EDITORIAL : THE DAILY YOMIURI, JAPAN

        

 

Disassembly of N-reactors a joint effort? / Toshiba seeks cooperation of rival Hitachi

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Toshiba Corp. has proposed to rival Hitachi, Ltd. that the two companies join hands in decommissioning the crippled reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture, The Yomiuri Shimbun learned Wednesday.
Toshiba and Hitachi, manufacturers of some of the reactors at the plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co., had separately proposed their own decommissioning plans, including task lists and timetables.
But Toshiba has hinted that it would revise its decommissioning plan into one to be carried out jointly with Hitachi. A top Toshiba official said, "We're calling on [the Hitachi side] to work with us, as we will be working on the same site at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant."
Of the six nuclear reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, the Nos. 1 to 4 reactors need to be decommissioned. It is the first time in the world for four reactors to face such severe trouble simultaneously.
The No. 1 reactor was manufactured by General Electric Co., the No. 2 by GE and Toshiba, the No. 3 by Toshiba and the No. 4 by Hitachi.
Toshiba has called for Hitachi to decommission the reactors jointly, as the difficult task may face rough going in the aftermath of hydrogen explosions that occurred at the Nos. 1 and 3 reactors.
Hitachi has reportedly shown a positive stance on a joint decommissioning project with Toshiba. Even if the plan is realized, the work will take at least 10 years.
On April 4, Toshiba made a proposal on decommissioning to TEPCO, jointly with four U.S. companies, including its subsidiary Westinghouse Electric Co. Under that plan, the decommissioning work would be completed in about 10 years at the earliest.
Specifically, the work of cooling the interior of the overheated reactors and removing debris would be done in the next six months, while the following five years would be spent on removing fuel rods from the reactor and spent fuel rods from a storage pool. In the final five years, the buildings housing the reactors and other equipment would be dismantled, along with the reactors themselves, while the contaminated ground would undergo soil improvement and the whole lot would be left vacant.
Meanwhile, Hitachi has formed a 30-member team of experts, jointly with six other firms, including GE and leading U.S. industrial plant manufacturer Bechtel Corp.
The plan proposed by the Hitachi team includes the work of taking nuclear fuel out of the reactor, the decontamination of equipment and of buildings housing reactors and other machinery, the dismantling of the buildings and the disposal of waste following the dismantling. Under this plan, the entire task would take about 30 years.
The Hitachi plan is based on their experience of analogous work in the aftermath of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant accident in the United States and the Chernobyl nuclear plant accident in Ukraine, then a Soviet republic.

Govt may have other utilities share TEPCO's compensation burden

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The government is considering a plan to form a mutual aid system that would include Tokyo Electric Power Co. and all other power companies in the nation to pay compensation to people who suffered from the nuclear accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, it has been learned.

The mutual aid system is modeled after the compensation program established for damage caused by the 1979 nuclear accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power station in the United States.

According to the government's draft plan, each power company might be assessed 30 billion yen to 50 billion yen for each of their nuclear reactors, though the actual amount could be negotiated later.

TEPCO, the operator of the crippled nuclear plant, would be required to pay as much as 2 trillion yen to 3.8 trillion yen in total, including its contribution to the system plus other obligations.

Compensation in excess of the total amount borne by the power companies would be fully covered by the government, according to the draft plan.

The government is considering the creation of a special law to establish the compensation program, sources said. The government and TEPCO will soon start talks over how to pay for the damages.

According to the draft plan, TEPCO would pay 100 billion yen to 200 billion yen every year from its annual profit for 15 years to pay for damages. In addition, it would pay 510 billion yen to 850 billion yen for the mutual aid program, representing the charge assessed for its 17 nuclear reactors.

The other power companies own a total of 37 nuclear reactors around Japan. Each company will pay a charge based on the number of nuclear reactors it owns. The total charges borne by the nation's nine power companies would be 1.1 trillion yen to 1.8 trillion yen.

The government will shoulder up to 240 billion yen based on the Law on Compensation for Nuclear Damages. In addition, if the total compensation required exceeds the amount shouldered by the utilities, the excess would be fully covered by the government, according to the draft plan.

However, power companies not related to the crippled Fukushima plant are likely to protest strongly if they are required to share the compensation burden with TEPCO.

