Month: May 2015

India Reiterates Conditions for Talks with Pakistan

Sushma Swaraj denies the Modi government’s approach to Pakistan is confused or inconsistent.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, flanked by Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar, at a press conference in New Delhi on Sunday. Photo: PTI

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, flanked by Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar, at a press conference in New Delhi on Sunday. Photo: PTI

New Delhi: India today reaffirmed adherence to “three conditions” including having an atmosphere “free of terror and violence” as a precursor to any engagement with Pakistan and demanded action against terrorists like Mumbai attack mastermind Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi.

Asserting that there was no “flip-flop” or “confusion” in the government, which has a “very clear Pakistan policy”, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said the two countries had decided on three principles for talks when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had come here last year. These principles were also part of the Shimla and Lahore declarations.

“First, we are ready to resolve each issue through peaceful dialogue. Second, the talks will be between the two countries –us and Pakistan. Neither will a third country mediate nor will there be a third party. Third, an atmosphere of harmony should be created by keeping away terror and violence.

“These were not decided today… We have told Pakistan repeatedly that talks can take place based on these three principles,” she told a press conference, noting that these were the principles agreed upon by the two countries in the Shimla and Lahore declarations.

The minister said no engagement was scheduled when asked if any meeting was proposed between India and Pakistan in the near future.

“Now if Lakhvi is out and he is released….and if Pakistan thinks that there is an atmosphere of harmony, will India accept it?” she added.

“There is no flip-flop in our policy. We had decided on three principles for talks when Sharif had come here to participate in the swearing-in ceremony (of Narendra Modi as PM). Since then we have been following those three principles,” she said.

Hurriyat issue

On India calling-off the talks last year after the Pakistani High Commissioner held consultations with Kashmiri separatists, Swaraj said normally meetings with  took place when any leader comes from Pakistan or officials of that country are here.

“But here the Pakistani High Commissioner invited them (separatists) four days ahead of the dialogue with India. We told him that why he had invited them when the two countries were going to hold dialogue. In talks, we don’t want any third party,” Swaraj said.

Parrikar controversy

Asked about recent statements made by the Home and Defence Ministers regarding the whereabouts of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and “terrorists have to be neutralised only through terrorists” respectively, she said there was no confusion while dealing with Pakistan “If there is bombardment on the border, the Home Minister will not keep quiet.

“He (Home minister) will have to retaliate and definitely he will speak in that language. Defence Minister has been given the responsibility of defending the country. He will have to ensure security. So he will speak that way”.

Chinese projects in PoK

To the question of Chinese assistance for an economic corridor through PoK, the minister said their (China) Ambassador was called to lodge protest.

“This time we did not keep it there. We lodged protest calling the Chinese ambassador. We lodged protest through our Ambassador there (Beijing). And when the Prime Minister had gone there (to China), he talked about it very firmly. He raised it very strongly that it is not acceptable to us what you are talking about China-Pakistan economic corridor going to PoK.”

On Pakistan trying to use China to put a “technical hold” on India’s request to list Syed Salahuddin in the UN Security Council sanctions committee on Al-Qaida and associated entities, Swaraj said,”We had told China that we are not the only victim of terror. China is also a victim and the source is same. So, while voting in 1267 in these type of issues, do not take a narrow view. Keep global terrorism in mind and follow a policy so that we can work together and take decisions unitedly. This was conveyed to the Chinese leadership by the Indian leadership.”

The sanctions committee on Al-Qaida and others has been constituted under UN’s resolution 1267.

Cricketing ties 

Swaraj also said no decision has been taken on an Indo-Pak cricket series.

Her remarks came in the backdrop of Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman Shaharyar Khan’s recent visit to India to push for the resumption of Indo-Pak cricket ties.

Shaharyar, during a joint press statement with BCCI President Jagmohan Dalmiya in Kolkata, proposed a series comprising three Tests, five ODIs and two T20s in UAE in December this year but the BCCI has not given any categorical statement yet on the proposed series and the venue.

“No decision has been taken. Where has this information come that this (Indo-Pak cricket series) has been decided and that I was not consulted. No decision has been taken,” Swaraj said when asked about the reports that India will be playing bilateral cricket series with Pakistan.

India have not played a full bilateral Test series with Pakistan after the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks which led to suspension of cricketing ties between the two countries.

The two nations played a short series of three ODIs and two T20 matches in India in December 2012 but otherwise they have met only in ICC-organised events or the Asia Cup.

Tax Form Simplified, Deadline for Filing Returns Pushed to August 31

Taxpayers will not be required to provide the details of foreign trips undertaken, or expenditure incurred while abroad, only their passport number and the IFSC code for any foreign bank accounts.

New Delhi: The Finance Ministry on Sunday came out with new three-page income tax return (ITR) forms, dropping the controversial provision for mandatory disclosure of foreign trips and dormant bank accounts, while it also extended the last date of filing.

The new forms – ITR 2 and ITR 2A – will have only three pages and other details will have to be filled in schedules, the ministry said in a statement.

A new form ITR 2A has been brought out by the Finance Ministry which can be filed by an individual or HUF (Hindu undivided family) who does not have capital gains, income from business/profession or foreign asset/foreign income.

The statement also said that the last date for submission of tax returns will be extended to August 31, 2015.

With regard to the controversial provision of disclosing details of foreign visits, the release said that the assessee will be required to disclose only the passport number.

“In lieu of foreign travel details, it is now proposed that only Passport Number, if available, would be required to be given in Forms ITR-2 and ITR-2A. Details of foreign trips or expenditure thereon are not required to be furnished,” it said.

Further, the ministry has done away with disclosure of details of dormant accounts which were not operational during the last three years.

“As regards bank account details in all these forms, only the IFS code, account number of all the current/savings account which are held at any time during the previous year will be required to be filled-up. The balance in accounts will not be required to be furnished,” the statement added.

The simplified I-T return forms are being brought after the earlier version was opposed by industry, members of Parliament and assessees for its cumbersome disclosure norms.

The salaried individuals and those persons who do not have business/professional income are required to file I-T returns in either of the forms ITR-1 and ITR-2 by July 31 every year.

Further, an individual who is not an Indian citizen and is in India on a business, employment or student visa (expatriate) would not mandatorily be required to report the foreign assets acquired by him/her during the previous years in which he was non-resident and if no income is derived from such assets during the relevant previous year, the statement said.

