Too much obstruction? The candid answer is yes UP POLLS

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1 Too much obstruction? The candid answer is yes Arun Jaitley explains the fire in Parliament P34 THUMBS DOWN? NANDAN NILEKANI ON THE UID P24 Society& Lifestyle Life after death on Facebook P54 20 FREE.FAIR.FEARLESS VOLUME 8 UP POLLS ISSUE 51 NEW DELHI SATURDAY 24 DECEMBER 2011 The game has changed. Just BJP-phobia will no longer determine the community vote. A ground report by RANA AYYUB P MUSLIM MATHEMATICS

2 lapse happened when the SC did not pursue its own judgment and did not haul up Kerala for contempt of court and instead chose to set up a five-member empowered committee, which has further complicated matters. The SC did not intervene in a bid to allow both states to settle the matter through negotiations. However, the Jayalalithaa government seems to have shown no interest in approaching the issue objectively with its neighbour. What can she do? The SC has to take a decision and needs to pull up Kerala for violating its order. If the SC had pulled up the Kerala government for subverting its order in 2006, then a situation like this would not have arisen. Tamil Nadu pays just 10 lakh a year as rent for the dam. Will paying more money mollify the Kerala government? This has been the case since the Raj era and later changes were made. In the 1970s, additional conditions were added such as charges for power generation payable to Kerala and increased fee for its utilisation. So there is no need for the Kerala government to get any more money than what it receives for the limestone dam at Mullaperiyar. Kerala is fooling Malayalis on the dam issue Political analyst Cho Ramaswamy tells SAI MANISH that any new dam built at Mullaperiyar should be under TN control Is the Kerala government serious about finding a practical solution to the Mullaperiyar dam issue? The agreed height of the reservoir was 142 ft but Kerala has time and again played truant and even violated all Supreme Court (SC) rulings. When the SC passed an order that the dam height could be raised in 2006, Kerala passed its own legislation called the Dams Safety Act to avoid being bound by the SC order. The Act gave Kerala the powers to regulate the amount of water in each and every dam in the state. That was clearly an attempt to subvert the SC order and endanger the life of Tamil farmers. The first serious Kerala has been trying to use mass media to whip up fear and support against Tamil Nadu s stance. Haven t facts been diluted in this battle of perceptions on a sensitive issue? It s hard for people to understand facts. There is a scientific report, which shows that tremors around the Mullaperiyar started after Kerala built the Idukki dam in In fact, it is a proven fact that hydrologically induced seismicity has increased dramatically after Kerala built a 60 sq km reservoir in Idukki. Kerala has endangered the lives of its own people and is putting the blame on the Mullaperiyar dam and fooling Malayalis. For almost 10 years, there was complete unanimity that Tamil Nadu s electricity and irrigation needs should be met at any cost. Just when a solution was near, there is suddenly an upsurge of mass hysteria generated purely to serve political ends in the state. But the AIADMK has also been accused of leveraging the issue politically. Finance Minister O Panneerselvam was attacked by a mob near Theni. Isn t that indication enough there are opportunists from every party in this battle of perception? Paneerselvam is an AIADMK minister and instigating violence serves no purpose for the party. I cannot imagine a situation where AIADMK cadres will go against the party chief as it is a tightly knit party. Nobody would dare go against Jayalalithaa s orders on the issue and the instructions are clearly to maintain peace and harmony across the state. So what s the solution? A newer, bigger, safer dam or the older, smaller, safer dam? I would go for a mix of both options but let s get one thing straight. Right now, the dam is in Tamil Nadu s control. A new dam would be under Kerala s control. A state like Kerala, which has scant regard for an SC order, cannot be trusted to meet the needs of Tamil Nadu if a new dam is built. Any new dam should be under Tamil Nadu s control. PHOTO: ROY SINAI 24 DECEMBER 2011 TEHELKA 3