Child-rearing benefits face ax / Handouts to be abolished to free up funds for quake reconstruction

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The government and the ruling Democratic Party of Japan are set to abolish the child-rearing allowance system in October, which could free up some of the huge funds needed for earthquake disaster reconstruction efforts, according to sources.
The current stopgap legislation maintains the payment of 13,000 yen per month for each child through September. The government and the DPJ have begun coordinating on legislative moves to abolish the system when the period expires, having judged it would be difficult to secure fiscal resources to finance the allowances after last month's Great East Japan Earthquake, the sources said.
Child benefits, however, would continue based on the previous system of dependent child allowances with income caps, introduced during the administration of the Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner New Komeito, with some modifications, according to the sources.
The DPJ-led administration, which came to power in 2009, introduced the child-rearing allowance system in 2010 under a law enacted as temporary legislation effective for fiscal 2010.
For this fiscal year, the government submitted a bill to the current Diet session to raise the amount of payments for households with children under 3 years old to 20,000 yen per month. But it gave up on efforts to enact the legislation due to resistance from the opposition camp.
With support from the opposition Japanese Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party, the government passed the stopgap legislation to keep the same level of payments from last fiscal year through September.
However, the government and the DPJ have decided to give priority to disaster reconstruction funding. Continuing the current payment system after September would cost about 1.1 trillion yen, the sources said.
If and when the current child allowance system is abolished or allowed to expire, the previous system of income-capped dependent child allowances, based on a permanent law, would automatically be reinstated.
Komeito, which wants the previous system revived, has proposed modifying the system, such as uniformly setting payments at 10,000 yen per month and imposing no income caps on residents in disaster-hit areas. Under the previous system, the payments were 5,000 yen or 10,000 yen per child depending on certain conditions regarding the age and number of children targeted. The Komeito proposal is expected to cost about 600 billion yen.
The government and the DPJ are considering using the Komeito proposal as a basis and allocating the other 500 billion yen in a second supplementary budget for this fiscal year, which is expected to be devoted exclusively to disaster reconstruction measures.

Some DPJ executive board members are even calling for a shift to the previous system before October, to curb the issuance of deficit-covering government bonds in the envisaged second extra budget.

One crisis after another harried TEPCO's response

The Yomiuri Shimbun

This is the third installment in a series focusing on delays in implementing emergency steps by the government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. to deal with the unprecedented nuclear crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
TEPCO's venting of radioactive steam from a reactor at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant came too late, but even after the utility acted, a series of hydrogen explosions at the plant's reactor buildings quickly turned the situation into a nightmare the government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency had never anticipated.
Under ordinary circumstances, reactor containment vessels that cover pressure vessels contain nearly no oxygen, making it almost impossible for the substance to chemically react with hydrogen and set off a blast. Even if hydrogen is generated in a reactor, it should not leak from the containment vessel. But after the disaster damaged pipe joints in the reactor building, hydrogen from inside the reactor leaked into the outer structure.
The first blast occurred at the No. 1 reactor at 3:36 p.m. on March 12, about five hours after the radioactive steam was released. The event violently shook an earthquake-resistant building nearby that was housing the crisis headquarters in the compound.
An employee of a TEPCO partner company said he was sitting on the floor when the explosion hit and it tossed him about 10 centimeters up in the air. "I thought an earthquake had hit nearby," he said. People around him started shouting, "Check the [radiation] dose!"
TEPCO officials at the crisis headquarters became seriously alarmed. They feared another explosion could rock the No. 3 reactor.
On the night of March 12, workers from the headquarters tried to lay power cable from No. 4 reactor's turbine building to the No. 3 reactor's cooling motor, hoping No. 4's power supply was still functioning. But the door to the turbine building had been warped by the tsunami and was stuck shut. It took the workers about three hours to remove the door, but they soon saw their work had been for nothing. The No. 4 reactor's power supply was dead.
Slowly, workers at the power station were realizing the tsunami had caused destruction beyond their imagination.
At 11 a.m. on March 14, the No. 3 reactor building exploded and again the headquarters in the quake-resistant structure was given a violent shake.
These two explosions--on March 12 and 14--underlined the severity of the nuclear crisis for Defense Ministry officials in Tokyo.
After the blast at the No. 1 reactor on March 12, the officials received a report from the nuclear safety agency saying, "The No. 2 reactor is unstable." But the only action TEPCO's crisis headquarters said it would take was to "respond to rising pressure [at the No. 3 reactor] by venting the reactor."
Even after the blast at No. 3 reactor, the nuclear safety agency continued to say the reactor vessel was sound and the container was filled with water.
At 6:10 a.m. on March 15, an explosion was heard from the No. 2 reactor. This was followed by a fire near a storage pool for spent nuclear fuel at the No. 4 reactor at 9:38 a.m. Radiation in excess of 400 milisieverts per hour was detected in the vicinity.
Until this point, the nuclear safety agency had been saying the No. 4 reactor was relatively stable. TEPCO had repeatedly said the No. 4 reactor had been stopped and as long as there was water in the spent fuel storage pool, things would be fine. The firm had been frantically trying to deal with the crises that kept erupting at the Nos. 1-3 reactors, like a deadly game of whack-a-mole.
It was starting to dawn on government officials, including Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa, that the nuclear safety agency and TEPCO lacked the ability to make appropriate decisions. They were becoming frustrated by what they saw as constant changes to explanations about what was happening at the power station. Distrust in the agency and TEPCO was soaring.
But TEPCO and the nuclear safety agency had their hands full responding to the volatile situation surrounding the No. 2 reactor after the blast at the No. 1 reactor. Dealing with one urgent crisis after another, they had no time to take actions that would have averted the more serious situation that was to develop.

