Lankan Ministers to sign on any dotted line but in the case of areas such as food, energy, ports\/airports, high security zone areas, strategic leverage areas \u2013 none of these should fall into foreign hands whereby the dangers of them dictating what is given and what is not and when it will be given and when it will not will be too heavy a price for Sri Lankans to pay. Already the yahapalana government have jeopardized the internal security mechanisms \u2013 locked up intelligence officers, needlessly hounding the rest, stranger than fiction has been the \u2018accident\u2019 at the Salawa ammunition camp, officers are indirectly told to do as they are told and nothing else and all these are signs of an appeasing government taking the country and its people to greater calamity if they do not wake up and get their act in order.<\/p>\n<p>This electricity project should be once again shelved and delayed inspite of numerous underarm tactics that the Indians would play. That they are resorting to such will go to show and justify why we should not enter such agreements. It takes only a simple example. Indian fishermen are straying into Sri Lanka\u2019s territorial waters, they are coming in thousands of internationally banned trawlers to steal our fish, not only that they are causing irreparable damage to the marine\/coastal bed (it is as a result of the usage of these trawlers that the Tamil Nadu coast has been ruined and there are no fish and thus the reason why TN fishermen are straying into our seas) These illegal acts end up with the navy arresting the fishermen and then releasing, arresting and releasing after Tamil Nadu politicians and CM breathes fire down the Indian PM and the Indian Government has no choice but to listen and then fire a call to Sri Lanka ordering the fishermen to be released.<\/p>\n<p>Is this example not good enough to realize the danger if we are to take electricity from India \u2013 just imagine if electricity is denied until the Sri Lankan Government agrees to India\u2019s demands and until such time we will be without electricity \u2013 food will get affected, factories will be affected, hospitals will face great calamity, homes will get affected, childrens studies will get affected \u2013 the damage will be huge. Is it worth taking such a risk?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Shenali D Waduge<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/artsci.washington.edu\/news\/2013-10\/much-rural-india-still-waits-electricity\">https:\/\/artsci.washington.edu\/news\/2013-10\/much-rural-india-still-waits-electricity<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.healthissuesindia.com\/2014\/02\/05\/sanitation-health-hygiene-india\/\">http:\/\/www.healthissuesindia.com\/2014\/02\/05\/sanitation-health-hygiene-india\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/indiatoday.intoday.in\/story\/black-out-looms-large-across-india-as-coal-stocks-dry-up-in-plants\/1\/366604.html\">http:\/\/indiatoday.intoday.in\/story\/black-out-looms-large-across-india-as-coal-stocks-dry-up-in-plants\/1\/366604.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shenali D Waduge Nearly 400\u00a0million Indians have no access to electricity.\u00a0Although India has less than a fifth of the world\u2019s population, it has close to 40 percent of the world\u2019s population without access to electricity.\u201d So says Sunila S. Kale, assistant professor of international studies. Without spending money to provide for Indians, the Indian Government [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shenali-waduge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59742\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}