“Hey, Rupam, open the door. Take this fish,” a girl called from outside. I used to be sitting within the kitchen of my friend Rupam's house in rural northeast India. It was the center of the monsoon season and it had been raining since morning. The woman will need to have been screaming since the sound of the rain on the tin roof drowned out every little thing else.

The aunt round the corner was standing outside with a big bowl Boriala fishHer husband was fishing on the Subansiri Riverthat flows beside the village, and he had been fishing all evening. “My husband cannot stay indoors in this weather,” she said in Assamese, the local language. “One can catch a lot of fish at this time of the year.”

The Monsoon season has long provided people downstream with an abundance of fish from May to September.

However, that is prone to change as soon because the Subansiri subsea power plantone in all India's largest hydroelectric power plants, is accomplished upstream. fully operational in 2026the dam will change the natural flow of the river.

For many of the day, the dam will hold back water and only allow a small amount to go through, roughly corresponding to the region's dry season. But every night, it would release water for about 4 hours to generate electricity, and the raging river will then rush downstream almost because it does through the monsoon season.

The dam is not going to only hinder the movement of fish, but may even change the way in which people downstream experience the river's flow.

In a 2010 Report on the likely impacts of the Subansiri Lower Hydroelectric Project on the downstream population, experts from three leading institutes of Assam – the central state in northeast India – have identified several problems for the downstream communities, including risk of flooding and erosion, risk of earthquakes, lack of water flow for fisheries and groundwater recharge, and survival of species equivalent to river dolphins.

Now, a decade later, Dam is nearing completionThe key query stays: What will occur to people like Rupam’s neighbors, whose lives and livelihoods rely upon the river?

In 2023, I lived in a village on the Subansiri River. My Dissertation research took me there to research the impact of this dam, under construction since 2005, on the communities downstream.

“Little displacement” on account of “benign” dams

Northeast India has been the main target of hydroelectric power plant construction for the reason that starting of this century. To secure the country’s energy future, Central Electricity Board of India In 2001, the Brahmaputra basin was found to have the biggest hydropower potential – 63,328 megawatts. It was proposed to construct a whopping 168 dams within the region.

This earned the region the nickname “India’s future powerhouse“The Subansiri Lower Hydroelectric Project was the primary project.

The government sees the mega hydropower initiative as a win-win situation. It expects the dams to extend India's energy security while developing major infrastructure networks in one in all India's disputed border regions.

About 80% of the electricity for “India’s future power plant” is to be generated in Arunachal Pradesh, the biggest state in northeast India. China has India’s Sovereignty over Arunachal for the reason that country's independence in 1947.

The construction of dams in Arunachal Pradesh has one other advantage: the very low population density. There are about 17 people per square kilometer and over 80% of Arunachal’s total area is forestThis helped the Indian government to argue that “it is comparativelysmall displacement“from flooding compared to other parts of the country and therefore these projects are harmless.”

However, these projects are in definitely not benign for the people living downstream.

The impact on life downstream

The floodplains of the Subansiri are home to people belonging to indigenous communities and the lower castes of the Hindu caste hierarchy. Mising – the biggest indigenous community within the downstream region – call the river “Awanori”, which implies “mother river”.

As a part of my long-term ethnographic fieldwork, I observed how plenty of Livelihood within the lower reaches – fishing, farming, livestock rearing, salvaging driftwood and transporting people by boat to distant areas – all rely upon the 127-kilometre-long Subansiri River. I interviewed individuals who live there and attended community events to know the necessary role the river plays in on a regular basis life.

Their dependence on the river relies on natural, uncontrolled currents. Once the dam is accomplished, the river flows will probably be National Hydropower Company.

Once operational, the dam will largely block the river for 20 hours a day after which release the water – about 2,560 cubic meters per second – to drive turbines that may meet peak electricity demand between 6 and 10 p.m. each evening. During the 20 off-peak hours, the dam would release lower than a tenth of that quantity of water.

What happens when the flow of the river changes?

When the dam was first proposed, there was no plan to release water through the 20 hours of non-peak demand. Activists argued that interrupting the flow of water would make it impossible for any aquatic animal to survive downstream.

In 2017, the off-peak flow proposal was increased to a spread of 225 to 250 cubic metres per second. That yr, the National Green Tribunal, which adjudicates civil cases related to the environment, ruled asked the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation to make sure a minimum water level for the survival of Ganges dolphinIndia's national aquatic animal. This ruling paved the way in which for construction to resume after an eight-year delay. However, the court didn’t address how the changes would affect people living downstream.

Calculating the minimum flow required for the survival of even a single aquatic mammal ignores many features through which the flow of the Subansiri is vital for humans and other animals.

The dam itself threatens the existence of many fish species downstream, including the golden mahseer. It may even change the flow and sediment supply within the river, and the abrupt and robust current for 4 hours every night will higher scrubbing performance and there’s a risk of abrasion of the river bed and banks.

Traditionally, early-ripening crops are grown within the dry riverbed and on the sandbanks from October to April. Ahu rice and mustard before the monsoon flood arrives. People also graze their cattle on the islands and within the fields after the harvest is brought in.

However, once the dam floods the river for 4 hours every night, the riverbed and sandbars will probably be largely unusable.

The rainy season, when the river is in flood, is the best time for fishing and collecting driftwood. However, the dam hinders the movement of fish and traps the wood behind the dam. So even when the river is in flood on daily basis, fishermen and wood collectors may not give you the chance to profit.

People like Rupam's neighbor know that the Subansiri River is about to alter. They could have to navigate the river more fastidiously, and each evening the water level will reflect the monsoon season.

