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India - News
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News Updates - 13 May
2001 Indian team attempts world record on Everest - San Francisco Chronicle World's largest Buddha statue in India - BBC US nutures growing defense bond with India - New York Times India conducts biggest military exercise in decades - Reuters Zubin Mehta honoured by Vienna Philharmonic - IANS
NEW DELHI, India (AP) - Crammed into a tent at 18,100 feet, 12 men and women crouch over a map of Mount Everest in the yellow light of a swaying lamp, trying to decide the best way to reach the top. The task is challenging, for they want to climb to the top of the world using an uncharted route. Of the 14 known ways to reach the summit of the 29,035-foot mountain, only the East Ridge route has never been successfully climbed. Since George Mallory and Andrew "Sandy" Irvine first attempted to climb Everest in 1924, mountaineers considered East Ridge the "Fantasy Route" - so difficult it can be climbed only in the imagination. But under the leadership of Santosh Yadav, 33, an Indian team is attempting to live out that fantasy. "For three days we pored over the map thinking: 'This way it is not possible. That way it looks impossible,"' she told The Associated Press by satellite phone from the team's base camp at the foot of Everest. "Finally we decided to try from the left of the mountain, which looks like the only way it can be done," she said. The team hopes to make its attempt at reaching the summit Saturday. It has been toiling to open a route up, hammering nails into the mountain and fixing ropes to make the climb easier when the summit attempt is made. The peak towers 11,000 feet above the base camp, which is on the Kangshung Glacier to the east of Everest, in Tibet. Every morning, Yadav watches through binoculars as team members work to open a path on the almost vertical rock face. She keeps constant contact by radio. Each evening, after a hot Indian meal of rice, lentils, vegetables and unleavened bread, the team of three women and nine men discusses the day's progress and the next day's effort, which could take them toward making mountaineering history. On April 20, an avalanche roared over the heads of a group fixing ropes at about 20,000 feet. Another team working above shouted a warning to their mates, who covered their faces with protective masks. The crashing snow missed three of the climbers, but two were partially buried. The team pulled them out and rushed them to the base for first aid; none had serious injuries. A day later, another avalanche unraveled five ropes that the climbers had spent hours fixing in place. In the setting sun, the close-knit team mulled over the situation, helping relieve shock and stress from the accident. "The question mark is always there. But there is a voice that comes from inside and says: `We can do it. Everything will be OK,"' Yadav said. Yadav's faith in her team is based on more than emotion. In 1999, she led an expedition that climbed Everest via the Kangshung Face. It was only the fourth team to succeed on the difficult route, which requires technical climbing - the use of sophisticated gear to negotiate vertical cliffs and deep crevasses - most of the way up. The Fantasy Route is more daunting. The territory is unknown. Temperatures at the base camp drop to 4 below zero. The slopes are almost vertical, with loose rocks dangerously balanced on the sides. Avalanches are frequent. Yawning crevasses make the use of ladders essential, forcing the team to carry bulky equipment. The stone ledges are too narrow for mountaineers to follow the usual practice of setting up temporary shelters at night. "We knew it would be difficult, but it can be done. The mountain makes me strong," Yadav said. Challenges are not new to Yadav, who has broken many rules since her childhood in the hot, dusty plains of India. She was the first woman in her family to go to college, the first to have a career, and the first to defy India's tradition of arranged marriage and choose her own husband. She has climbed mountain peaks, become the first woman military commando in India, and met presidents and prime ministers. She is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the first and so far only woman to have twice climbed Everest. She has also climbed Saser Kangri, Mount White Needle, Abi Gamin - all in the Himalayas - and Mount Fujiyama, Japan's highest peak. But the Fantasy Route has a special place in her heart. "This 14th route ... is the biggest ever mountaineering challenge," Yadav said. "If successful, it will be an unparalleled achievement." Since Everest was first climbed by Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, some 800 people have scaled the mountain. Authorities say 181 climbers have died on its unpredictable slopes. On the Tibetan side, Eric Simonson and his team are once again trying to solve Everest's biggest mystery: Who climbed it first? The question still remains whether Mallory and Irvine reached the summit in 1924 - 29 years before Hillary and Norgay made the first documented climb on May 29, 1953. Simonson's expedition in 1999 found what they believed were remains of Mallory, a Briton, near the top of the mountain at 27,000 feet, along with some of his team's gear, but Irvine's body has never been found.
There will be monasteries, guesthouses, meditation pavilions, teaching facilities and countless holy objects. The surrounding area will benefit from modern hospitals and schools. Organisers say the five-year project will cost around $200m, which will be raised through donations generated by an international network of offices in major cities around the world. The 500-foot statue, designed and constructed by a group of eastern and western architects and engineers, will have a bronze outer shell supported by an inner steel framework.