At present, individuals/HUFs having income from more than one house property and capital gains are required to file Form ITR-2.

Observing that a majority of individuals/HUFs who file the ITR-2 form do not have capital gains, the statement said, “With a view to provide for a simplified form for these individuals/HUFs, a new Form ITR 2A is proposed which can be filed by an individual or HUF who does not have capital gains, income from business/profession or foreign asset/foreign income.”

Individuals having exempt income without any ceiling (other than agricultural income exceeding Rs 5,000) can now file Form ITR 1 Sahaj. Similar simplification is also proposed for individuals/HUF in respect of Form ITR 4S (Sugam), it added.

It further said that as software for filing these forms was under preparation, the last date for submission of tax returns will be extended to August 31, 2015.

“As the software for these forms is under preparation, they are likely to be available for e-filing by third week of June. Accordingly, the time limit for filing these returns is also proposed to be extended up to August 31, 2015. A separate notification will be issued in this regard,” the release said.

Following the controversy over the ITR forms for assessment year 2015-16, which sought details of bank accounts and foreign visits, the Revenue Department had put them on hold.

The ITR forms, which was notified last month by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) for the current assessment year, had specific columns for banks accounts, IFSC codes, names of joint account holders and foreign visits, including the ones paid by companies.

Q&A With Scientists From the World’s Largest Science Experiment

Scientists from the world’s largest science experiment participated in an ‘Ask Me Anything’ on reddit on May 28

A Higgs boson decaying into 2 tau leptons (azure cones), which subsequently decay into either an electron (blue line) or a muon (red line). Credit: ATLAS/CERN

A Higgs boson decaying into 2 tau leptons (azure cones), which subsequently decay into either an electron (blue line) or a muon (red line). Credit: ATLAS/CERN

Scientists from the world’s largest science experiment participated in an ‘Ask Me Anything’ on reddit on May 28. They were engineers and physicists working on the Large Hadron Collider, a giant particle accelerator located underground beneath the border of France and Switzerland, and managed by the European Centre for Nuclear Research, CERN. The LHC accelerates and smashes protons together to recreate conditions from the early universe.

It was famously the site of the discovery of the Higgs boson in July 2012, an elementary particle that’s responsible for the mass of other elementary particles. The discovery got two physicists who had hypothesised its existence in 1964 the Nobel Prize for physics in 2013. After two years of upgrades, the LHC restarted in early April 2015, smashing protons to produce a record 13 tera-electron-volts of energy.

Within minutes of opening, the AMA was flooded with over 2,000 questions, a number that quickly climbed to over 5,000. Here’s a selection edited for clarity.

How powerful are typical collisions and how powerful is 13 TeV?

Clap your hands together. Congratulations, you’ve made a collision with more energy than the LHC.

The difference though, is in the energy density. Stick a thumbtack against one of your palms, and clap again. Notice the difference? By concentrating the collision point, even with the same total energy we get a more intense collision. Protons are really, really, really tiny, so when they collide the energy density is huge, making the results a lot more interesting than a hand clap.

Is there a certain energy “goal” you are aiming for? Or simply trying to increase it as much as you can?

The energy goal is 7 TeV per beam. This number is fixed by the magnetic field our magnets can achieved “by design” and by the circumference of LHC. So these are design limits, it is not possible to overcome them. To overcome the limits we would need magnets able to stand more than 12000 amps of current or an LHC-like with bigger circumference than LHC, i.e. more than 27 km. In fact the next proton-proton accelerator design is based on a 100 km circumference to get 50 TeV per beam (but this is a project under study). Some more details can be found here.

How do the collisions create new particles?

The things being collided have stored in them enough energy to recreate conditions closer to the beginning of the universe when some particles roamed around freely. As the universe cooled down, those particles decayed into other particles, and so on and so forth. So, the particles are new in the sense that they are being created now. But they are not new, in the sense that the same kind of particles existed close to the beginning of the universe.

What difference does it make to add more energy into the collisions? What new results are expected to be seen?

It makes a difference because the higher collision energy may provide access to new phenomenas, some of which cannot be explained within the standard model so the discovery potential ranges from finding particles that could constitute dark matter to establishing the origin of the asymmetry between matter and anti-matter and reproducing primordial matter.

Apart from the amount of energy used, do you run the experiments in the same way every time? The reason I ask is, if you are running the same experiment, wouldn’t you expect to find the same results each time?

Now, when we repeat an experiment, we never expect the exact same result. That is actually quite rare. Part of the reason is that colliding protons means actually looking at interactions between the quarks and gluons inside, which have different energies every time. But even if you would get the same quarks or gluons at the same energies, these are quantum mechanical processes, so the outcome is probabilistic and some times you may get one outcome, some others another.

Theoretically, if a human were to sit inside the LHC as it’s on, what would happen to them?

Well, it depends on the place. Some places are quite safe, for example equipment in arcs is expected to get 100 Gy (5 Gy is lethal for a human) in 10 years of operation. Paper. Other places likes Point 3 and Point 7 (collimators cleaning the beam) or beam dumps have dangerous radiation levels and unless there’s a need nobody goes there.

What are collimators for?

Collimators are used to clean the beam of stray particles that go too far from the main part of the beam. It’s better to stop them in known places (Points 3 and 7) than to lose them somewhere else.

If the LHC was transparent, what would we see when the collisions occur?

“Seeing” is done by large detectors with several layers of materials that each help measure a different property of the particles created in the collision.

  1. A tracker helps identify the trajectory of any charged particles produced
  2. Calorimeters measure the energy of the particles
  3. Muon detectors observe these “heavier cousins of the electron”

Putting together all this information from various sub-detectors presents us with a single picture of what happened at the collision point. (This is a bit of an oversimplification, but I hope it makes sense…)

See the full AMA here.

Why the President Should Have Returned Modi’s Land Ordinance

When the President promulgates an ordinance, he or she exercises intermediate legislative power. Ordinances lack the qualities that give Acts of Parliament elevated status. Returning an ordinance repeatedly may well be justified.

