Travel News

Hiroshima, rising from the ashes
TNN | Feb 20, 2012, 12.00AM IST

The sudden downpour caught us by surprise. Scrambling through the neon-soaked streets of Hiroshima to seek shelter, it was when we saw it for the first time. Bathed in an ethereal green glow, with its skeletal structure standing out against the dark, rainy backdrop. It was at once eerie and otherworldly.

I thought to myself that it was a perfect first glimpse of the building that was a stark reminder of man's capacity for destruction. It was the A-bomb dome - the most recognisable symbol of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima.

Scarred for life
The city of Hiroshima has the dubious distinction of being one of only two cities in the world that have ever had to face the terror of the atomic bomb, the other being Nagasaki. It's estimated that at least 70,000 people were killed after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. And the city, which was mostly built of wood, became a charred plain with only a few scattered concrete structures left.

But Hiroshima today has risen from the ashes. With its blinking neon lights, modern shopping arcades and high rise buildings, it is perhaps no different from any other Japanese city. Beyond the Peace Memorial Park which surrounds the A-bomb dome, there are only fleeting reminders of the city's tragic past.

In plain sight
After our first glimpse of the A-bomb dome on a moonless, rainy night, we returned to the site again the next morning to find the building bathed in bright sunlight, with clear blue skies, and hordes of tourists taking turns to pose with the infamous building. What a difference daylight makes. While the building had looked ethereal the day before, it now looked forlorn, as a building bereft of its exterior walls should.

The fact that the building still exists is almost a miracle of fate because the explosion on that fateful day in 1945 had taken place almost directly above the building, the walls remained largely intact, even as the dome shattered and the people inside were killed by the heat of the blast. It's hard to believe that more than half a century has already gone by, as it appears frozen in time at that moment of pure unbridled terror.

Paper back
A stone's throw away from the A-bomb dome is the simple, yet touching Children's Peace Monument, which is a statue of a girl with outstretched arms and a folded paper crane rising above her. The statue is based on the true story of a young girl who died from radiation from the bomb. She believed that if she folded 1,000 paper cranes, she would be cured. Today, the monument is perennially draped in thousands of paper cranes folded by schoolchildren across Japan.

There was a place we had to visit to learn more about the events of 1945 - the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

The museum is split into two wings - East and West. The East Wing is more educational. Among other things, it explains the decision to drop the bomb and it also describes the lives of Hiroshima citizens during World War II and after the bombing. But it's the West Wing that really pushes home the point about the need for a nuclear-free world. Besides showing clothing, watches and other personal effects worn by victims of the bomb, it also goes into details about the health effects suffered by the victims.

There's one story I remember vividly. It's about a pair of siblings - a boy and a girl. The boy had appeared well in the aftermath of the bombing while the sister was suffering from radiation sickness. However, just a few days later, the boy's condition took a sudden turn for the worst. In short, his insides had turned to mush and there was nothing doctors could do to help him. He passed away shortly, while his sister gradually recovered and became the only survivor of the family.

Walls beyond
However, Hiroshima's not just about the A-bomb and its effects. There are other attractions, such as the Hiroshima Castle, which is a modern-day reconstruction of the original castle built in the 1590s. But the truly must-see sight lies just off the coast of Hiroshima, at Miyajima.

Miyajima, which is reached by ferry from Hiroshima, has been considered a holy place for most of Japanese history. In the past, women were not allowed on the island and old people were shipped elsewhere to die, so that the ritual purity of the site would not be spoiled.

The island is most famous for its floating torii (gate), which appears to float on the sea during high tide. There's also the Itsukushima Shrine, a large, red-lacquered complex of halls and pathways on stilts. Surprisingly, despite the fact that the island is overrun by tourists, it still feels very serene, and is a good respite from modern, bustling Hiroshima.

We had to board a ferry to our next destination. As the city lights drew closer, a thought struck me - I've been to many cities that have fallen into decline for various reasons. There are also those that have gotten prosperous in the past few decades. But few have witnessed such scenes of utter destruction, and yet manage to bounce back like Hiroshima has. And for that, I think the city is not just a symbol for resilience, but also for hope. Hope that even in the darkest moments, there can be salvation.

