Today, when I return to Delhi I go for walks in the Lodi Gardens, a huge park which houses a series of mausoleums and a big ancient mosque. In the mausoleums are the graves of the Pashtun kings of the Lodi dynasty who ruled Delhi from 1451 to 1526, before the Mughals arrived from Central Asia.

The wind blows through the big stone buildings. When you step into them the domed ceilings act like sound chambers; a pigeon cooing unseen high in the darkened roof fills it with sound.

Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India from 1899 to 1905, then called Delhi a city of 'dreary and disconsolate tombs.' The capital, so often sacked and burned, was remade and rose yet again, but indeed the history of the city can still be told in its mausoleums and memorials.

But there is one that is missing.

In a ruthless political maneuver, the British colonial rulers in 1858, deposed the last Mughal emperor of India, Bahadur Shah Zafar and exiled him to Yangon where he died five years later on Nov 7, 1862.

The British in 1858, deposed the last Mughal emperor of India, Bahadur Shah Zafar and exiled him to Yangon where he died five years later on Nov 7, 1862.

His grave quite near the Shwedagon pagoda, is today a Sufi shrine. It is well maintained, and leaders of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh have visited it. Inside are some old photographs of the deposed King; in one he is a gaunt figure, smoking a hookah pipe, as if waiting for the end. There is also a photograph of his calligraphy laced with loneliness.

The grave of Bahadur Shah Zafar. It is well maintained, and leaders of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh have visited it. Inside are some old photographs of the deposed King.

I am lonely in the city, barren and dead
But who has prospered in a transitory world..

A long life I besought, these few days
Half spent in longing, half awaiting

Life comes to an end, dusk approaches
In peace I will sleep, sheltered by the grave

Zafar the wretched in his death was denied
A few feet of earth in the beloved’s street

Neither light for eyes nor solace for heart
Of use for none, I am fistful of dust..

But Bahadur Shah Zafar is at least remembered even in a quiet way 150 years later. Every evening, in the well-kept memorial opposite a small urban park and pond, local devotees gather for Sufi chants, the place echoing with the ancient sound.

Almost nobody ever visits Thibaw’s small mausoleum, about 1km from the mansion where he lived in Ratnagiri, in western India, far from his beloved Mandalay.

Thibaw was the last King of Burma, also exiled to the furthest place the British could think of at the time.

The deposing and exile of their king in November 1885 was seen as the ultimate humiliation by people in Mandalay, possibly much more so than that of Bahadur Shah Zafar, whose empire was already on its last legs and barely extended beyond the borders of Delhi.

There are numerous accounts of how the British loaded Thibaw, his Queen and their retinue onto bullock carts in Mandalay, and marched them off surrounded by British troops, as local people helplessly wept.

'British policy was to uproot the monarchy entirely and ensure that the clan of Alaungpaya would never again be a political force in Burma,' wrote historian Thant Myint U in his book, The River of Lost Footsteps.

'Dozens were sent far to the south, to Tavoy and Moulmein, and dozens of others were forced to go to India, where they were scattered in different towns and cities.'

Many of the descendants of the royals – both the Burmese and the Mughals – later were reduced to poverty.

Today, Thibaw's small mausoleum lies in the midst of shabby housing blocks. Beside it is the grave of Queen Supayagale – Thibaw’s second wife. Thanks to some repairs in 1994 by India's government, there is at least a low wall around them today; before that squatters would dry their laundry on the graves of the last King and Queen of Burma.

Today, Thibaw’s small mausoleum lies in the midst of shabby housing blocks. Beside it is the grave of Queen Supayagale – Thibaw’s second queen.

Ratnagiri was a tiny place then, with a population of 16,000. Ice would be delivered to the mansion where Thibaw and his family lived, from Mumbai – once a week. Even today it is a small place, with a population of 116,000. A rail link to Mumbai was only built in 1996.

But in Yangon, one man refuses to forget.