President Pranab Mukherjee at Jawaharlal Nehru's memorial, 27 May 2015, New Delhi. Photo: PTI

President Pranab Mukherjee at Jawaharlal Nehru’s memorial, 27 May 2015, New Delhi. Photo: PTI

The Union Cabinet’s decision to re-promulgate the  controversial land acquisition ordinance for the third time raises interesting questions about its validity.

When the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Ordinance, 2015 was last re-promulgated on April 3, it was immediately challenged in the Supreme Court by four farmers’ organisations. The lead petitioner in the case is Delhi Grameen Samaj, and their lead counsel is Indira Jaising, senior advocate. When the case was heard on April 13, the Bench of Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar and Justice S.A. Bobde, showed no urgency in hearing the matter, and adjourned it after issuing notices to the respondents, (Union of India and others) with the hope that the petition might become infructuous with the two Houses of Parliament passing the necessary legislation to replace the ordinance in the mean time.

However, this did not happen, and the next hearing of the case is listed for July 6. In their petitions, the four farmers’ organisations have questioned the perceived reason for promulgating the ordinance, namely, the lack of legislative majority in the Rajya Sabha, even though the government may come up with certain legitimate grounds for promulgation, for the sake of public consumption.

The decision to re-promulgate the ordinance for the third time only vindicates the petitioners, and suggests that the optimism of the SC bench, though well-intended, was not consistent with the reality.

As and when the Supreme Court takes up the matter, it is likely to examine the relevance of the court’s previous judgment in D.C. Wadhwa vs State of Bihar (1987).

Between 1967 and 1981, the State of Bihar promulgated 256 ordinances that ‘were kept alive for periods ranging between one and 14 years by re-promulgation from time to time’. In this case, the Supreme Court held that the practice of re-promulgation of ordinances was unconstitutional.

However, Article 123 of the Constitution, which deals with the power of the President to promulgate ordinances during a recess of Parliament, is silent on whether an ordinance can be re-promulgated, and if so, how many times.

Strangely, the Supreme Court, while condemning the practice of re-promulgation of ordinances as a ‘fraud on the Constitution’ in D.C. Wadhwa, did not follow it up with effective remedies in its order. Instead, it hoped and trusted that such a practice shall not be continued in the future.

Again, while holding that re-promulgation of ordinances is unconstitutional, the Supreme Court in D.C. Wadhwa listed the circumstances in which such re-promulgation may be in order. Two such grounds were envisaged: first, the legislature may have too much legislative business; second, the time at the disposal of the legislature to secure the passage of the bill to replace the ordinance may be short.

presidential-legislation-in-india-pb-400x400-imadyvs9pvfhn4eu

The cover.

In other words, as academic, Shubhankar Dam remarks in his excellent recent book, Presidential Legislation in India: The Law and Practice of Ordinances, (Cambridge, 2014), the court merely invalidated mechanical re-promulgation of ordinances, not re-promulgation per se. Thus, he says, if emergent conditions persist alongside adequate reasons for failing to legislate an ordinance into law, re-promulgation may be valid. These emergent conditions and reasons must point out why an ordinance was not transacted in the intervening legislative session, he asserts.

But Dam also points to the apparent inconsistency between the emergent conditions and the reasons. If a legislative emergency truly persists, with a make-do ordinance brought in to tide it over, why should such a matter be treated with low priority, he asks. If Parliament does not prioritise ordinance-related matters for reasons of volume or duration, that alone may be a ground to doubt the existence of emergent conditions, he suggests.

Nor surprisingly, the judgment in D.C. Wadhwa failed to satisfy Wadhwa, the petitioner, whose book, Endangered Constitutionalism: Documents from a Supreme Court Case, was published by the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune, in 2008.

Wadhwa’s solution to the twin exceptions carved out by the Supreme Court was to extend the duration of the session of the legislature, if the time at the disposal of the legislature in a particular session is short.

Dam also draws attention to another problem in D.C. Wadhwa. According to him, there is nothing to show that the Supreme Court, in D.C. Wadhwa, had not approved lack of legislative support as evidence of ‘adequate reasons’ to re-promulgate an ordinance, as it is unclear if the then Chief Justice P.N. Bhagwati’s two exceptions, which he laid down in the judgment, should be read as a closed category.

A related issue is whether the President can refuse to sign an ordinance, so re-promulgated. Dam says that when the President assents to a Bill, he or she exercises legislative power. A Bill, at least in theory, reflects certain representative, numeric and deliberative qualities. And it is the presence of those qualities that partly explains why the President cannot formally return it for a second time under Article 111, he says.

But when the President promulgates an ordinance, he or she exercises intermediate legislative power. Such an ordinance, by definition, lacks the qualities that give a Bill its elevated status. And for that reason, the President must treat ordinances differently from Acts, and if he or she sends it back to the Cabinet repeatedly for reconsideration, this may even be justified, he argues.

Despite lack of clarity on the constitutionality of re-promulgating ordinances, President Pranab Mukherjee has chosen not to return the Land ordinance; on Saturday, according to official sources, he signed it into law for the third time.

Had he chosen to send it back for reconsideration by the Union Cabinet even once, it would have sent a strong message to the political class. Having expressed his dissatisfaction with the Modi Government’s ordinance raj publicly, Pranab Mukherjee would have been justified in exploring his options when asked to sign the ordinance the third time within six months.

Until the 1990s, Central ordinances had never been re-promulgated. Of the 196 ordinances promulgated in the 1990s, as many as 53 (27 per cent) were re-promulgated, including some that were promulgated twice or more. This number came down to six during 2000-2009. The Modi government may well break the previous records in re-promulgation, if the Supreme Court and the President fail to restrain it in time.

Make No Mistake, the FIFA War is Not About Football or Corruption

While the Americans are playing geopolitics and the Europeans want to regain control over football, the rest of the world believes the West is trying to rob them of the chance to be equal partners in the only truly global game.

The FBI’s move against seven FIFA officials on charges of corruption is seen by most countries as a desperate Western effort to isolate Russia and re-open the bids for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. 

From Brazil to Russia: symbolic hand-over at the Maracana, Rio de Janeiro, 13 July 2014. Sepp Blatter, president of FIFA, stands between Russian president Vladimir Putin and Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff in this grab from the official FIFA video of the event. Russia will host the 2018 Fifa World Cup.

