Dilip Cherian India's 'Image Guru' and a diehard observer of the capital feels the Kazakhstan president's Republic Day visit will bring in a much-needed breather to the MEA
Dilip Cherian India's 'Image Guru' and a diehard observer of the capital feels the Kazakhstan president's Republic Day visit will bring in a much-needed breather to the MEA
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In Conversation: British foreign secretary David Miliband during a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi recently
Pic/AP |
A Miliband-battered MEA (Ministry of External Affairs) needs a breather. Without the buzz that trailed French President Sarkozy's visit last year, Republic Day celebrations may be a low-key affair this time but high on warmth, they hope. Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev's visit, after all, will see some serious business being conducted. India's signing a nuclear cooperation deal with Kazakhstan, which has already signed strategic agreements with Russia, Japan and China. The deal is significant considering that Kazakhstan is the world's second largest producer of uranium after Australia. And we need it. So, even the PMO is pulling out all stops for this visit.
Having already signed up the US, Russia and France, the government clearly hopes that the Kazakh deal will end the current demand-supply mismatch in terms of nuclear power generation. According to an estimate, the Department of Atomic Energy plans to build 250,000MW nuclear capacity by 2050 to meet power requirements.
And with such a heavy-duty agenda, it will be purely business matters that will keep our mandarins engaged this time around.
Let's hope the fog in Delhi lifts by then u00e2u0080u0093 and the Kazakhs bearing gifts get a glimpse of the resplendent Indian sun.
Killer roadsIndia has the dubious distinction of registering the second highest number of road accidents in a year, according to a 2007 global survey, next only to China. Delhi has the maximum number of road fatalities among metros in the country, 2,169 people in a year. Chennai ranks second with 1,136 fatalities. Fortunately, the Mumbai police's drive against drunken driving seems to have reduced the number of accidents in Mumbai from 2,789 in 2006 to 1,794 accidents in 2008.
Clearly Dilli cops are having a tougher time than their Mumbai counterparts in managing the chaotic traffic. The Mumbai-inspired "No honking" day was a non-starter. Dilli's traffic woes are well documented: unmanageable rise in ownership of private vehicles and increased use of cars and two-wheelers in the city, lack of driving skills, poor condition of roads, and lax enforcement of traffic laws, among others. To better the situation, Dilli police would probably have to make laws on issuing driving licenses more stringent and even impose heavy fines to discipline the drivers to put an end to the bloodshed on India's roads.