U Soe Win, 64, recently retired from director general at Myanmar’s ministry of foreign affairs, is now in charge of the country’s football federation’s international affairs. He is also the great grandson of King Thibaw.

U Soe Win, 64, the great grandson of King Thibaw.

'My great grandfather’s case is a miserable and tragic story. I feel sorry for his descendants,' he told me.

U Soe Win has been waging an often lonely battle to get the remains of Thibaw back to Myanmar – and Mandalay.

The return of the remains would correct a curious anomaly, a shadow of the two countries' shared colonial past. It would also be a poignant moment for Myanmar, and especially Mandalay, the seat of the old kingdom.

U Soe Win and other members of his family visited the graves in 1993, and performed some religious ceremonies there.

Thibaw died in 1916, age 56. Queen Supayalat was allowed to return to Burma in 1919, and died there. The 'little princess' Hteik Supayagale who was also Thibaw's wife, stayed in India and died a few years later and was interred next to Thibaw.

A nationalist movement in Myanmar – then Burma – to have the remains of the couple brought back to Mandalay, came up against British resistance. The British colonial rulers did not allow it for fear it would ignite Burmese nationalism and incite a rebellion.

After independence in 1948 there came another attempt to bring back the king's remains. A committee was formed, and had Prime Minister U Nu’s support. But that effort also failed. The government was fragile at the time, embroiled in civil war, and the country still hurting from the assassination in 1947 of independence hero general Aung San – National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's father.

U Soe Win has written this month to both the Indian government and the Myanmar government to revive the effort. But he is still up against it.

The return of the remains would certainly trigger emotion especially in Mandalay. Myanmar has been through a lot since independence in 1948: decades of civil war and military dictatorship, ostracism and isolation. Today it is finally moving forward.

Amid this fragile transition, with Myanmar only just beginning to experience the rehabilitation of Aung San Suu Kyi and her father Aung San, whether the country wants to travel deeper back into the often bitter past now is questionable, explained a friend in Yangon.

As for the Indian government, an official asking not to be identified said: 'We will be able to do something about it if the Myanmar government asks us. So far, they have not.'

He said in his personal opinion, the Indian government would have no reason to object to the repatriation of the remains. And he doubted that the Indian government was interested in the repatriation of Bahadur Shah Zafar.

U Soe Win sees a slender ray of hope in the imminent visit to Myanmar of India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

But speaking on the phone from Mumbai, Sudha Shah whose book The King in Exile: The Fall of the Royal Family of Burma – the product of seven years of research - is to be published this year, said: 'Nobody except the family is giving this any priority.'

'Both countries have other, more overwhelming issues to deal with,' she said.

In Yangon, one man may still refuse to forget. But it is probably safe to say that in Ratnagiri, even in the dreary flats overlooking the graves, almost nobody dreams of distant Mandalay.

Notes on further reading :

Books :

The Glass Palace, by Amitav Ghosh (Harper Collins, 2000)

The River of Lost Footsteps, by Thant Myint-U (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008)

Online :

An interesting email exchange with Amitav Ghosh, author of The Glass Palace, and more pictures, can be seen here http://amitavghosh.com/blog/?m=20120417

A note by Amitav Ghosh on the forthcoming book by Sudha Shah : http://amitavghosh.com/blog/?p=3306

It was a vastly different world then; the Vietnam war had just officially ended but the Cold War was still very much on. There was no such thing as cable TV; in many countries there was no such thing as TV. It was still the era of the radio.

On Oct 6 that year, military and police units and righ- wing mobs savagely attacked several thousand left-wing students protesting the return to Thailand of Thanom Kittikachorn, the military dictator ousted in a massive uprising in 1973.

There is video footage online from that day. The official death toll remains 46. The real death toll is widely suspected to be more than double that. A general amnesty ensured that nobody was held to account.