From Brazil to Russia: symbolic hand-over at the Maracana, Rio de Janeiro, 13 July 2014. Sepp Blatter, president of FIFA, stands between Russian president Vladimir Putin and Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff in this grab from the official FIFA video of the event. Russia will host the 2018 Fifa World Cup.

Rio de Janeiro: Forget the analogies about football being more important than life and religion. The Beautiful Game has always been all about politics among nations – on and off the pitch. And now, it’s reaching Cold War levels.

On Friday, as soon as Sepp Blatter was elected president of the international football federation (FIFA) for another term, he was surrounded by African delegates, who shook his hands, hugged and kissed him. Then came the Asians followed by Latin Americans. Earlier, when Blatter delivered his victory speech – a breathless jumble of platitudes — delegates from Africa, Asia and Latin America, Russia and Oceania gave him a standing ovation. For a man who had been declared dead by the Western media just 24 hours ago, it was an incredible resurrection.

At FIFA’s convention hall in Zurich, as Blatter was being feted by the big bosses of regional and national federations, his challenger Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan sat in the front row with a long face. Giving him company in sorrow was Michel Platini, the former French footballer and president of the European football federation (UEFA). After the Jordanian conceded defeat, Platini look shattered, trying to figure out what went wrong. A day earlier, the Frenchman had hailed Prince Ali as the great hope for football and an antidote to corruption because “he is a prince and he doesn’t need the money”. But few delegates, except UEFA members and their American partners, bought Platini’s theory.

This was FIFA’s bloodiest election ever. With the 209 members of the football body divided into two camps – Europe (minus Russia and Spain) and North America versus the rest of the world – it was clear that a winner would emerge only after some serious bloodletting. But just two days before the Blatter-Prince Ali face-off, the United States weighed in with full force as the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested seven high-ranking FIFA representatives on corruption charges following a raid on their Zurich hotel. Soon after the officials – all from Central and South America – were taken into custody, US attorney-general Loretta Lynch called them “criminals” and demanded that the World Cup allotted to Russia (2018) and Qatar (2022) be cancelled.

But a day is a long time in football politics. Twenty-four hours after Lynch’s barbs against FIFA and Blatter, the Swiss football administrator was back in control. On Saturday morning, he blasted the US for “targeting” football’s world body and slammed Europe’s football bosses for a “hate” campaign.

Corruption is real, so is geopolitics

It’s an open secret that there is rampant corruption in football – at all levels. It’s no state secret that FIFA is run like the most private of private clubs with little public accountability. Though all football federations and officials had been aware of the American investigation into allegations of bribery, going back to 1991, nobody expected early morning raids and arrests. The raids were strategically timed, but if the purpose of the arrests was to make Blatter’s backers fall in line, it backfired. “It happened like an intelligence operation. Our phones were tapped. The police came to the hotel and picked these officials up as if they were being kidnapped,” says a Brazilian football federation (CBF) official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Why arrest them just 24 hours before the election? They were not running away. Why did the cops come with three American journalists in tow? FIFA is based in Switzerland. All its official business is done in Switzerland. How come the Americans suddenly jumped into it even as a Swiss probe in going on?” he asked.

As soon as news of the arrests spread among the delegates at the Zurich hotel, officials of various federations went into emergency meetings. “The Europeans did not have the courage to arrest anyone. So they called the Americans to force everyone to vote for Prince Ali. It was clear to us that they wanted to get rid of Blatter and put their stooge in his place,” says the Brazilian who was in Zurich, when the drama unfolded. “As things turned very ugly, even those of us who had doubts about Blatter’s leadership decided to vote for him?”

Blatter, even in his own words, is not perfect. Far from it. A smooth operator and great survivor, he has friends and enemies in equal numbers. But why has this Swiss man suddenly become a villain for Europe and the US? Has Blatter damaged the Beautiful Game more than his predecessors, who too had to bow out in disgrace, in his 17 years at the helm? Why are the Americans so interested in “cleaning up” a game that has been managed mostly by Europeans so far?

File picture of FIFA-Headquarters. Photo: MCaviglia ( www.mcaviglia.ch) - Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

File picture of FIFA Headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland. Photo: MCaviglia ( www.mcaviglia.ch) – Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

Blatter’s main crime may not be corruption. It could be his reluctance to play geopolitical games as demanded by Europeans and Americans that has suddenly made him a villain. Blatter’s problems with the US began in 2005 when he declined the then US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s demand for Iran be thrown out of the 2006 World Cup as part of sanctions against the Asian country. Things became worse when the Palestinians were allowed to join the global football association. “While Blatter has been trying to make football bigger and better by taking it to all parts of the world, the Europeans have been worried about losing control. For Americans, the game is an instrument of their politics and Blatter became a hurdle in it,” says the Brazilian official.

With 209 members, FIFA is bigger than the International Olympic Committee as well as the United Nations. But it has been dominated by Europeans for most of its history. Under Blatter, things changed dramatically as he took the World Cup to new regions, especially to emerging countries. “The past two editions of the World Cup have been played in South Africa and Brazil. The next one is in Russia. All three are BRICS countries. It’s obvious that the west is not very happy with this. All this talk about corruption is an attempt by Europe and America to bring the game back into their sphere of influence,” says Thiago Cassis, a reputed Brazilian football writer. “There is a lot of corruption in European football too. They do not talk about it. This whole game is not about tackling corruption, but regaining control.”

In the good old days of European domination, nobody could have imagined that the World Cup would one day go to Africa, as it did in 2010, or that three emerging countries would host the mega-event back-to-back. Now with China eyeing the 2026 tournament, which the US also wants to host, there is panic in the West as the emerging countries, with their growing economies and huge TV audiences, threaten to take the game away from them. Even India, which has been given the Under-17 World Cup in 2017, may make a bid for a future World Cup.

Enter the FBI

This change has happened because of Blatter’s efforts at making football a truly global sport. Under him, FIFA has invested millions of dollars in infrastructure and projects in Africa and Asia. Despite the western media dubbing this as Blatter’s way of “buying” influence and indulging in corruption, the delegates from these regions stood by him on Friday. They have seen some real change in their part of the world. “Blatter himself has always been a strong supporter of the African and Asian countries in football. He’s basically broken with the duopoly that Europe and Latin America traditionally had in the sport. He has made it more global and he has brought in people from these two vast regions, and they are grateful to him, and they support him,” Alexander Mercouris, international affairs editor for Russia Insider magazine, said in an interview just after the FIFA vote.