The situation at the Fukushima complex had grown from simply out-of-hand into a disaster of unimaginable dimensions.

Scientists say aftershocks far from over

The Yomiuri Shimbun

In the month since the March 11 earthquake, there have been frequent aftershocks at and around the initial quake's focus, including many strong quakes with a magnitude of 5 or higher. Experts say there are more shocks to come, possibly as strong as magnitude 8.
The phenomena can be attributed to the enormous changes in the force exerted in the Earth's surface in the eastern part of the nation due to the Great East Japan Earthquake, which measured magnitude-9.0 on the open-ended Richter scale, according to seismologists.
On Tuesday, a magnitude-5.6 earthquake occurred in northern Nagano Prefecture, while on the same day a magnitude-6.4 earthquake struck offshore from eastern Chiba Prefecture. On Monday, a magnitude-7.0 earthquake took place in eastern Fukushima Prefecture.
The Metrological Agency warned, "Earthquakes have come to occur frequently as the geological dynamics of eastern Japan have changed due to the March 11 earthquake."
"We have to expect more earthquakes in the magnitude-7.0 class for the time being," it warned.
On March 12, northern Nagano was jolted by a magnitude-6.7 earthquake whose focus was 20 kilometers north of that of the Tuesday earthquake.
Among seismologists, the area was already known for ground distortion in many places. But the March 11 earthquake increased the pressure the ground there is subjected to. Earthquakes measuring 1 or higher on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7 have occurred at least 430 times in the region since March 12.
The apparent southern boundary of the aftershock zone from the March 11 earthquake is off the shore of eastern Chiba Prefecture. In that area, the Pacific plate and the Philippine Sea plate slide under the landward plate that includes eastern Japan. Tuesday's earthquake off Chiba occurred because faults in the landward plate became active.
Movements of the Philippine Sea plate affect seismic activity in Tokyo Bay. But only a few earthquakes at the magnitude-3 or magnitude-4 levels have been recorded there since March 11, according to the agency. The level of seismic activity has not changed much.
However, Prof. Koshun Yamaoka of Nagoya University pointed out that seismic activity in northern Chiba and southern Ibaraki Prefectures, which is also linked to the Philippine Sea plate, has increased.
"An earthquake could hit the Tokyo metropolitan area with its focus directly below the city. We'll have to observe the situation carefully," Yamaoka added.
The professor anticipates the rise in seismic activity in eastern Japan will continue for four or five years. He said magnitude-7 quakes "are likely to occur once or twice in the next month."
"After that, they can be expected to happen once in two months. The occurrence of such huge earthquakes will gradually decrease to once in a half year. But the possibility remains that a magnitude-8 earthquake could happen at any time," Yamaoka warned.
Yoshimitsu Okada, president of the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention, said, "Aftershocks of the March 11 earthquake occurred in shallow places in the Earth's crust and triggered other aftershocks."

