On this Monday, few of the news items which caught my attention, and would like to share with all of you.
1 Maharashtra Cabinet– After long discussions within the partners of Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA), at last the portfolio allocations of various Ministers were announced yesterday. So after the results were announced in Oct 2019 for the assembly elections, it took about 2 and half months for the govt to be in place with various ministers getting their portfolios assigned. After going through the portfolio of various ministers, to me it looked like as if NCP/Congress combine are running the govt and for name sake Uddhav Thackarey of Shiv Sena is Chief Minister. The most important portfolios of Home and Finance are with NCP, and Irrigation, Health and Housing are also with NCP; Congress got Revenue, PWD and Education; whereas the CM’s party got Agriculture, Urban Development and Environment. I am really surprised that irrigation ministry went to NCP, their ministers were in the midst of irrigation scams involving thousands of crore Rupees in Cong/NCC govt from 1999 to 2014. This only means that NCP people have become expert in milking Irrigation dept, and hence once again they wanted and got this ministry.
You will observe from the above that most of the important ministries are with NCP/Congress and Shiv Sena except Urban Development have got minor ministries. Any govt’s most important ministries are Home, Finance and Revenue, and they are not with Shiv Sena. Indirectly it means that NCP is going to run the show and Shiv Sena will be mute spectator. I feel that ministers from NCP and Congress will always listen to their high command and try to full fill the manifesto of their own parties rather than listening to Uddhav Thackarey. Only thing Shiv Sena has achieved is that their dream of seeing person from Shiv Sena as CM of Maharashtra is full filled. So let us wait and watch, how this govt will operate in near future.
2 Forest Fire in Australia– For last few days you all must have read or seen on TV about the Forest Fire in Australia, which has taken now the devastating form. Yesterday the skies turned blood red in southeast part of Australia, as resident sought refuge from deadly bush fires, which turned out to be one of the worst days in Australian History. A considerable number of properties were lost on last Saturday across the Australian province of New South Wales. Australia’s flag carrier cancelled all flights from the country’s capital Canberra yesterday due to smoke and hazardous weather conditions.
A 2019 Australian govt brief report on wild fires and climate change said “ Human caused climate change has resulted in more dangerous weather conditions in recent decades for many regions in Australia.” The climate change make these fires worst.
The drier the fuel – trees and plants – the easier it is for fires to start and the hotter and nastier they get.”It means more fuel is available to burn, which means higher intensity fires, which makes it more difficult – or impossible – to put out.” The heat makes the fuel drier, so they combine for something called fire weather. And that determines “fuel moisture,” which is crucial for fire spread. The lower the moisture, the more likely Australian fires start and spread from lightning and human-caused ignition, a 2016 study found. Australia’s deadly fires have been fuelled by a combination of extreme heat, prolonged drought and strong winds. The country is in grip of heat wave with record breaking temperatures over the last three months.
By early September, Australia started seeing ominous signs about this year’s fire season.
On Sept. 9, the Binna Burra Lodge, a historic getaway in the lush mountains of Queensland, was destroyed in bush fires. The loss, and the blazes in the surrounding rain forests, alarmed scientists, who said that such fires were extremely rare in the usually cool and wet area.
The fires have burned across the country in recent months, affecting four out of six states. Australia’s east coast has been hardest hit. By early November, 1,500 fire fighters were battling 70 fires in New South Wales, the south eastern state that includes Sydney.
On Nov. 11, the state issued a catastrophic fire warning for the first time in the decade that the current warning system has been in place. In Sydney, which issued a total fire ban, heavy smoke has discolored the sky on many days, and air quality there has at times been among the worst in the world. Few days back, social media was filled with photos of blazing red skies and people fleeing to beaches between Sydney and Melbourne.
The consequence of this fire is such that citizens of Auckland (New Zealand) which is more than 2000 KM away from Sydney in NSW, are feeling the affect. As per report even sky in the Auckland is full of smoke and residents there have started facing all types of heath issues caused by heavy smoke.
More than 40 people have already died in Australia due to bush fires, and thousands of people have to leave their houses to safer zones. Fire Fighting personnel are having tough times to control the fires at various locations, and simultaneously trying to save the people.
Let us all pray that this fire is controlled at an early date and people across Australian continent are spared from this misery.
This episode should open the eyes of world wide politicians, who has still not learnt the lessons what damage can climate change do in our lives.
Let us wait and watch for further development in this issue of bush fires in Australia.
Waiting for your views/comments/feed backs.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
6th Jan 2020.