On Thursday, as the western media was providing running commentary on the “storm” in FIFA and baying for Blatter’s blood, 47 members of the Asian Football Confederation and the 54-member African Football Confederation declared their support for him. The South and Central American federations, some of whose members were not so sure about their support to Blatter, also decided to back him after the hotel raid. “Why did they arrest officials only from our federations and that too in Switzerland? Why didn’t they approach our governments through Interpol? Is it because they knew that extradition from South America to US is impossible?” asks a CBF official.

There was also anger about reports in the western media about the CBF chief Marco Polo Del Nero “fleeing” Zurich for Brazil as he “feared” arrest. In fact, when papers like the Guardian and New York Times were reporting Del Nero’s “escape” from the FIFA meeting, the Brazilian official was still in Switzerland. “They brought all this pressure on us to force us to vote for Prince Ali. They have been lobbying with us for months. When they didn’t see it working, they conducted the raid followed by veiled threats to others that they could be arrested too. Some British and American journalists were part of this pressure tactic,” the Brazilian official alleged.

From the versions of the Zurich raid given by some South American officials, it appears that the FBI, Swiss police and a few western reporters hunted them together. “As the Asian and African vote was solidly behind Blatter, they wanted the votes from the Americas for Prince Ali. They were desperate to make the prince the new chief of FIFA as he could re-open the bids for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments,” says a Paraguayan official who was in Zurich on the day of the drama. “Since the UK and the US lost the 2018 and 2022 bids respectively, they have been working to somehow cancel the World Cups in Russia and Qatar. They haven’t accepted the fact that they lost the bids in a fair contest.”

It is difficult to say if there was no corruption in these bids or that none of the arrested officials were involved in bribery. But there is also an element of truth in the allegation that Western governments and federations have been working together to tarnish the process by which Russia and Qatar won the right to host the event.

On Thursday, soon after the news about the arrests in Zurich broke out on wires, Ryu Spaeth, a columnist for The Week magazine, in an article titled “Why the next World Cup should be held in the U.S.A” said that the “bidding must be done again, and if it is too late, then the World Cups in 2018 and 2022 should be hosted in countries that already have the infrastructure to absorb a massive sporting event, such as the United States, which was among the countries that lost the 2022 bid to Qatar.”

This was very much in line with the official US position on the World Cup in Russia. Basking in the glory of the FBI’s move, Lorreta Lynch had made a similar demand on Thursday. In fact, neoconservative commentators in the US have been training their guns at Russia for quite some time. The attacks have become more intense since last year’s Ukrainian crisis which resulted in Crimea’s “accession” to Russia and Ukraine turning into almost a failed state. In recent weeks, Republican hardliner John McCain repeatedly called on FIFA to “oust” Blatter because of “his continued support for Russia.” According to Neil Clark, a British journalist, Blatter has been in the American firing line because he “went to Moscow not that long ago and said that there was no question of the World Cup being taken away from Russia.”

Power, money and partnership

With Russia still under Western economic sanctions following the Crimean takeover, the US is keen to further squeeze Moscow and deny it a chance to showcase its soft-power to a global television audience of a billion-plus people. Besides, there is serious money at stake. The World Cup is the most lucrative sporting event in the world, eclipsing even the Olympics. The 2014 qualifying rounds and final tournament brought in $4.8bn over four years and it gave a much-needed boost to small businesses and tourism in Brazil, besides creating a positive image of the country for millions of foreign visitors. A similar boost for the Russian economy and its image in the world could negate the West’s efforts to isolate Russia in the international community.

While the Americans have their geopolitical games to play, the Europeans are concerned about power. Dependent on South America and Africa for football talent, and, increasingly Asia for TV audiences, the Europeans know they are losing control. “Europe wants to import all the labour from us because that gives them a global TV audience and lots of money. But they do not want to give us World Cups or share any power with us,” says an African delegate who voted for Blatter.

Demonised in Europe and the US, Blatter remains popular outside the West because he took football where no other FIFA boss dared to. “The game is for the poor, not for the elite. And Blatter brought it to them in Africa, in Asia, and that’s why most of Africa and Asia voted for him,” Talal Badr, President of Union of Arab National Olympic Committees, told journalists on Saturday. “We don’t like governments to interfere with sports or federations. We don’t want these governments to control the results or impose on us where the game goes,” Badr added.

Whether or not Blatter is involved in corruption can only be revealed by an honest probe. The FBI investigation may become bigger and indict him later. For the present, however, Blatter remains in command of world football as most countries believe what the ‘West’ is trying to do is rob ‘the Rest’ of the chance to be equal partners in the only truly global game.

Shobhan Saxena is an independent journalist based in Rio de Janeiro. He has covered the FIFA Confederations Cup in 2013 and the FIFA World Cup in 2014, besides writing extensively on Brazilian and South American football  

 

‘Writing about the Diminishing Capacities of a Loved One Takes Courage’

Samaddar’s thesis that care must extend beyond individual and family to state and society is extremely significant for there will be a considerable percentage of older people suffering from various forms of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s.

An interview with Ritu Menon of Women Unlimited, which has just published Ranabir Samaddar’s Krishna: Living with Alzheimer’s (2015)

File photo of the publisher, Ritu Menon

File photo of the publisher, Ritu Menon

Some books just happen, as publisher Ritu Menon will tell you. About a year ago, Menon, who heads the feminist publishing house Women Unlimited, received an email from friend Ranabir Samaddar, a leading social scientist and director of the Calcutta Research Group. Samaddar, known for his work in the area of forced migration studies and human rights, wanted her to take a look at something he had written. “It is not a text on my usual subject. I don’t even know if it is a book for you.” In the next few days, Samaddar’s account of his wife Krishna Bhattacharya’s fight against Alzheimer’s, titled Krishna: Living with Alzheimer’s (an educationist, Dr. Krishna Bhattacharya passed away on September 6, 2013), is scheduled to reach the bookstores. In an interview Ritu Menon tells Chitra Padmanabhan that she considers Samaddar’s account to be that rare work which balances the voice of personal experience with the insights of a social scientist with regard to what he calls the ethics of care in a society where the incidence of Alzheimer’s and other dementias among the ageing is estimated to be as high as 47 per cent. Excerpts from the interview:

Your new release, ‘Krishna: Living with Alzheimer’s, as well as your 2014 publication, Reshma Valliappan’s ‘Fallen Standing: My life as a schizophrenist’, deal with accounts of mental health issues.