"The frequency of earthquakes has increased by aftershocks caused by aftershocks of the March 11 earthquake," Okada added.

EDITORIAL : THE DAWN, PAKISTAN

Karachi killings

FROM innocent bystanders to political workers and high-profile party leaders, Karachi`s violence claims its victims across the spectrum of power and influence. Tuesday saw the murders of three MQM workers and the death of a teenager who was shot while working at a hotel; the ANP claims the latter was an act of ethnic violence. Just a day earlier, a senior MQM-Haqiqi leader was gunned down along with three others in broad daylight on a major thoroughfare. While this style of assassination is not new to Karachi, it points, once again, to the impunity with which targeted killings are carried out in the port city. Gunmen can simply drive up to their victims and shoot them without requiring the cover of even deserted streets or darkness. Casualties in the single digits now barely register with most residents — aside from those who live in neighbourhoods where such violence routinely takes place. For them, everything from groceries to transport becomes a luxury every time another handful of people are murdered.

What is clear from the identities of the victims and the audacious style of the killings is that they cannot be taking place without political cover. Nor, it seems, are law-enforcement authorities unaware of this link, or of the fact that these are well-organised efforts rather than random bursts of violence or acts carried out for personal reasons. A joint investigation team consisting of various law-enforcement and intelligence agencies constituted to look into targeted killings has reportedly identified over two dozen suspects affiliated with political parties including the MQM, the MQM-H and the ANP. Two of these are the government`s coalition partners in Sindh, and are also widely believed — along with the ruling party itself — to have provided cover to criminal gangs operating in certain parts of the city. While extortion and other mafia activity are crimes distinct from politically motivated targeted killing, they also take a deadly form in a city where weapons are rampant and those breaking the law are protected.

As this paper has argued repeatedly, it is high time some accountability is built into the fabric of this lawless city. If the investigation cited above really does demonstrate a link with political parties, those findings and any others should be made public instead of being leaked by unknown sources or hinted at by ruling-party politicians. They should also be used to prosecute offenders regardless of political affiliations. The residents of Karachi have suffered more than enough bloodshed, and denial should no longer be considered enough to absolve those in power from responsibility.

SC order

YET another episode has been added to the series of events that show just how keenly the judiciary is watching the doings of the government and indeed acts of parliament. Asked to adjudicate on the matter by two parliamentarians and a couple of other stakeholders, a three-member Supreme Court bench has said that the Higher Education Commission will continue working until and unless its status is changed by a piece of legislation. The HEC`s existence is perceived to be threatened by the plan to devolve powers to the provinces, and the decision must have given some satisfaction to all those who are agitating against the commission`s disbanding. The SC order does not stop the winding up; however, it is being viewed as a development that gives those who are demanding that the HEC must not go some time to plead their case and build their campaign. The government and parliamentarians belonging to the treasury have all been heard giving assurances of a smooth devolution, but they have only been partially successful in allaying fears on this score.

Where there are fears there is also another view. In the context of the SC order, the situation offers two leads and the choice of the course will determine the future relationship between the judiciary and a parliament which has time and again shown signs of discomfort under the close watch of the judges. The SC bench that was headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry has asked parliament to define the role and status of the HEC. But the fact that the court`s intervention is deemed to have been necessary is reflective of the trust deficit between the judiciary and other organs of the state. Observers who have been pointing out the dangers of a difficult partnership between parliament and the judiciary are waiting anxiously to see which of the two trends is going to be followed from here on: the one that recognises parliament`s right to express and define through legislation or the one that draws it strength from a perpetual suspicion of parliament`s capacity and ability.

The bloodshed continues

THANKS to Muammar Qadhafi, Libya has been rendered nothing short of a charnel house. The figures given by the opposition — 10,000 killed, 30,000 wounded and 20,000 missing — may well be exaggerated. But even if half these numbers are true, Mr Qadhafi should feel ashamed, repent and quit. His acceptance of the African Union peace plan has become meaningless, because his son continues to insist that the colonel will stay in power. The Arab League is in a fix. It had called for the imposition of a no-fly zone, but the scale of the Libyan tragedy and the rise in civilian casualties from Nato air strikes appear to have to paralysed it. It is time the Arab League coordinated its diplomatic efforts with those of the African Union, which is probing the possibility of reforms within the system. The difficulty lies in combining a halt to Nato air strikes with the peace move. An end to Nato bombings will give an overwhelming tactical advantage to government forces and add to the rebels` military weakness. That this military setback will make the rebels agree to power-sharing is difficult to accept.