The unquiet spirits of that gruesome day when students were shot, beaten and kicked, dragged out on to the Sanam Luang grounds and hung from trees as mobs, inflamed by right-wing hotheads convinced that the students wanted to destroy the monarchy, bayed and cheered and even little children watched, have surfaced again.

Today, Thammasat is again the centre of controversy. Seven law professors calling themselves 'Nitirat' or 'People's Law' have suggested amendments to Article 112 – Thailand's lese majeste law - and have also suggested that Thailand's monarch should swear allegiance to the constitution, thus preventing any monarch from endorsing a military coup.

A fierce war of words has erupted over the Nitirat proposal. Thailand is a constitutional monarchy, with absolute monarchy officially abolished in 1932. Yet King Bhumibol Adulyadej – now a frail 84 - is the country’s ultimate moral authority and under him the Chakri dynasty has arguably reached its zenith.

The monarchy is officially above politics. But in reality any accusation of disloyalty to the monarchy is a powerful political weapon for competing power centres, including political parties and the army whose principal allegiance is not to the civilian government but to the monarchy.

Thammasat University rector Somkit Lertpaithoon on Jan 30 banned the Nitirat group from campaigning on university premises to amend Article 112, fearing''conflict and chaos' if they continued. Thammasat has seen small demonstrations since by students, both in support of and against Nitirat. The rector days later backed down slightly and said academic discussion was allowed.

Thailand's powerful army chief General Prayuth Chan-ocha has weighed in against the Nitirat group, warning them to stop their campaign. This week, it was reported that the Navy chief Admiral Surasak Roonruangwong has also joined in, saying 'I think every armed force is following this group's activities to see if it will affect national security. I agree with the majority of people that the campaign serves no purpose at all.'

It is not clear on what basis he concluded that the 'majority' of people see no purpose in the campaign. To the best of my knowledge no truly comprehensive opinion poll of referendum has been held on the matter.

General Prayuth reportedly said: 'Don't exploit Article 112 to instigate disturbances. I'd like to ask whether you could accept it if your parents are insulted.'

'Parents' is a euphemism for the King and Queen.

The government – keen to avoid any trace of a taint of being against the monarchy – has categorically said article 112 will not be amended.

Yet, the campaign is set to continue. One article in the Bangkok Post this week quotes Puangthong Rungswasdisab, a political scientist at Chulalongkorn University, saying that the Campaign Committee for the Amendment of Article 112 was collecting 10,000 signatures to seek an amendment. Several thousand had already signed, she said.

Ms Puangthong said the army chief may not have studied the details of the proposed amendments before criticising advocates for change.

'What we are doing is not new. Civic groups used to collect signatures to petition for legislation. This is a right guaranteed by the constitution,' she said.

'What authority will the army chief invoke to stop us? Does the army think its major duty is to stage a coup to protect the institution [of the monarchy]? The army no longer has legitimacy to stage coups.'

Several commentators have said the atmosphere is reminiscent of the buildup to that frightful October 36 years ago.

'The most salient difference between the current royalist backlash and crackdown on fair dissent and reasonable reform, and its precursors that culminated in October 1976, is the absence of the Cold War,' Chulalongkorn University professor of political science Thitinan Pongsudhirak wrote last week.

Thailand's lese majeste law is the harshest in the world. Under the law anyone defaming or insulting the king, queen, heir or regent faces up to 15 years in jail. Hundreds of lese majeste complaints – which can be lodged by anyone against anyone – have been filed since the royalist-backed coup of 2006, which removed the increasingly authoritarian but popularly elected premier Thaksin Shinawatra.

(He was later convicted for corruption and his political party disbanded and a large chunk of his wealth seized; that has not stopped his younger sister Yingluck Shinawatra rising to power last year on his popularity while he himself remains in self-exile, dodging the two-year sentence handed him by the Thai courts).

Back in 1976, one of the right-wing songs widely sung to denigrate left-wing students was Nak Paendin, translated as 'Scum of the Earth.'