I have wanted to publish books on mental health for a long time. As you know, mental health has always been one of the great unmentionables in Indian society because of a certain stigma attached to it, although everybody has some experience of it either at close range or within a familiar circle. The problem is that it is not easy to get material that is not of a medical nature, and that is also hard to come by.

What I am interested in is first person accounts — the kind of writing that is a result of an experience, which also requires that you are one step removed from it before you can write about it. That becomes even more difficult.

I thought this was an opportunity to be seized not only because the accounts of Ranabir (and Reshma earlier) are extraordinary texts but also because they seem to have come at a point of time in the individual’s experience when society, too, is opening up a little bit more. You have a Deepika Padukone who can actually speak about suffering from depression and people like stage and film actor Mohan Agashe who are willing to make films (in Marathi) on Alzheimer’s and act in them.

What was your first response to Samaddar’s manuscript?

I knew it was something I wanted to publish. It is not easy to get an account from first-hand experience with a perspective. And it is very rare for it to be written by a man about his wife or close family member.

Why is that so?

First of all it demonstrates vulnerability, which is difficult for many men to acknowledge. Secondly, it requires of them a certain humility in writing not only about someone else’s experience of distress but also diminishing capacities. But two or three such works in recent times that have become an important part of the response to Alzheimer’s in terms of care-giving — John Bayley’s memoir of his wife Iris Murdoch and Harvard psychiatrist Arthur Kleinman’s account of the dynamics of care-giving for his wife Joan – have, I think, encouraged someone like Ranabir to write about his experience. It is an uncommon act of courage to put it out in public and wait for how people respond. They can be very critical or supportive and you are open to both. For a social scientist to put out a personal account like this is even more difficult to do.

Is that because of the way they are schooled in their discipline?

Yes, social scientists are very wary of personal narrative. They are so enmeshed in a disciplinary mode that in order to shed that and write from experience is a whole new order of writing.

What’s interesting here is that Ranabir has brought his academic preoccupation with the ethics of care on the subject of forced migration and conflict to bear on the care that people with Alzheimer’s require. As he says the medical establishment is not able to do that. Theirs is a medical response to the condition but there is no medical palliative for Alzheimer’s.

What does he mean by ethics of care?

His view is that the state usually responds to forced migration— one of the biggest issues facing the world at present – from a bureaucratic or political or pragmatic point of view. What is required is a compassionate response whereby the state’s mediation is built upon an acknowledgement of the distress that is experienced by the migrant or refugee; it is not simply a question of giving them housing or rations.

Ranabir has made this idea commodious enough to accommodate a condition such as Alzheimer’s which he says can be dealt with by families and society only if we develop an ethics of care. The medical establishment is unable to do so for obvious reasons but it does not even bother to acknowledge this as a necessary part of treating something like Alzheimer’s that can only be managed, not cured. That is his thesis and he has interwoven it in his work.

So this book straddles both worlds.

It is, I think, an attempt to bring the two things together. He is also speaking about the medicalising of treatment, the ethics and economics of caring for someone with Alzheimer’s. It is hugely expensive and no insurance company will insure you for a degenerative brain ailment. The entire experience as it unfolds at several levels is part of his account.

At any point does the author express the feeling that he is on his own because people don’t understand?

People may not have understood but he has a responsive community – friends, wonderful caregivers who helped with managing the situation for about five years, colleagues and some family (he has no children). But there is no social system of care and the medical response is always only medical.

Inadequate?

He thinks it is not adequate because he is speaking from his experience.

How important is the author’s articulation of the notion of care in the face of India’s increasing ageing population?

His thesis that care must extend beyond individual and family and to state and society is extremely significant for as he points out there will be a considerable percentage of older people suffering from various forms of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s. As it is, caring for the old is becoming difficult and when it is a debilitating condition you can imagine what that will mean. We have had a lot of response to our advance information on this book, with people wanting to buy a copy saying they have a family member or someone close with this debilitating condition. A work like this makes people feel that they can find some sort of discussion here which is difficult to find otherwise. Writing on mental health, to be able to communicate, has to resonate in ways that people can own or identify with.

What is the significance of accounts such as ‘Krishna…’ in a world wanting to be ageless, forever young and free of disease?

Accounts like these force you to acknowledge that the body and mind have their limits. We can’t all be gymming and nipping and tucking and in any case it is totally external; what’s inside is not amenable to that. Yes, you can have a healthy lifestyle but it does not make you eternal.

Excerpt From ‘Krishna: Living with Alzheimer’s’

Seven days after Krishna died, one of my friends paid me a condolence visit. After the customary inquiries she said, “After all, is it not better that Krishnadi died, she was suffering so much?” I protested.

Confronting insensitive ‘quality of life’ arguments with an ethics and aesthetics of care-giving.

Ranabir Samaddar, Krishna: Living with Alzheimer's

Ranabir Samaddar, Krishna: Living with Alzheimer’s (Women Unlimited, 2015)

Seven days after Krishna died in September 2013, one of my friends paid me a condolence visit. After the customary inquiries she said, “After all, is it not better that Krishnadi died, she was suffering so much?” I protested, “She was happy among us, there was a smile on her lips. We saw to it that she was at peace and did not suffer – at least not much.” The friend was incorrigible. She said, “After all, what is this life? She couldn’t speak or eat properly, could not walk.” Again, the “quality of life” argument. With only seven days since Krishna’s death I was still grieving. I meekly replied, “Is that what you wish for the old in your own family, those whose capacity is declining?” The unabashed display of this attitude in various informal interactions induced a sense of revulsion in me, and it was against this background that I became even more absorbed in the aesthetics of care, began to address the points that an arrangement of care requires.