Neutral observers rule out a military victory for the rebels, and this means the seesaw battle will continue. The heartlessness of the civil war is evident from the pounding of Misrata by the loyalist forces, whose long-range guns continue to inflict heavy casualties on the civilian population. Food is scarce and medical supplies are running out, thus aggravating the people`s misery. The intensity of hatred on the rebels` side for Mr Qadhafi stands in the way of a political solution, and unless common sense dawns on the strongman and he quits, the slaughter will continue, while a ceasefire agreed to by both sides could lead to the oil-rich country`s de facto partition.

EDITORIAL : THE HINDU, INDIA

Renewing the telecom agenda

When it comes to telecommunication gadgets, obsolescence is measured in months rather than years, not to mention decades. That was not the case with governance in the telecom industry, considering that the Indian Telegraph Act of 1885 is still the law that applies to the use of telephones, telegraph, and communications across the land. But the 2G scam has laid bare the disastrous consequences of persisting with an outdated and ambiguous policy framework, which a succession of Telecommunications Ministers handled questionably and which A. Raja used to scandalous effect, resulting in the biggest scam in the history of independent India. It is not difficult to see why this industry needs a periodically fine-tuned policy regime. India's telephone-using population is swelling phenomenally: it took a hundred years for the number of telephone subscribers to touch 20 million; now 20 million subscribers are added every month. The mode of connectivity has changed: 96 per cent of the 826 million subscribers use mobiles, which were unseen just 16 years ago. Indeed, even among the wireless services that became available in the 1990s, pagers and mobile radio trunking phones, which ranked quite prominently in the New Telecom Policy of 1999, have passed into oblivion. The value of the wireless spectrum has skyrocketed in consonance with the number of subscribers connected.

It is hardly surprising that post-scam, Telecommunications Minister Kapil Sibal wants to draft a new telecom policy to replace the one that was set 12 years ago. Mr. Sibal does not have some of the challenges NTP 1999 faced, especially the challenge of increasing the tele-density in the country. The industry has over-delivered on targets, with 154 phones today for 100 people in urban areas and 30 phones (against a target of four) for every 100 people in rural India. But Mr. Sibal needs skillfully to draft the policy in a manner that will let consumers continue to enjoy the benefits of low tariffs and of access to the latest technologies. Ensuring that there is a sufficient number of service providers competing in each area will take care of the former. Mr. Sibal has talked of having a minimum of six, but that is no problem for now since most areas have almost twice that number of service providers. He has also talked of granting a unified licence, which one trusts will be agnostic to technology choice. This will be crucial in letting companies offer their subscribers the benefit of technology as it changes and improves. But the more intractable issue will be that of spectrum and its pricing, given the proliferation of mobile devices and the increased demand on the air waves. Mr. Sibal wants to separate the issue of the telecom licence from the grant of spectrum. Yet that does not solve the problem fully. Since spectrum is commonly owned but scarce, a transparent mechanism must be devised to let phone companies pay the appropriate price to the government for the slices they use. That was the issue that trapped Mr. Raja; let not his successors also trip on it.

Realistic assessment of trade

The impressive trade performance during 2010 helped in no small way in checking the global economy's slide into recession. Highlighting this and certain related aspects, the World Trade Organisation in a recent report has cautioned that expectations of trade growth in 2011 ought to be more subdued. After the record-breaking 14.5 per cent surge in terms of volume in 2010, the expansion in world trade is unlikely to exceed 6.5 per cent during 2011. In 2010, trade was essentially bouncing back from the sharp drop of almost 12 per cent during the previous year. The 14.5 per cent increase was the highest since 1950 and was buoyed by a 3.6 per cent growth in the global output. Such a performance returned trade to the 2008 peak. The WTO's muted expectations are rooted in the realisation that the “hangover from the financial crisis is still with us.” High unemployment in the developed economies and sharp belt-tightening in Europe have fuelled protectionist pressures. The Doha development round shows no signs of moving forward. The earthquake, the tsunami, and the nuclear disaster in Japan have added to the uncertainty surrounding the trade outlook while the spiralling prices of commodities, especially petroleum, and the continuing unrest in major oil exporting countries have added to the risk factors.