3 ~ 9 ~ PROS & CONS SOPAN JOSHI India will be on its own when the time comes to work out a climate treaty in 2015 ON WWW. TEHELKA.COM VOLUME 8, ISSUE 51; DECEMBER , 2011, RELEASED ON DECEMBER 16, 2011; NUMBER OF PAGES INCLUDING COVER: 70 FOR ENQUIRIES & COMPLAINTS CALL - DELHI MUMBAI BENGALURU or - RESPONSE@TEHELKA.COM PHOTO: AVALOK LANGER SATURDAY To build a leaner and meaner fighting machine, Indian Army embraces network-centric warfare ~ 14 ~ SHRINKING FEELING CARA TEJPAL An illegal canal is threatening to truncate tiger territory in Ranthambore sanctuary UTTAR PRADESH MONEY TRAIL The Youth Congress is gearing up to fight the Mayawati government by conducting social audits to unearth financial irregularities BY SAMARTH SARAN 10 ARMED FORCES AVALOK LANGER RAILWAYS OFF TRACK The latest CAG report reveals that the Indian Railways suffered a 2,000 crore shortfall in the first half of BY BUROSHIVA DASGUPTA ~ 18 ~ GHOST RIDER IMRAN KHAN As the Lokatukta expands its illegal mining probe, ex-cm SM Krishna lands in trouble KASHMIR COLD STORAGE By hedging their bets on the AfPak endgame, India and Pakistan have failed to make use of a golden opportunity to solve the Kashmir issue BY ALI AHMED EDITOR Tarun J Tejpal MANAGING EDITOR Shoma Chaudhury DEPUTY EDITOR Ramesh Sharma EDITOR, INVESTIGATIONS Ashish Khetan CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Ashok Malik SENIOR EDITOR Manjula Lal EDITOR, FEATURES Nisha Susan COPY EDITOR Srikanth S ASSISTANT EDITORS Rana Ayyub (MUMBAI) Kaushik Kashyap LITERARY EDITOR Gaurav Jain SPECIAL CORRESPONDENTS Revati Laul, Brijesh Pandey, Rohini Mohan, Sunaina Kumar (MUMBAI) PRINCIPAL CORRESPONDENTS Tusha Mittal, Rishi Majumder Ratnadip Choudhury (GUWAHATI) CHIEF OF BUREAU Jeemon Jacob (SOUTH) SENIOR CORRESPONDENT Kunal Majumder CORRESPONDENTS Nishita Jha, Baba Umar, Avalok Langer, Sai Manish, Yamini Deenadayalan ASST COPY EDITORS Anamika Chatterjee, Shone Satheesh Babu EDITOR S OFFICE Ritu Sud ( ) MANAGING EDITOR S OFFICE Megha Chhabra ( ) DESIGN HEAD Anand Naorem ART DIRECTOR Sudeep Chaudhuri ASSISTANT ART DIRECTORS Naorem Ashish, Samia Singh DESIGN TEAM Ajoy Sen, Mahesh Singh Bhandari, Rishabh Arora DEPUTY PHOTO EDITOR Shailendra Pandey PHOTOGRAPHERS Garima Jain, Vijay Pandey, Tarun Sehrawat, Pintu Pradhan (KOLKATA) SENIOR PHOTO COORDINATOR Deepak Jha WEB EDITORS Karuna John, Jugal Mody WEB DEVELOPER Lal Singh, Rammurti MNGR-PRODUCTION Piyush Srivastava SYSTEMS HEAD Prawal Srivastava TEAM SYSTEMS Manoj Kumar, Pankaj Kumar, Arun Sehrawat, Nihar Ranjan, Bhumesh Kshetrimayum FOUNDER GROUP: TARUN J TEJPAL NEENA TEJPAL, SHOMA CHAUDHURY BRIJ K SHARMA, PRAWAL SRIVASTAVA PUBLISHER Neena Tejpal Sharma CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER Neena Tejpal VP MARKETING Aparna Jain VP-CIRCULATION Bharat Bhushan FINANCE MANAGER Brij Kishore Sharma ACCOUNTS Subodh Mishra Rahul Varma ADVERTISING Satheesh Kumar adsales@tehelka.com OWNER Anant Media Pvt Ltd, PRINTER & PUBLISHER Neena Tejpal Sharma PUBLISHED FROM Anant Media Pvt Ltd, PRINTED AT M.P. Printers, B-220, Phase-II, Noida, UP HEAD OFFICE TEL FAX editor@tehelka.com

4 UDUPI, KARNATAKA Sanjeev Vandse, 28 ANTI-AIDS CRUSADER CURRENT AFFAIRS For Sanjeev Vandse, misfortune came in quick instalments: sexual abuse followed by a fatal disease. I was gang-raped by my bosses when I was working in a Mumbai hotel, says the 28-year-old. He claims this incident was instrumental in changing his sexual orientation. To his horror, Vandse learnt that besides the trauma of rape, he was also HIV positive. As a gay activist working in the small town of Udupi, he fights for the rights of hundreds of Men who have Sex with Men (MSM) and Male Sexual Workers (MSW) operating in coastal Karnataka. He started by working with various gay rights and anti-aids organisations, but was soon disillusioned by the way they functioned. He chose to reach out to the people directly. With the help of NGOs and government hospitals, he built a network of MSMs, MSWs, gay men and women, HIV positive cases and eunuchs. Having spent the past three years as a counsellor advocating the rights of people afflicted with AIDS, he is seen as a mentor by hundreds who seek his advice. In a society where moral policing and deepseated prejudice make homosexuals and sex workers easy victims of perverse violence, Vandse has become a guru for those shunned by society. BY G VISHNU Sex workers can make a difference only by coming out in the open VANDSE CAN BE REACHED AT INSPIRATIONS 8 TEHELKA 24 DECEMBER 2011 PHOTO: SHRISHA G

5 WAR GAMES 21 Corps logs on to 21st century solutions Sudarshan Shakti was no ordinary military exercise. It showed that the Indian Army is ready to embrace network-centric warfare. AVALOK LANGER reports CURRENT AFFAIRS 10 TEHELKA 24 DECEMBER 2011