The connection between stress and memory loss or, con­versely, between stress and physical and mental health is undeniable. Studies have found links between acute and/or chronic stress and a wide variety of health issues, such as reduced immune function, high blood pressure,alterations in brain chemistry, blood sugar levels, and hormonal imbal­ance. Stress is also related to the onset and progress of Alz­heimer’s in many cases, while in both, drugs are of little or no benefit. We know there is no known cure for this devas­tating disease. I tried to imagine the gloom that overwhelms families and caregivers in such a situation and makes them disregard the importance of prevention throughout one’s lifetime. I knew that I had erred in the beginning by not attaching due importance to the need for preventive meas­ures. I thought I still had time and could delay the advance of the disease.

There is mounting evidence that stress can trigger a degen­erative process in the brain and precipitate dysfunction in the neuro-endocrine and immune systems. It may not imply direct causality, but nearly three out of four Alzheimer’s patients have experienced severe emotional stress during the two years preceding their diagnosis. When a person expe­riences acute stress, her body releases stress hormones like cortisol, which prepare the body to fight or flee the stressful event. The heart rate increases, lungs take in more oxygen, blood flow accelerates, and parts of the immune system are temporarily suppressed, which reduces her inflammatory response to pathogens and other foreign invaders. When stress is chronic, the immune system becomes less sensitive to cortisol, and since inflammation is partly regulated by this hormone, decreased sensitivity heightens the inflamma­tory response. In large part this is how stress “predisposes” the patient to fall sick in the first place. Emotional stress can aggravate the symptoms, make them worse, especially if the stress is severe or of long standing.

. . . We must understand that Alzheimer’s is not a normal part of ageing, although the greatest known risk factor is increas­ing age, and the majority of people with Alzheimer’s are 65 and older. But Alzheimer’s is not just a disease of old age. Up to five per cent of people with the disease have early onset Alzheimer’s (also known as younger-onset), which often appears when a person is in their 40s or 50s. Alzheimer’s is a progressive disease, where dementia symptoms gradually worsen over a number of years. In its early stages, memory loss is mild, but with late-stage Alzheimer’s, individuals lose the ability to carry out a conversation and respond to their environment. It is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, and probably contributes more to mortality in developing countries. Those with Alzheimer’s live an aver­age of eight years after their symptoms become noticeable to others, but survival can range from four to 20 years, depend­ing on age and other health conditions. In Krishna’s case, she survived for eleven years, and remarkably, for three and a half years in an extreme condition of the disease. Alzheimer’s has no current cure, treatment is symptomatic, and research continues. Though treatment and proper and affectionate care cannot stop Alzheimer’s from progressing, they can temporarily slow the worsening of dementia and improve the quality of life of patients and their caregivers. Care and timely and controlled medication can delay its progress.

. . . Caring for someone with memory loss can be extremely stressful and emotionally and physically draining. Left to myself I never felt stressed, except when well-meaning friends and relatives intervened by saying, “Is her condi­tion one notch down? I wish you had a son who would have been of so much help.” Apart from a few close friends there was little offer of help, which would mean not money but being with us. Such help, when caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s, can prevent burnout and alleviate the caregiv­ers’ stress. Since there are hardly any affordable care centres for dementia patients in India, a beginning will have to be made from scratch – health care supervision, socialisation, community outings, therapeutic programming, meals, and transportation. I realised this most deeply during this period, and also realised that without state support even this modest beginning was out of the question.

I recalled what Arthur Kleinman had said about the dynamics of care-giving for his wife, Joan Kleinman, who developed a form of Alzheimer’s that entailed both dementia and blindness, and who finally died after six years. Arthur Kleinman had become her caregiver. He was a Harvard doc­tor, professor of psychiatry. He said, when asked about his intense care-giving,

It is love. It’s about the fact that you are there. I helped her bathe, helped her dress, helped with feeding, and the feel­ing I had, I would say, was generally one of empowerment – which was remarkable, especially at the onset. I just felt that as I learned to do the things and did them, I felt a hell of a lot better. I felt I was really contributing. I also felt it was self-strengthening in some way.

I too felt that way. Plus the fact that Kleinman, like me, had found that the essential personhood of the patient did not disappear with memory loss. Memory may go, the patient may not recognise you, may not remember what you said. But you can still see, in the way she responds to you, feel­ings, deep feelings that convey the fact that she knows you are important in her life, even though she does not know whether you are the husband or the son or what your name is. Kleinman too felt sadness, the sense of deepening despair with the realisation that this was not going to go away. This was a terminal illness, it would only get worse. There is always the possibility of caregivers’ fatigue developing; it is important therefore to maintain a sort of cheerfulness and positive attitude at home.

Between October 2012 and March 2013, I realised that over this period my relationship with Krishna had become increasingly tied to my ethical view of things. The more vul­nerable she became the more I felt that it was crucial for me to help her maintain her dignity. It was in doing so that I became her caregiver. Our relationship of 32–33 years repeat­edly brought home the fact that my lifelong companion was dying, that the end was approaching, that I was preparing myself for the end, and this was the most difficult part of our time, extremely difficult.

This, as Kleinman says, is the fundamental feature of home-care. There is great relief in such care, financially too. There are other costs, but they are far less than the cost of private-paid, subsidised or agency and facility services, which in any case are negligible in India. More importantly, care-giving becomes a mixture of pleasure and pain, thus mor­ally dignified. Care-giving is motivated by a few fundamental questions: is our person safe? Is she comfortable? Is she at peace and happy? Is there anything else one can do? Klien­man’s experience reinforced my own, that the best care-giv­ing derives from being with the patient – physically present, to talk to, watch TV with, make her feel included. Krishna always wanted to be near me when I had my breakfast before leaving for the office. This was around 10.30 a.m., also the time when she was on the balcony after her breakfast and the third round of medicines. Through small gestures, eye move­ments, responding eagerly to sounds from the room where I was eating – from all these we knew she wanted to eat when I was eating. We would then move her back from the balcony to the dining table and she would start gesturing expectantly. We would give her a plate or put a small amount of mashed food in her mouth – she would now have breakfast with me!

Ranabir Samaddar is Distinguished Chair in Forced Migration studies, Calcutta Research Group. He can be contacted at ranabir@mcrg.ac.in.

The Fabric of India, a Showcase of Indian Textiles, Set to Open at the V&A

From the earliest known textile fragments to contemporary fashion, from ceremonial banner to contemporary saris, from sacred temple hangings to a spectacular tent used by Tipu Sultan, the Fabric of India will showcase approximately 200 objects made by hand

Preparations have begun for a seminal exhibition of Indian textiles at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London later this year. The Fabric of India will be the “first exhibition to fully explore the incomparably rich world of handmade textiles from India,” says a note from the Museum.

