By mid-morning, the air is heavy with choking fumes from vehicles gridlocked in New Delhi's prime business district. But if Tata Motors, India's largest car manufacturer, sells all 250,000 of the ultracheap cars it is planning to make this year, the congestion and pollution will get far worse.
The 100,000 rupee (US$2,500) Nano car, unveiled last week, will be the cheapest new car on the market by far in India, and perhaps the world. Some people say the stripped-down, spartan box is an extraordinary engineering feat that will revolutionize transport in India; others claim it will inevitably lead to thousands of deaths and to unimaginable congestion. It has already led to massive protests about thousands of people having to give up their homes in the West Bengal town of Singur, about 30km north of Calcutta, as fertile agricultural land has been forcibly acquired to build the factory where the cars will be made.
Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata Group, admits that the new car may not meet western emission regulations, but says that the car will be the least polluting available on the Indian market. However, that's not saying much, as Indian air quality standards are way below anything in Europe.
The level of air pollution in Indian cities is now at dangerous levels. The average concentration of particulate matter in the air in residential areas of Mumbai just before Christmas was measured at 521 micrograms per cubic meter, and that of Calcutta at 435 -- both way over permissible limits. In some of Delhi's residential areas, a level of 3,940 micrograms was recorded.
More than half the Indian cities monitored for air pollution already show critical levels. A recent study by the Centre for Science and Environment, a New Delhi-based think tank on environmental safety, described the situation as alarming. The situation is made worse by the poor quality of diesel fuel available in India: most has a sulphur content of 500 parts per million, compared with a European standard of 10ppm.
Nor is there any certainty that the new cars will improve mobility as average road speeds in Indian cities keep falling. Delhi has an average speed of 17km per hour, while Mumbai's traffic moves at 13km/h. In Chennai and Calcutta, two of the pollution hotspots, the average speeds are 13km/h and 7km/h respectively.
The number of cars in India is expected to triple to 8 million by 2015, spewing out 319 million tonnes of carbon dioxide -- nearly double what is emitted now. So as the rest of the world tries to clean up its act, India seems to be motoring in the opposite direction.
The gutting of Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) by US President Donald Trump’s administration poses a serious threat to the global voice of freedom, particularly for those living under authoritarian regimes such as China. The US — hailed as the model of liberal democracy — has the moral responsibility to uphold the values it champions. In undermining these institutions, the US risks diminishing its “soft power,” a pivotal pillar of its global influence. VOA Tibetan and RFA Tibetan played an enormous role in promoting the strong image of the US in and outside Tibet. On VOA Tibetan,
Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), the leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), caused a national outrage and drew diplomatic condemnation on Tuesday after he arrived at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office dressed in a Nazi uniform. Sung performed a Nazi salute and carried a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf as he arrived to be questioned over allegations of signature forgery in the recall petition. The KMT’s response to the incident has shown a striking lack of contrition and decency. Rather than apologizing and distancing itself from Sung’s actions,
US President Trump weighed into the state of America’s semiconductor manufacturing when he declared, “They [Taiwan] stole it from us. They took it from us, and I don’t blame them. I give them credit.” At a prior White House event President Trump hosted TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), head of the world’s largest and most advanced chip manufacturer, to announce a commitment to invest US$100 billion in America. The president then shifted his previously critical rhetoric on Taiwan and put off tariffs on its chips. Now we learn that the Trump Administration is conducting a “trade investigation” on semiconductors which
By now, most of Taiwan has heard Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) threats to initiate a vote of no confidence against the Cabinet. His rationale is that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government’s investigation into alleged signature forgery in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) recall campaign constitutes “political persecution.” I sincerely hope he goes through with it. The opposition currently holds a majority in the Legislative Yuan, so the initiation of a no-confidence motion and its passage should be entirely within reach. If Chiang truly believes that the government is overreaching, abusing its power and targeting political opponents — then
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