Photo of "Glowing Mountain" Following Underground Nuclear Tests in Pakistan, 28 May 1998.
NOTE: See the "Postscript September 2002" below, for a graph of meteorological data on India's monsoon rains since 1988, providing supporting evidence for the discussion given here.
For more information and documentation on this subject, see:
* UNUSUAL LONG-DISTANCE ATMOSPHERIC AND GEOPHYSICAL EFFECTS FROM UNDERGROUND NUCLEAR BOMB TESTS AND NUCLEAR POWER PLANT ACCIDENTS: Suppressed Scientific Evidence. Reprints of scholarly articles and reports from back issues of Pulse of the Planet journal, by Katagiri, Whiteford, Kato, DeMeo and Nagy, addressing this important issue. Documents the reality of what Reich called "oranur" as observed by eye-witnesses to nuclear accidents, as well as phenomena which can only be explained by the existence of a radiation-irritated atmospheric/planetary energy continuum. An essential tool for anyone concerned about nuclear issues.
**********
POSTSCRIPT: November 2000
"Once a year the monsoon transforms the dry landscape [of the Thar desert] of dunes into a blossoming garden where cows and goats can graze and cereals thrive. But sometimes the rains do not come. 1998...was not a good year. In June, the hottest month of the year, the mercury climbed to more than 50 deg. C., a phenomenon the Sindhis attributed to the atomic bomb explosions in the desert of nearby Baluchistan."
(From descriptive booklet in the Sindhi Soul Session music CD, World Network WDR/Westdeutscher Rundfunk, 1999.)
Drought has continued since May 1998 into December 2000 at least, creating a massive environmental and social crisis across the Rajasthan region. Crops have withered while grasses have been eated up by surviving wildlife and domesticated animals, whose numbers have in any case been decimated. Entire villages are migrating away from the region, their wells and streams having dried up.
OBRL is currently undertaking a fundraising effort to organize a major cloudbusting expedition into the Rajasthan region, to see if we might help in this desperate crisis situation. (See the OBRL fundraising letter for details.) If you can assist, please contact Dr. James DeMeo of OBRL, using the contact information provided at the bottom of this page.
RAJASTHAN: Desert of Woes by Ruben Banerjee
(from India Today, 8 May 2000)
http://www.india-today.com/itoday/20000508/cover3.html
" SATTA
RAM, 35,
SIYONGION KI DHANI VILLAGE, BARMER: Forced to move out of his
house, he shifted to a make-shift cattle camp 5 km away. Once he
feeds the four cows that are still alive, he has to travel another
10 km in search of water. Twice a day, he sits on his camel and
returns with 10 buckets of water on each trip. This keeps him, his
mother, pregnant wife and four children alive. The stubble on his
face shows he hasn't had a bath in weeks. "
" SARPANCH UMED SINGH, 51,
ARABA VILLAGE, BARMER: Farmers from his village have been forced
to become daily-wage earners and they reach the pond site at seven
in the morning to eke out a living. Only 69 of the village's total
population of 6,000 have been employed for relief work but have
not been paid even after three weeks of gruelling work. Umed Singh
is worried for he has heard reports of relief workers being paid
only Rs 8 and Rs 10 instead of the Rs 60 fixed by the Government. "
Farmers are reduced to daily-wage earners at relief camps. Cattle are left to
die because there is no fodder. And the administration fears that water riots
may break out.
He doesn't know what tomorrow
holds for him but today he has to
deal with the business of life. And death. Till a few weeks ago,
Satta Ram had 70 sheep, 50 goats and 10 cows. At last count
-- it changes every day when the sun beats down relentlessly
on the desert sands -- 60 of the 70 sheep were dead and only
20 goats still alive. Six cattle carcasses had been tied to a
tractor and dragged away.
Till last year, he was the proud owner of 25 bighas of land that sprouted
bajra and mustard. This year, the only thing that has grown is despair. The
food storage containers are empty and for the first time in his 35 years,
Satta Ram has had to go out to buy bajra. There is no land to till, no milk to
sell and no ghee to process. Life is as harsh and brittle as his piece of land,
hope as dry as the village well.