In 2010, I heard the song for the first time, at a small gathering of ultra royalists at Victory Monument in Bangkok. They had assembled to protest against the 'red shirt' who had massed in Bangkok to challenge the establishment.

Today, it is being sung by ultra royalists to describe anyone deemed against the monarchy. Calls for amendments to Article 112 on grounds that it violates human rights and does the credibility of the monarchy more harm than good, have been equated with an attempt to destroy the monarchy.

In 1976, there were explicit calls for violence against the students. Today, there are the same explicit calls. One caller to a radio talk show said he would like to 'cut their (Nitirat’s) heads off'. Pressed by the radio host on whether he knew the details of the group's proposal, he admitted he had no idea.

'One hopes that the caller is a rarity in today’s Thai society, but recent Thai history is not on one's side,' remarked a Thai journalist who goes by the pseudonym Kaewmala.

'The brutality... in 1976 was committed by their fellow countrymen,' Ms Kaewmala wrote in an online article last week. 'Hatred against the students was stoked by the deadly mixture of ignorance, blind faith, unfounded fear and disinformation.'

'A a generation later, a group of seven law lecturers.. are being accused of having an evil plan to topple the monarchy, being lackeys of (former prime minister) Thaksin (Shinawatra), being Red (shirts), or simply being suspected of harbouring some mysteriously ill intention.'

In an interview on the website Prachatai.com, Tyrell Haberkorn, Research Fellow at the Department of Political and Social Change of Australia National University, said the language used against the students in the days before the 1976 massacre and that used against Nitirat were 'similar in their tone, dehumanisation, and explicit calls for violence.'

And 'When (army chief) General Prayuth Chan-ocha publicly states that the members of Nitirat should leave the country.. [it] is important to ask what kind of a signal, direct or indirect, it sends to citizens.'

Thai historian Thongchai Winichakul, now a professor of Southeast Asian History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, was one of the students at Thammasat on that day, which in today's Thai school textbooks is referred to as a 'riot' or 'disturbance'.

In an email he wrote: 'Thailand never learns anything from any controversial past. That's not how the country deals with the past. The past is always sanitised and didactic to reproduce only the dominant ideology. The Oct 6 massacre is probably the noisiest dissonance, a haunting voice of the past that refuses to go away, probably until justice is served.'

Sitting at Thammasat, it is difficult to imagine history repeating itself especially given the different context. Perhaps as the saying goes, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose - the more it changes, the more it is the same. It is an ominous thought, yet seasoned commentators have evoked it.

Only the wind in the leaves of the Bodhi tree may know the answer.

On a study trip organised by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Nam Theun 2 Power Company (NTPC) last year, a group of journalists from the region including The Straits Times were given extensive access to the reservoir, the dam and power station, and relocated villagers, most of whom are 'Vietic' people; Laos is a patchwork of some 40 ethnic groups.

Money spinner - electricity from NT2 on its way to Thailand -- PHOTO: NIRMAL GHOSH

NT2 reservoir, Nakai plateau -- PHOTO: NIRMAL GHOSH

The tops of dead trees protrude from the water now, and the boatmen of the Nam Theun 2 (NT2) Power Corporation manoeuvre between them at great speed and with great skill.

The rotting debris of submerged vegetation has made it necessary to oxygenate the water that passes through the turbines of the NT2 power station and into a 27km channel that cuts through the stunning landscape of the Gnommalath plain with its jagged karst outcrops.

Oxygenating the water -- PHOTO: NIRMAL GHOSH

On the banks of the reservoir, where the high winds that funnel through what was once the valley of the Nam Theun river, a once-pristine tropical wilderness, huddle new villages housing communities displaced by the rising waters.

Once subsistence communities living off the forests and slash-and-burn agriculture, the 1,240 families from 17 to 18 settlements have been located in 16 villages, given new wooden and rattan houses with their own plots, 0.66ha of land each to farm, an electricity connection, and 650 boats with which to fish in the reservoir.