From the earliest known textile fragments to contemporary fashion, from ceremonial banner to contemporary saris, from sacred temple hangings to a spectacular tent used by Tipu Sultan, the Fabric of India will showcase approximately 200 objects made by hand. It will also reveal the process of using natural dyes such as pomegranate and indigo and the techniques of block printing, weaving and embroidery across the ages.

The collection, put together along with Good Earth in India as well as top fashion designers, will also explore the “range, opulence, scale and splendor of objects handmade for the rich and powerful courts of the 17th centuries.”

The exhibition will examine the impact of European industrialization on Indian handmaking skills in the 19th century and how this provoked a resistance movement. The Museum has shared visuals of this landmark exhibition that opens in October.

Click on the pictures for more details.

The Fabric of India, supported by Good Earth, runs from 3 October 2015 – 10 January 2016.

Rumbling From Ocean Trenches Could Be Sign That Japan Faces Mega Earthquake

Japan already has the most powerful seismic network in the world – and research institutions in the country are constantly growing it

Researchers in Japan have for the first time detected and traced shallow tremors under the ocean that could be a sign that the country is heading towards a huge earthquake. But the technique itself may one day help us predict exactly when such an event would take place, which could save thousands of lives.

Japan still has the devastating 9.0 magnitude, megathrust earthquake in Tohoku in fresh memory, which produced a powerful tsunami and killed nearly 16,000 people when it hit in 2011. It is therefore no wonder that Japanese researchers are the first to detect weak signals of seismic activity.

Devastation following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Credit: EPA

Devastation following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Credit: EPA

Japan already has the most powerful seismic network in the world – and research institutions in the country are constantly growing it. Ocean Bottom Seismometers, which measure motion under the sea, have greatly facilitated these efforts by listening to the “rumbling” that is created when two tectonic plates meet. Such instruments have helped detect low-energy, “slow earthquakes” along oceanic trenches that we otherwise wouldn’t notice.

These earthquakes, which we know are produced deep under the famous San Andreas fault, preceded the Tohoku Earthquake. They occur much more slowly than standard earthquakes. If they are associated with the underground movement of magma and hot water but they are not related to volcanoes, they are knows as “non-volcanic tremors”. By comparison, big earthquakes are caused by the rupture of faults and give rise to short-lived, high-energy seismic waves.

Slow-slip earthquakes and tremors don’t cause any damage on their own. However, if they coincide with very-low-frequency earthquakes they can. These are another type of slow earthquake that is caused by processes deeper down under ground than tremors and usually indicate fault motions near the dangerous area where the tectonic plates meet. If all these types of slow earthquakes take place, along the faulted zone at different depths, they could be a sign we are near to a mega-thrust earthquake.

The researchers – who investigated the Kyushu Palau Ridge, southeast of Kyushu – have, for the first time, been able to detect and map shallow tremors in correlation with the other kinds of slow earthquakes. Even more importantly, they have showed what direction all these events are moving in. This kind of detailed knowledge of seismic activity is considered one of the most reliable ways of predicting big earthquakes.

Warning signs

What the study found out is that the waves produced by all these quiet earthquakes consistently migrated north along the ridge. The movement abruptly ended at the limit of the trench, where it was blocked by a so-called locked zone – where friction keeps the two plates together so they can’t slip – where previous mega-thrust events have occurred. After this, the waves travelled east.

This does not look promising, as to avoid a mega-thrust earthquake you’d prefer the slow quakes to stay in a locked zone, where the stress caused by them can be released and the movement can fizzle out. In this case, however, they are probably causing the coupling between the two plates to weaken, which is expected before a mega-thrust event.

The study, which was published in Science on May 7, shows that shallow slow earthquakes may therefore become a reliable way of detecting when and where the next mega earthquake will strike. This can be done by deploying ocean bottom seismometers along different trenches. In that way, we could detect the pattern of earthquakes in various places so that they would become an exact marker of when any mega-thrust earthquake strikes under the ocean, often causing a tsunami as well.

Deploying an ocean bottom seismometer. Credit: Yusuke Yamashita, ERI, Univ. of Tokyo, Japan

Deploying an ocean bottom seismometer. Credit: Yusuke Yamashita, ERI, Univ. of Tokyo, Japan

The next such earthquake could strike the coast of Kyushu, a region well known for its dangerous volcanoes. Let’s hope that, by then, we have come far enough to prevent the same devastation as we saw in 2011. No place is better than Japan to drive such technological progress.

Luca De Siena is Lecturer in Geophysics at University of Aberdeen.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Magnitude 7.8 Quake Strikes Off Japan

Earlier in the day, a smaller quake measuring 3.8 had struck near Sakai, on the island of Honshu, followed by a 4.7 quake that struck 135 km southeast of Itoman

A screengrab of realtime USGS data showing the earthquakes that have struck off Japan today. The red circle in the middle represents the most recent quake. Credit: USGS

A screengrab of realtime USGS data showing the earthquakes that have struck off Japan today. The red circle in the middle represents the most recent quake. Credit: USGS

This is a breaking news report, and will be updated as more information becomes available.

A magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck in the Philippine Sea at 11.30 GMT, around 17.00 IST. According to the US Geological Survey, the quake’s epicenter was located 874 km from Tokyo – amidst the Ogasawara chain of islands – and 677.7 km underground. Initial reports indicated buildings in the capital were swaying for minutes after. No deaths or serious damages have been reported yet nor have any tsunami warnings been issued. Earlier in the day, a smaller quake measuring 3.8 had struck near Sakai, on the island of Honshu, followed by a 4.7 quake that struck 135 km southeast of Itoman.

According to the Japanese national daily Asahi Shimbun,

Tokyo Electric Power Co said there were no abnormalities at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant following the quake. The runways at Tokyo’s Narita airport were operating normally but the high-speed bullet train service between Tokyo and Osaka was halted due to a power outage, the broadcaster said.

(The difference in magnitudes reported by the USGS and the Asahi Shimbun are due to differences in measurement techniques and locations. More here.)