For people in Rajasthan, the
sun rises as a grim reminder of the
devastating drought and sets only after it
has added to the toll. Yesterday, Satta
Ram mourned the death of his cows.
Today, Pura Ram has bid farewell to yet
another sheep. Once, he was the proud
owner of 100. Yesterday, only 30 were
alive and today eight more have gone.
Yesterday, he was still putting up a battle
to survive. Today, his shoulders have
drooped.
Each of the affected villages has a story
to tell but in this state, misery is
measured through statistics, not human
suffering. That Tonk and Ajmer have
come close to resembling the deserts in
Barmer and Jaisalmer seems to be of
little consequence to the administration.
It is difficult to find officials out in the
villages where the sun burns the skin.
The women have no choice but to
scrounge for water. Where, if some of
them are lucky, they can wash a few
clothes and use the same water to have a
bath.
Udaipur, a city dotted with lakes, is facing
a drought of this intensity for the first
time. At places, the situation is so pathetic that man and beast drink from
the same pond. The city administration fears that very soon water riots may
break out in Udaipur.
In other parts of the state, people are shifting to areas where food and water
are still available, although at a price. Some like Saga Ram of Dhava village
in Jodhpur district are merely shifting their business. Saga Ram used to sell
earthen pitchers in the village. But who would buy pitchers if there is no water
to fill them with? Also, most of the villagers have already migrated from
Dhava, leaving behind a ghost village. So Saga Ram is taking his wares to
sell in neighbouring states.
For the Government it is a case of cold statistics: 26 of the 32 districts are in
the grip of a drought; 78.18 lakh hectares of cultivable land is as hard as
stone and 34.56 crore cattle are under threat. We know there is hardship and
we are working on a war footing, the Government says, reeling off some
more statistics: 72 lakh quintals of fodder has been distributed; 1,865 fodder
depots and 64 cattle camps sanctioned, 17,945 labourers employed for relief
work and 100 water tankers commissioned. "It is easy to blame the state
Government but what can we do if the Centre does not give us money and if
the rain is scarce?'' asks Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, adding, "Grain is rotting
in Food Corporation of India depots but Delhi prefers to let the rats feed on
them rather than give it to us.''
For the state, where hope is as scarce as the rain, the drought has exacted a
great personal cost. Baisran Ram, a middle-level farmer quite content with 50
bighas of land and 50 cows, has now been reduced to working in a cattle
camp for a measly Rs 1,500 per month while his wife Gauri struggles as a
daily-wage earner. His brother has been forced to move to Haryana with the
50 cows. Their land, which produced enough bajra for all of them hasn't
produced a single blade of grass for two consecutive years. Ram has now
stopped going to the fields. That he is keeping 770 cows alive in this camp --
set up a month ago -- is the only solace that balms his pain.
Most have had to do the same; swallow their pride since there is little else in
the state where life has become a battle against a thirsty death. Where
falling groundwater levels due to scanty rains has dried their fields and their
wells. Where the kharif has failed for a third consecutive year and where in
the vicious wheel of survival it's a cruel question of man or beast.
So, hundreds of cattle are anointed and left to die. "I don't have enough
water and food for my children," is Siya Ram's simple reply. In the fight for
survival, abandoning all six cows was his only option and he has little time for
guilt. Three successive dry years -- each worse than the other -- have hit his
purchasing power. For someone who has never been to the market to shop
for bajra, he now has to pay Rs 850 for a quintal. Once, his own field
generated at least 60 quintals. Then again, once, he never had to pay for
water. Now he has to spend Rs 600 to hire a tanker that will deliver water
which he now has to store. Siya Ram will feel the pinch of this unforeseen
expense for a long long time. For he has to pay a monthly interest of Rs 12
on every Rs 600 that he borrows to buy the water for his family.