Schools and health clinics have been provided. Close monitoring shows health and school attendance, and even incomes, are up over what they were before - no real surprise given that the settlements were previously very remote, with little road connectivity.

700 school children are now enrolled who would otherwise not have been - a 90 per cent rise in primary school enrolment. Previously, there was a 70 per cent rate of parasitic infections in the communities; that is now down to seven per cent, thanks mainly to clean water extracted by hand pumps from bore wells.

Problems include the fact that the 0.66ha of land for cultivation is not very good for cultivation. Several of the villagers were unenthusiastic about the agricultural plots; some were not cultivating them at all, depending instead on fishing to earn an income.

The shift from a virtually cashless subsistence lifestyle, to one that must be linked to markets and needs cash flow to purchase daily necessities, is a tectonic one. Imagine a banker and his urban family being relocated to a jungle for the rest of their life and given some hand tools and a book on medicinal plants and told they must survive.

Among the problems identified in evaluations include indebtedness of the relocated villagers. Illegal extraction of forest produce is also a major problem.

Resettled village -- PHOTO: NIRMAL GHOSH

There is also concern that as the resettled families depend more on fishing, with links to urban markets engineered by the NTPC, there may be a risk of overfishing in the reservoir even though large sections of it are reserved only for them.

Mr Soun Nilsvang, the NTPC's deputy manager for resettlement and a trained rural agronomist, said getting them to embrace a market economy had been difficult. Many did not trust banks to keep their money. Others did not see the need to generate more income than was barely adequate for their daily needs.

All the villagers met by the journalists expressed appreciation that the new settlements were 'more convenient' with schools and clinics nearby and everyone within shouting distance. But it may take a generation for the communities to fully adapt to a cash economy, Mr Soun Nilsvang admitted.

Along with the cash economy, plastic has been introduced to their lives; now waste disposal in the villages is a challenge.

Yet NT2 has won grudging praise even from environmental activists who are against Laos' plans to construct dozens of dams across the country – including on the Mekong mainstream. The mainstream dams in particular will have transnational implications, affecting Vietnam and Cambodia and to some degree Thailand as well.

NT2 was hugely controversial to begin with. It is South-east Asia’s first trans basin hydro power project – taking water from one river, Nam Theun, damming it and diverting it to another river, the Xe Bang Fai. Both are tributaries of the Mekong.

Warning on the Xe Bang Fai-- PHOTO: NIRMAL GHOSH

I recall attending a World Bank stakeholder meeting on NT2 in Bangkok several years ago. It was clear even then that the project was going to go ahead regardless of objections. It had morphed into a poverty alleviation and development project. There is something to be said however for the pressure from environmental groups; it helped drive better project design.

'What characterises this project is that there has been a high degree of consultation with affected people,' said Ms Elizabeth Mann, a senior social safeguard specialist with the ADB's Vientiane office.

'And it was the developer's responsibility to pay for the social aspects; the government provided the legal framework.

'But (the lifestyle in the new settlements) was never going to be an exact replacement for what they lost; it's still a work in progress.

'Some have adapted very quickly, and some slowly, but in general there has been a positive impact on livelihood. We have identified about 25 families who are vulnerable and need more support.'

One powerful driver will be the TV sets that now occupy almost every house - and the schools that occupy the children by day.

In one of the villages, a middle-aged woman, Hom, is one of the few who does not have a TV. But her 13-year-old grandson, Mai, goes to a friend's house every evening to watch TV.

'Sometimes he doesn't come back, and I have to go and fetch him,' his grandmother said.

Mai gave a shy smile when asked what he watched. Thai soap operas, was his answer.

And asked what he wanted to be when he grows up, he said: 'A policeman.'

A new study released in Bangkok on Thursday by the organisation Plan International, which works in over 50 developing countries in support of vulnerable and disadvantaged young people, throws up some disturbing responses which show just how big the challenge of gender equality really is where it matters probably most of all – in childhood.