But that is not all, according to the WTO. The factors that contributed to the unusually large drop in world trade in 2009 may have also boosted the rebound in 2010. The proliferation of global supply chains is one factor. The product composition of trade compared with output is another. Global supply chains cause goods to move across national boundaries several times during the production process, thereby increasing measured trade flows. Certain goods such as consumer durables and industrial machinery, which were severely affected during the downturn, have a larger share in world trade than in global GDP. Consequently, while they exaggerated the magnitude of trade slump relative to the GDP in 2009, they had a positive effect the next year. The trade recovery needs to be sustained by sound policy measures. Exhorting its members to be vigilant against protectionist forces, the WTO has said that salvation lies in opening, not closing, markets.

EDITORIAL : THE DAILY STAR, BANGLADESH

 

Shubho Nababarsha 1418!

We are reinvigorated

The advent of Baishakh is always cause for a renewal of the Bengali soul. This morning, as we ring in Bangla Shaal 1418, it is once more time to reassess ourselves, indeed to recall the cultural traditions we as a people are heir to. It is of special significance that over the years the beginning of the Bengali New Year has increasingly been a reflection of a rejuvenated spirit among the people of Bangladesh as also among Bengali-speaking people elsewhere around the globe. Particularly remarkable has been the constant reassertion of the sentiment that Pahela Baishakh marks the essentially secular character of our national ethos, be it in matters of faith, of music, of our reading habits, indeed of our way of life.
For Bengalis, Baishakh is certainly a recapitulation of history inasmuch as it is a recalling of the social background that accords significance to the season. Since the times of the Mughal Emperor Akbar, Baishakh has been a time of stock taking of the year just gone by and of an opening of accounts, or haal khata, for the one just ushered in. In clear terms, therefore, there is a rather pastoral quality about Baishakh, indeed about every turning of the season in Bangladesh, that one does not miss. The economic aspects of life related to Baishakh are a reminder of the social realities upon which our heritage is grounded. The agrarian nature of life in this land, at once predominant and timeless, has lain at the core of collective life in historical Bengal. Beyond and above that has been the cultural heritage, enriched through the passage of time and history, which has regularly injected substance into life and living here.
Pahela Baishakh, then, is a symbol of all that is good and beautiful and profound about life and culture in a Bengali ambience. It is also a time for us to look ahead into the future, through pledging to rekindle and renew the values and mores which generations of Bengalis have asserted and upheld in their lives again and again.
Shubho Nababarsha to all our readers, patrons, friends, indeed to all Bengalis in Bangladesh and beyond it!

Constitutional amendment issue

Draw the opposition into dialogue

The national dialogue that the Jatiya Sangsad (JS) committee on constitutional amendment has proposed to hold must be sincere in involving the main opposition and other political parties represented at the JS.
The reported move by the JS committees provides us with at least a glimmer of hope amidst the gloom of prevailing political ambience hostile to any constructive dialogue. The confrontational nature of politics, especially between the ruling Awami League and the Opposition Bangladesh Nationalistic Party (BNP) places a huge challenge before the government to draw the latter into a meaningful dialogue.
In the given situation wider political participation across the political spectrum requires of the ruling Awami League to address as many irritations on the path to a meaningful dialogue as feasible. We would like to believe that the government's overture to the main opposition to represent itself at the dialogue is a serious one.
The ruling party should be persistent in its effort to persuade and engage the opposition in the national dialogue.
In that event, the Opposition for their part should reciprocate ruling party's offer with good grace. Unlike many other issues of day-to-day nature against which the JS has witnessed numberless boycotts and walkouts, the present one is of deeper national significance in which all the parties have an equal stake. It is our sincere expectation that the opposition will be able to judge the issue purely on its merit, and will not politicise it unnecessarily.
Lastly, we hope that both the ruling party and the opposition would be earnest to make the proposed dialogue for constitutional amendment a success.