Tourism
hopes The statue of Maitreya Buddha, the Buddha of the future, is built according to specifications described in scriptures as told by Gautama Buddha who attained enlightenment in Bodhgaya 2,500 years ago. Project organisers say they have not faced any resistance from the local community, which is mainly Hindu. Indian President K.R. Narayanan and the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama have both given their approval. The organisers see their task as having new meaning following the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan in March. U.S.
Nurtures Growing Defense Bond With India New Delhi - Unlike most of the world, India has reacted positively, if somewhat ambiguously, to President Bush's proposal for a missile defense shield, and in response the Bush administration is continuing the warming trend in U.S.- Indian relations that began under President Bill Clinton.On the third anniversary of India's nuclear tests, which led the United States to impose sanctions on India, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said in New Delhi on Friday that the United States is worried about Pakistan's development of a nuclear arsenal, but he did not mention any similar worry about India's nuclear capacity. India, the world's largest democracy and the dominant power in South Asia, has long sought to be treated distinctly from Pakistan and to win legitimacy for its decision to develop what it calls "a minimum nuclear deterrent." Pakistan has been troubled by the friendliness developing between the United States and India, and Gen. Pervez Musharraf - perhaps stung by Armitage's remarks - reacted coolly yesterday to Bush's defense plan. Asked about Bush's proposal, the general was quoted by Pakistan's official news agency as saying that the government opposes "any action that re- initiates a nuclear and missile race." His remarks came during a visit to Pakistan by Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji. Military experts say China has provided Pakistan with nuclear technology in the past, and China sees Bush's missile defense proposal as a challenge to the effectiveness of its nuclear force. So Mr. Armitage's comments in New Delhi were music to the Indian government. It was also pleasing to India that the United States was consulting Indian leaders about America's nuclear policies - given the United States' vehement criticism of India's nuclear tests. At a news conference after meeting with Indian officials, Armitage said Bush's missile defense program is aimed at offering protection from states such as Libya, Iraq and North Korea. While he did not explicitly include Pakistan, he did say that American concerns about Pakistan were well known. American officials have long fretted about Pakistan's political instability and deep economic problems, as well as the growing assertiveness of Islamic fundamentalists there. India has been lavish in its praise for Mr. Bush's plan to make deep cuts in America's nuclear arsenal, but it has been less explicit about its position on the missile defense itself, which other countries worry would encourage a new arms race and destabilize the global strategic balance. On Bush's proposed nuclear policies, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said he welcomes the new president's decision to step away from the development of offensive nuclear weapons - and pointedly reiterated India's need for its own nuclear deterrent. According to Indian officials, Bush has accepted an invitation to visit India, though no date has been set. India
Holds Biggest Military Exercise in Decade NEW DELHI - Nuclear-capable India said on Tuesday its biggest military exercise in more than a decade was aimed at equipping its troops to fight a conventional war and had no offensive intent. Some 50,000 troops and about 120 combat aircraft are taking part in the five-day war games which will include the air force practicing new tactics to shoot down "enemy" planes and end in a fire power display in the Pokhran range where India's controversial nuclear blasts were carried out. 
While the air force said the focus was on conventional warfare, the exercises were also aimed at equipping troops to cope with a nuclear, biological or chemical weapons strike. Official Krishnaswamy added the air force was practicing new tactics to down "enemy" planes laden with nuclear weapons and drills for soldiers to operate in a contaminated environment. Temperatures have touched 48 degrees Celsius, pushing men and machines to their limits, Krishnaswamy said. “It's a very challenging environment because in the center of the exercises we have a heat wave on,” he said. Krishnaswamy said commandos would be dropped behind "enemy" lines as part of a mock battle that climaxes Thursday with the firepower demonstration. A defense analyst said the military exercise was not aimed at fighting a nuclear war but to prepare troops for a conventional war that could still take place on the subcontinent.
BERLIN: On his 65th birthday, renowned conductor Zubin Mehta could not have asked for a better gift - lifetime honorary membership of the prestigious Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Apart from the rave reviews he has been getting as the director general of the Bavaria State Opera, Mehta's crowning success, to quote the German media, has come in the form of this rare honour recently conferred upon him by the orchestra. Even before he joined the Vienna's Music Academy to acquire a formal education in music, Mehta made his debut as a conductor, at the age of 16, when he held the baton and conducted the Bombay Symphony Orchestra. One critic told IANS, on condition of anonymity, that Mehta was "not always comfortable" as the conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra which he headed from 1978 until 1991. New York-based critics were not always appreciative of his improvisation and this, as many Germans privately say, often hurt him though he preferred not to vent his feelings publicly. Mehta has already undertaken a number of concert tours with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, and was appointed its advisor in 1968. He was appointed by the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra as a music director for life. Mehta has maintained strong ties with Israel. During an interview after a concert in Dusseldorf some years ago, Mehta had said the "establishment of diplomatic relations between India and Israel had been his lifelong dream that had come true." |
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