Will they give you the chance to catch enough fish to share with their neighbors? Only time will tell.

DETROIT – Canada's two largest railroads are starting to shut down their transportation networks as a labor dispute with the Teamsters union threatens to cause lockouts or strikes that might disrupt cross-border trade with the United States.

Both Canadian Pacific Kansas City and Canadian National Railroad, which transport tens of millions of tons of freight across the border, have stopped accepting certain shipments of hazardous materials and refrigerated products.

Both are threatening to lock out Teamsters employees in Canada starting Thursday if no agreement is reached.

On Tuesday, CPKC will stop all shipments originating in Canada, in addition to all shipments originating within the United States and destined for Canada, the railway company announced on Saturday.

The Canadian Press reported that Canadian National banned the import of containers from its U.S. partner railways on Friday.

Jeff Windau, an industry analyst at Edward Jones & Co., said his company expects the work stoppages to last only a number of days, but in the event that they last more, there could possibly be significant disruptions in the availability chain.

“If something were more long-term in nature, I think there would be some significant potential problems, just given the amount of goods that are handled every day,” Windau said. “By and large, rail touches pretty much the entire economy.”

The two railways move about 40,000 carloads of freight price about $1 billion a day, Windau said. The transport of complete cars and automotive parts, chemicals, forest products and agricultural goods can be severely affected, he said, especially with the upcoming harvest season.

Both railroads have extensive networks within the United States, and CPKC also serves Mexico. Operations will proceed even when work is halted.

CPKC said it stays committed to avoiding a piece stoppage that might harm Canada's economy and international status. “However, we must take responsible and prudent steps to prepare for a possible disruption to rail service next week,” spokesman Patrick Waldron said in a press release.

By shutting down the network, the railway company can remove dangerous goods from the network before an interruption, CPKC explained.

Union spokesman Christopher Monette said in an email Saturday that negotiations were ongoing however the situation had shifted from a possible strike to an “almost certain lockout” by the railroad company.

CPKC said negotiations with the union, which represents nearly 10,000 employees at each railroads, are set to resume on Sunday. The company said it continues to barter in good faith.

Canadian National said in a press release on Friday that there had been no significant progress in negotiations and hoped the union would “meaningfully engage” at a gathering scheduled for Saturday.

“CN wants a solution that allows the company to refocus on what it does best as a team: transporting customer goods and the economy,” the railroad company said.

The union said the corporate's demands regarding workforce planning, rail safety and employee fatigue were the largest points of contention.

Windau said that the trucking industry currently has large excess capability and will possibly cover a part of the rail transport volume. However, “it will not be possible to replace all of this with trucks.”

Originally published: August 17, 2024 at 2:39 pm

CUPERTINO — About 35 protesters gathered outside Apple headquarters Monday morning through the company's annual global developers conference, demanding that the tech giant implement a system to remove child sexual abuse content from iCloud — a plan Apple had previously abandoned resulting from concerns about user privacy.

iCloud is a storage service that enables users to store and sync data across their devices, keeping information similar to photos, files, backups and passwords protected. The protesters – mostly child safety experts and activists – say the service allows perpetrators and abusers to confidentially store and share child abuse material without being caught by authorities.

Apple had been trying for years to develop a system that might discover and take away such content in iCloud. The company finally abandoned the thought in late 2023 in response to concerns from digital rights groups that a scanning system would compromise the privacy and security of all iCloud users.

Shortly thereafter, children's rights organization Heat Initiative began organizing a campaign to call on the corporate to proceed to trace down and report such material. According to the Intercept Heat is supported by dark money donors and has refused to comment on its funding sources up to now. The initiative organized Monday's protest along with child protection groups Wired Human and Brave Movement.

Monday's protest coincided with the primary day of Apple's annual Worldwide Developer's Conference, an event where the corporate declares latest tech features for its software programs. Sarah Gardner, CEO of the Heat Initiative, said Apple is leaving children's safety out of the discussion about latest technologies and desires to deal with protecting them.

“We don't want to be here, but we feel like we have to be,” Gardner said. “This is what it takes to get people's attention and get Apple to focus more on protecting children on its platform.”

As company representatives and stakeholders passed through the Apple Park Visitor Center, child safety experts and advocates chanted, “Build a future where children are protected.” Some spoke about their personal experiences with sexual abuse and expressed concerns about implementing more child safety measures.

“We are not asking for much,” said activist Sochil Martin, because the protesters' cries echoed within the background. “Apple has everything it needs to do it.”

Their concerns also come at a time when national politicians are pushing for the passage of kid safety laws, including the Kids Online Safety Act, which might establish policies to guard minors on social media platforms similar to TikTok and Facebook.

Apple declined to comment on the protest and as an alternative provided this news organization with a 2023 letter exchange between Gardner and Erik Neuenschwander, Apple's director of privacy and child safety, explaining the corporate's reasons for eliminating the system.

Neuenschwander said the introduction of such a system wouldD the safety and privacy of users and would open the door “to mass surveillance and could create the desire to search other encrypted messaging systems for content types (such as images, videos, text or audio) and content categories.”

But protester Christine Almadjian said those features should not enough to guard children or hold perpetrators accountable for possessing sexually abusive material. Almadjian, who is a component of the national coalition End Online Sexual Exploitation and Abuse of Children, said Apple must proceed to look for tactics to discover and label such content.

“We are trying to enter into a dialogue with Apple to implement these changes,” she said on Monday. “They do not consider these to be necessary measures.”

Call to Asian countries