DailyOh! Untold story of Sushant Singh Rajput, to ‘map gap’ in Nepal’s claim over Indian land
Hey there,
Last week ended yesterday on a tragic note of Sushant Singh Rajput’s death by suicide. The news, of course, came around afternoon, but most people went to bed thinking about Sushant, who played Dhoni in MS Dhoni: The Untold Story. Sushant told Dhoni’s story masterfully well but why he did what he did remains an untold story. Speculation is useless so why get into the useless.
But do you know that the Bollywood star wanted to land on moon? Not just touch base and come back, but perhaps even stay there. Sushant bought lunar land in a region called the Mare Muscoviense or the Sea of Muscovy. The actor had a telescope installed at his Mumbai house to a keep a watch on the skies. Perhaps, also on the land he owned.
Sushant couldn’t land on the moon, but his last rites were performed in Mumbai. We wish he rests in peace.
Mumbai, they say, never stops. Mumbai local stopped for all of 90 minutes each day after helping over 7.5 million commuters reach their destination daily in the Mega City. That was until the lockdown happened. Today, for the first day since March 24, Mumbai’s lifeline chugged again. The Mumbai local network spread over about 465 kms only slept between 2.05 am, when the last train reaches Borivali and 4.15 am when the first train leaves Western railway’s Churchgate station.
On July 11, 2006, however, the train network came to a halt. Remember why? Yes, a series of seven bombs went off in the local trains one after the other. All in a matter of roughly 11 minutes. All local trains were stopped in their tracks immediately. But locals are so critical to Mumbaikars that the services resumed within three hours – not completely, just partially. The entire operation was running to its full capacity in the next 16 hours.
In the times of corona, we do not know how long before we see operations back to the pre-Covid times. For now, locals are only going to ferry people whose travel is essential – people involved in essential services.
How long before normalcy returns? That is difficult to answer because cases are still rising. Data says the lockdown has slowed the pace of the spread. When the pace of the spread slows down, health services aren’t overwhelmed. This ensures more people get treatment and recover. According to the Union Health Ministry, the recovery rate has now crossed 50 per cent with 1,62,378 patients cured so far, leaving 1,49,348 cases active.
In fact, if this data is true, the recovery rate of Delhi and Mumbai is among the highest globally. Delhi’s recovery rate is 38.36 per cent, while Mumbai’s is 45.65 per cent. Let’s compare this with the US. New York is the worst-impacted city of America. The recovery rate there is 21.23 per cent.
A cure for Covid-19 has been found. It’s called prevention. They say it is the best cure. If you have your mask on and maintain social distancing, you may succeed in curing yourself without ever contracting the virus. So stay in your bubble. Forget those who say bubbles burst because social bubbles would ensure you stay protected and also get to socialise.
The model was followed in New Zealand and now, people are forming bubbles in another land – England. What is this bubble anyway? Social bubble is the coming together of people staying alone with people staying alone. Say you are staying alone and have a vehicle of your own. You can drive down to a friend of yours who stays alone. In England, such people are being allowed to meet, hug, visit someone's home and even stay overnight.
Don’t do this unless you are absolutely sure that the other person is perfectly safe because there is a risk of the bubble bursting. So, choose your bubble smartly, and handle it delicately.Delicately reminds us that the strong India and Nepal relations, which Defence Minister Rajnath Singh says were bond by roti-beti (whatever that means), have suddenly turned delicate.
The Nepalese government has fast-tracked the passage of a Constitution Amendment Bill to update the country’s map. The updated map of Nepal shows three strategically key Indian territories of Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura as part of Nepal.
Now, Nepal is running high on confidence. In 2017, the US committed to a US $500 million aid to Nepal for a power transmission line and the upgrade of 300 km of roads in Nepal. The Himalayan country is likely to reject the aid. That is, of course, because China has its leg on the Nepali leadership’s neck.
Now, this is between the US and Nepal, but between India and Nepal is a map dispute.
Before we get to the dispute, let’s get to the map. Not the physical map between the two countries but the word map. Map, our Word Of The Day, is derived from medieval Latin ‘mappa mundi’, meaning ‘sheet of the world’. Mappa means sheet, napkin and mundi of the world. Human race has a liking for shortening words. Perhaps, because it makes the use easier (also, cooler).
Though, we find mappa mundi cooler than map, but some people didn’t and so ‘map’ came to be the term defining ‘a two-dimensional representation of the surface of the world’.
On the surface of the world, people are fighting over how much sea belongs to them. If only we would ask the fishes in there for their opinion. Now, no truce over sea or land should be signed without attaching a map to the agreement, whether with humans or the fish.
That’s exactly the mistake that was made in 1816. In 1814, British India and Nepal fought a war. Now fighting wars is a mistake too so you can say the mistake was made in 1814. But we want to tell you about the one made in 1816. In 1816, the war ended with the signing of the Segowli Treaty.
The Nepalis were sent back across the Kali River in May 1815. The Segowli Treaty that was signed on March 4, 1816, said: "The Rajah of Nepaul renounces for himself, his heirs and successors, all claim to or connexion with the countries lying to the West of the River Kali, and engages never to have any concern with those countries or the inhabitants thereof." Now, no map was attached to the treaty documents to show the exact alignment and source of the Kali river.
In 1961, Nepal signed another treaty. This time with China.
Article I (1) of the treaty defined the China-Nepal boundary, which "starts from where the watershed between the Kali river and the Tinkar river meets the watershed between the tributaries of the Mapchu (Karnali) river on one hand and the Tinkar river on the other hand..."
The Sino-Nepali treaty luckily attaches a map to it. That map shows that the location of the river on the map matches with the Indian map or the agreement reached in 1816. Nepal has planted evidence against itself by signing the 1961 deal with China. A dispute has still erupted. Blame it on the nature of disputes – they keep erupting.
That, of course, shouldn’t stop negotiations from moving forward because moving ahead is what life is all about. This reminds us of a song penned by Rajkavi Inderjeet Singh Tulsi – Jeevan Chalne Ka Naam.
We will be back tomorrow.
Stay safe.
Also read: How India can combat Chinese guile in Ladakh