Here are the relevant findings from the study, based on 'primary research with more than 4,000 children' :

65 per cent of participants from India and Rwanda totally or partially agreed with the statement 'A woman should tolerate violence in order to keep her family together'. A further 43 per cent agreed with the statement: 'There are times when a woman deserves to be beaten'.'

Over 60 per cent of children interviewed in India for this report agreed that 'if resources are scarce it is better to educate a boy instead of a girl'.

Here's more :

- There are 75 million girls out of primary and lower secondary school.

- A girl in Southern Sudan is more likely to die in child-birth than finish primary school.

- As many as 150 million girls and young women under 18 have experienced forced sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual violence involving physical contact. The first experience of sexual intercourse in adolescence for a large number of girls is unwanted and even coerced.

- Globally, young women aged 15 to 24 years account for 64 per cent of HIV infections among young people. In sub-Saharan Africa young women aged 15 to 24 are more than twice as likely to be infected as young men in the same age group.

If that is not grim enough, add to that this grim statistic. Life can be brutal for both girls and boys, for different reasons :

'Pressure to be tough can kill: violence, suicide and road traffics account for 60 per cent of all deaths of under 24 year old men in Europe. In the Americas, under 30 year olds are 28 times more likely to be homicide victims than elsewhere in the world. (World Health Organisation).'

A summary of the study notes : 'There is general consensus that men and women need to be given equal opportunities to show case their talents and change can only come when men in power, social and family institution play a unique role to ensure gender equality.'

At a ceremony on Friday at the Siam Society near Bangkok's Asoke intersection, close to where I live, Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra signed a gender commitment.

Many have been wondering what Thailand's first female prime minister, 44 years old and a mother of a nine year old boy, believes about issues like gender equality.

I have not seen anything really substantial on that front – though to be fair the Prime Minister has a lot on her plate, and it was a huge positive that she appeared at the Plan International event. The gender commitment, one hopes, will be more than symbolic.

In her speech Ms Yingluck said 'We need a comprehensive approach, that looks at strengthening the family, improving education, addressing poverty and changing the mindset of people.'

In his short speech Mark Pierce, Asia Regional Director of Plan International  'Boys are equally affected by poverty, discrimination and lack of opportunity in many parts of the world.'

But 'Around the world girls face twice the level of discrimination because of their gender leaving them suffering at the bottom of the social ladder.'

'The challenge... cannot be tackled by girls and women alone. Fathers, brothers, husbands and boyfriends all have a part to play.'

It was one of two trucks, transporting 60 young sharks in all. Dive instructor Jean Christophe Thomas and I sat in the back of one of them. One of my legs was down by a plastic bag bloated with water and oxygen. The black tipped shark in the bag swam furiously round and round, occasionally bumping into my leg.

A bamboo shark, near freedom. ST PHOTO: NIRMAL GHOSH

It was a 15 minute trip to the pier, but encountering unexpected traffic on the pier itself – one of the downsides of Pattaya – we placed upturned soft drink crates on the bags to prevent them from heating up in the sun. We transferred them as soon as possible to the covered deck of the boat.

Soon we were off out to sea, eventually mooring near a reef some 26 kilometres off Pattaya, at Ko Rinn. This was the first of two reintroduction sites.

Handing over sharks to a diver to be released. ST PHOTO: NIRMAL GHOSH

Divers went into the water and were passed the bags one by one. Among the group of foreigners and Thais was 37 year old Panutcha ‘’Ouy’’ Bunnag, an executive from a private sector firm in Bangkok, and an experienced diver.

Struggling at first with the bags which were filled with air and awkward to drag below the surface, they opened them, submerged them carefully, and let the sharks swim free. The black tipped sharks, which are swift swimmers, shot away; the bamboo sharks seemed to linger, almost disbelieving of their freedom, before disappearing.