2011, a disastrous year for the Rupee

The author has posted comments on this articlePTI | Jan 1, 2012, 11.50AM IST

MUMBAI: In a roller-coaster ride, the Rupee plummeted to life-time low levels in 2011 due to a slew of factors such as unrelenting demand for the dollar, the worsening domestic economic scenario and sustained capital outflows.

The domestic currency started the year on a strong wicket and was trading at 44.76 to the dollar in January. In the second part of the year, there was panic reaction in the inter-bank foreign exchange market after cracks started appearing in the Eurozone.

Towards the end of the year, the rupee fell to its all-time low of to 54.30 on December 15, much to the worries of policy makers. On the last day of the year (December 30) the rupee closed 53.10 to the greenback, down over 18 percent from the first day of the year.
Traders attributed the sharp fall to investors rushing to buy dollars as there were no sign of easing in eurozone crisis. They said dollar's increased appeal as a safe haven, especially in times of crisis, generated much demand.

The trouble for the local currency became intense when on worries of economic growth came to the fore along with fears of a higher government borrowings which is budgeted at Rs 4.17 trillion.

Broadly, the rupee fall could be seen in two time periods. First, it fell from 43-44 to 47-48 a dollar in the January-July period and then plunged to 48-54.30 in the August-December period, triggered by the US downgrade by S&P on August 5, which led to scramble for the dollar.

The fall was also precipitated by the poor foreign portfolio inflows during the year. The April-October period saw only USD922 million inflows compared to USD27 billion in the year-ago period.

"While the fall from 43-44 to 48 was due to external factors, especially sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone, the steeper slide was due to local factors like the structural issues (higher fiscal and current account deficits) faced by the domestic economy," Alpari Financial Services chief executive Pramit Brahmbhatt told mediapersons.

However, the rupee slide is not a lone phenomenon. Rather, it has happened across all emerging markets as investors globally seek safe haven options in dollar.

"Dollar scarcity was visible throughout the year. Due to Eurozone uncertainty, US banks cut their exposure to European banks. Even inter-bank lending by US banks was restricted, which squeezed dollar availability.

"In turn, the dollar rose against all major currencies, especially the euro," IDBI Bank treasury head NS Ventkatesh said, adding that the depreciation was the natural fall out.

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Decline in shark population worldwide

Times of India (PTI | Sep 29, 2011, 02.55PM IST)

MELBOURNE: Sharks are in big trouble on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and worldwide, according to scientists who claim to have developed the world's first way to measure rates of decline in shark population.

"There is mounting evidence of widespread, substantial, and ongoing declines in the abundance of shark populations worldwide, coincident with marked rises in global shark catches in the last half-century," said lead scientist Mizue Hisano at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.

He added: "Overfishing of sharks is now recognised as a major global conservation concern, with increasing numbers of shark species added to the International Union for the Conservation of nature's list of threatened species.

"First, many countries with coral reefs don't keep reliable records of catches or fishing effort. Second, around 75 per cent of the world shark catch consists of illegal and unreported finning. Third, sharks may be caught, discarded, and not reported when fishers are targeting other species."

The scientists have developed several alternative models, which combined birth rates and growth rates for sharks with a variety of different methods for estimating mortality.

They then used state-of-the-art statistical methods to combine the uncertainty associated with each of these methods and arrive at a more robust long-term population prediction for two GBR shark species -- the grey reef shark and the whitetip reef shark.

As a further check on their results, the scientists used their population projections to see how well their models could explain differences in shark abundances on fished and unfished reefs, based on how long the unfished reefs had been protected.

The team found that results obtained by all methods of assessing shark population were in close agreement that sharks are declining rapidly due to fishing.

"Our different approaches all painted a surprisingly consistent picture of the current state of population decline, but also of the potential recovery of these species if they are adequately protected.

"More broadly, we believe that our study demonstrates that this approach may be applied to a broad range of exploited species for which direct estimates of mortality are ambiguous or lacking, leading to improved estimates of population growth," Hisano said.

The findings have been published in the latest edition of the 'PLos ONE' journal.

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Peru  at a Glance

Over 1000 buyers and sellers from across the world witnessed Mr. R. H. Khwaja, Secretary, Ministry of
Tourism, Government of India who headed the delegation from India, receiving the PATA Grand Award. Mr.
Anand Kumar, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India received the two Gold Awards.