Drunken USS Nimitz Lands in Chennai

For the last couple days Chennai pundits have been in a fury over the landing of a large American multi-mission aircraft carrier that is going to hang around in the port for a few days. Yesterday rabble-rousers said that they were afraid that nuclear powered ship could explode or expose the city to radiation. However, today the Deccan Chronicle has tried to assuage the city's worries by contacting the country's leading nuclear experts to consult on the matter of the USS Nimitz's nuclear safety. The Chronicle quotes a member of the Indian Atomic energy commission on the matter:

“This fear is due to problems associated with imaginary things,” said Dr Sreenivasan. He also pointed out that countries build nuclear powered ships because of the advances made by them in the field of nuclear science.

and later

"If you are concerned about this nuclear powered ship, what about the major atomic power plants at Kalpakkam?” asked Mr Maloy Krishna Dhar, former director, Intelligence Bureau. He termed the controversy as paranoia on the part of the environmentalists, and anti- nuclear and anti-US lobbies. “Don’t dub me a US agent as I have my own views on the USA. But this controversy is an attempt to hog media limelight,” he said.

But that isn't all the city should be worried about. What about the 4000 sailors who are coming to port for shore leave? Talk about dropping a nuclear bomb on the city. On July 1 the city will be inundated with thousands of drunken teenage military men who haven't been to shore for months. They are going to be flooding the city's TASMAC shops and trying to score women in brothels on their two or three days of land time.

I know this because they are e-mailing me about it. Last night I got this message from a sailor we will call "Sam".

Hey I just happened to see your website and I thought what the heck I will email you. I need some important information that is near and dear to our hearths…”beer”. You see we are on the USS Nimitz and will be arriving soon. I would like to get a little head start by looking where to buy some beer. I would rather buy beer and take it to our hotel vice paying for the higher cost of ordering through room service. Can you help me locate some liquor stores or a decent place in Chennai to buy cheep beer? Respectfully and Thank you in advance for all your efforts, Sam

Chennai does have a decent nightlife these days. But my guess is that while the USS Nimitz is in port the sailors are going to run the town. Watch out for a guy in bright white chaps and a funny hat vomiting at your local TASMAC.

We're up to our Ears in E-Waste

There is an E-waste problem in Chennai. For the last year I have been poking around back alleys where half naked people break old computers, cell phones and electronic gear into small bite-sized pieces in order to harvest the gold and precious metals inside. When they burn the junk in huge piles in Guindy and Velichery everyone downwind gets exposed to a potentially toxic cocktail of lead, cadmium, mercury and dioxin.

Yesterday afternoon a story I wrote on the issue aired on NPR. It's my first full-fledged radio story and it looks like I'm going to be covering quite a bit of India with a microphone in the next year or so. You can listen to the story here.

I've written on E-waste before for .net in a story titled "India's Great Techno Trash Heap" and have another version of the piece that should show up in the UK some time this month.

I've also taken a ton of photo of the computer smashing industry that you might want to check out.

Here's a gallery from last week that I took for NPR.

Here are about a dozen pictures from last year that I took while working for .net.

Radio Spot on NPR

For those of you who just can't get enough of me talking about the kidney trade, check out my recent appearance on NPR (National Public Radio, for those of you tuning in from India).

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10863697