It's the same story for other families. Each more heart wrenching than the
other. If one is lucky to have reached his cattle to a camp in time, it is only
one hurdle crossed. There is food and water to think about. Life has become
one long obstacle race as Thigga Ram soon realised. He thought he was
lucky when he was hired as a daily wage earner. At least that would ensure
him Rs 60 a day. So he got to the pond site at his village Kalodi in Barmer by
7 a.m. and dug till he thought he would collapse. But when it was time for his
weekly payment, he was given only Rs 11 per day and there was little point in
arguing, for in relief related work payments are measured on a scale. Thigga
Ram was one of three labourers who would have got Rs 60 per day only if
they dug the prescribed target of 12 ft by 12 ft. He insists they did but
somewhere between the junior engineers, officials of the relief department
and the panchayat samiti, his wages were cleared for only Rs 11.
Where survival is measured on death's scale, it doesn't matter that his name
is Thigga Ram.
ORISSA: Sizzler of a State
Sachets of water cost Rs 3 each, taps in swanky hotels run dry, trees are
seared-there's just no respite
Luck seems to have forsaken Orissa. Six months ago it was the cyclone. Now the
spectre of a drought looms large. Much of Orissa -- particularly the western districts
of Kalahandi, Koraput and Bolangir -- is parched and there is no respite for its people.
Take the inhabitants of Titlagarh in rocky Bolangir district. The mercury is 46
degrees Celsius and climbing, and there's no sign of rain clouds. Taps, tanks and
wells -- everything is bone-dry and Titlagarh has earned itself a new name Tatalagarh
-- tatala meaning "sizzling hot" in Oriya. There is no escape for its people, like
thousands of others in Orissa similarly trapped, even in coastal districts like
Cuttack, Jagatsinghpura and Kendrapara. At Berhampur, people buy locally made
sachets of water for Rs 3. The Ret, Udanti and Sandol rivers have almost dried up.
Despite being a littoral state, Orissa just does not have water.
The ride to Bolangir town, the district headquarters, is a bumpy one through barren
fields dotted with shrivelled trees, past gaunt villagers clutching pots and lining the
horizon in search of water. "The only work is going out to find drinking water,"
explained Snehlata Behera, a villager in Loisingha block. At Sargad village in the
interior of Bolangir, the only source of water is a pit of greenish water. "We use it for
drinking, bathing and washing," says Gopobandhu Behera. The taps at air-conditioned
hotels in Bolangir are hot and dry.
"Politicians are more to blame than nature," says Balgopal Mishra, the MLA from
Bolangir. An accusation echoing through the state. The crisis has made the state
Government sit up. But perhaps Orissa depends only on natural deliverance -- the
monsoons in June.
Postscript, December 2000: Unfortunately, the Monsoon Rains of June-July 2000 were minimal in the affected regions of Rajasthan and Orissa. The crisis continues to worsen. OBRL is currently undertaking a fundraising effort to organize a major cloudbusting expedition into the Rajasthan region, to see if we might help in this desperate crisis situation. (See the OBRL fundraising letter for details.) If you can assist, please contact Dr. James DeMeo of OBRL, using the contact information provided at the bottom of this page.
Postscript September 2002: Below is a graph of India's monsoon rains from 1988 through 2002, showing that the monsoons have oscillated between 90% to 110% of normal for most of the period. The two deviations from this patter are firstly in 1988 when rains were 120% above normals, and secondly in 2002, when the monsoon rains have largely failed, falling to around 70% of normals. Rainfalls from 1994 through 1998 were above normal, while since 1999 they have been below normal, with a dramatic deviation away from the predicted forecast in 2002. This suggests a possible connection of the current drought episode back to the dramatic nuclear bomb tests and atmospheric oranur reaction of summer 1998.
Of particular consideration is the fact that for many years India and Pakistan have been facing off against each other militarily, along various cease-fire lines between their nations and along the Kashmir border. This situation escallated to a particularly dangerous intensity in early 2002 following the terror-bombing of the Indian Parliament by Islamic fanatics, and it seemed possible that a nuclear war might break out between the two nations. Under such circumstances, we anticipate that nuclear warheads might have been moved into forward positions, with their triggers inserted in preparation for their use -- these activities may have been sufficient to "re-kindle" the oranur reactions in the local atmosphere, leading to the expansion of the local desert atmosphere. While much of this remains in the realm of hypothesis and speculation, it is based upon many decades of similar observations, that nuclear bomb tests do factually create oranur reactions, and consequent atmospheric effects in the direction of heat-wave and drought.
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