September 19^th, 2010

Flooding in India, Nicolas Duncan

Flooding and landslides due to heavy rains in northern India have killed at least 63 people since Saturday; most deaths have been caused by collapsing houses, drowning, and landslides. There have been near 5,000 evacuations from the three worst flooded districts of Uttarakhand state.  The flooding caused by the heavy rains has raised the levels of Uttarakhand’s major rivers above their danger levels, cutting off communication links and blocking highways says disaster-management secretary, Rakesh Kumar. Rescue crews have been called up by the state government in the form of the army and federal emergency crews. Schools and colleges have been canceled for the next three days. The main weather office in Uttarakhand has forecasted heavy rains during the next 24 hours.

September 13, 2010

Kashmir Protests, Nicolas Duncan

Over the course of the summer the northern most state of India, Kashmir has been a hot spot of protests and violence. Kashmir is an Indian-administered state and there is discontent among the Muslim people living there. Discontent has been widespread this summer due to certain circumstances; On June 11th of this year a 17 year old student was killed by a tear gas shell during a protest in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir. Ripples from this event were felt in the form of violent anti-India protests in streets across the region causing numerous deaths over the summer. Due to the extent of protests curfews have been imposed in certain regions over Kashmir. One of the most violent protests happened this Monday, September 13^th which wasn’t fully caused by events going on in the state. News spread throughout the region about the extremely controversial idea of burning Korans in Florida by the church Dove World Outreach Center. Protests and mobs flooded the streets past curfews in protest of this news; mobs set fire to several government buildings, a school, and a police station. Government owned vehicles had stones thrown at them while security fought with protesters that were advancing on a Christian church. Teargas was used in order to disperse the protesters, however, in some areas where protests were most violent; such as in the Budgam district, police fired ammunition into the mobs to break them up. This left 18 civilians dead and more than 100 people injured. This was the largest tally of casualties in a single day since the outbreak of protests. The death toll has now reached above 75 as of early September. The Indian government stated it was “deeply distressed” by the violence as well expressing “profound grief at the loss of life and offers its sincere condolences to the bereaved families”.  

September 6, 2010

Commonwealth Games, Nicolas Duncan

Five weeks before the event begins on October 3rd and runs through October 14th organizers for the The Commonwealth Games are worried over whether or not complexes, venues, and stadiums will be completed in time for the opening ceremonies. The Commonwealth Games play host to more 7,000 athletes from 71 countries and territories every four years. India won the bid on November 13, 2003 to play host for the nineteenth edition of the event. However, seven years after winning the bid and with only a few weeks to go before the beginning of the games things are looking bleak in New Dehli. With only five weeks to go plans for security and medical care haven’t been finalized and with several venues still dormant construction sites some organizers are beginning to worry. Some officials are beginning to speculate that teams could begin withdrawing or the event could be called off all together. However it is difficult to simply call off an event of this size. The Commonwealth Games Federation chief executive Mike Hooper stated "We have to continue to push our concerns at the highest level and you can't get higher than the Cabinet office of the country and the prime minister,”. The games were an opportunity for India to exhibit their emerging power however; the games have more in turn displayed problems in the developing country.