The divers emerged from the first few releases with whoops of joy and exchanged high-fives.

This was the Dive Tribe’s ‘’great shark release’’ – possibly the largest ever release of captive sharks into the wild in Thailand, perhaps in Asia.

Most of them were bamboo sharks, but there were 5 black-tipped sharks with their distinctive dorsal fins. Their ages ranged from a few months to 3 years. The black tipped sharks were each about a foot and a half long; fully grown, they can reach 1.5 metres and live up to 25 years in the wild.

Bamboo sharks are relatively inactive, preferring to hang about among corals and rocks. Black tipped sharks must keep moving to process oxygen. In their bags, they swam constantly in circles, their distinctive dorsal fins slicing through the surface of the 6-8 inches of water. They reminded me of the pacing in zoo enclosures of another apex predator of the terrestrial world, the tiger.

They had been purchased using donations from across the world, from restaurants in Bangkok, Puket and Pattaya, and dealers in Bangkok’s Chatuchak weekend market, by Gwyn Mills, who founded Dive Tribe two years ago.

Gwyn Mills (left) with dive instructor Jean Christophe Thomas loading the sharks. ST PHOTO: NIRMAL GHOSH

Dive Tribe combines diving for paying customers, with marine conservation. UK native Mills, 43, now a resident of Pattaya, said in recent years it was clear that Thailand, once one of the best dive destinations in the region, had lost its cachet to other countries, notably Indonesia.

Furthermore, what excites divers most is spotting a shark – and there were very few left in the waters off Pattaya. This is a problem for the diving industry, which is Thailand’s second largest sporting pastime after golf.

The reason? There are no regulations protecting sharks in Thailand, and they are much sought after for their fins. More recently, sharks are also being used in other products; Mills reckoned that the common Thai fish balls, are now made of cheap shark meat.

Dive Tribe's Gwyn Mills - putting something back. ST PHOTO: NIRMAL GHOSH

'Thailand is taking 22,000 tons of sharks from the sea every year’ he said. ‘We have a big problem. All the dive stores around Thailand have been complaining that they don’t see sharks on dives any more.’

The owner of the boat, seafarer Robert Camp, tall, lean and sunburned, said that in his 10 years of diving in the area, he had seen some bamboo sharks – which lie around on reefs and under rocks. He had seen just a few black tipped sharks, and no hammerhead sharks at all – though they used to be present.

The condition of the waters off Pattaya had improved somewhat when Pattaya – a once low-profile but now fast-growing city swamped by tourists and dominated by tall hotels and condos – began treating its sewage some 8-9 years ago. Some species like sea turtles had reappeared. ‘’But not the sharks’’ he said.

Among other concerns of marine ecologists and activists like Mills, is the level of mercury in shark fins. Mercury is a well known contaminant in seafood; in many countries pregnant women are cautioned to limit their intake of seafood. Sharks, which are long-lived creatures, accumulate more mercury in their systems than others. For more on this see http://water.epa.gov/scitech/swguidance/fishshellfish/outreach/advice_index.cfm

Sharks have been the top predator of the planet’s oceans for an estimated 400 million years. Estimates vary, but hunting for sharks - for their fins, driven mostly by the shark fin soup market - removes up to 100 million sharks a year from the marine ecosystem.

A bamboo shark, just moments away from freedom.

In one documented example, the removal of sharks to the extent that they are now at ‘’functionally extinct’’ levels in parts of the North Atlantic on the USA’s east coast, led to an explosion of the population of one of their prey species, the cow nose ray. The ray east scallops, oysters and clams; with the growth in ray population, scallop, clam and oyster catch in the area has plummeted.

Mills addressed the criticism of operations like the shark release, on grounds that buying sharks fuels demand. It was a one-off event and against a background of million of sharks being taken, it was a mere blip, he said. The sharks had been saved from certain death, and the publicity from the operation outweighed the downside, he reckoned.

For more on how sharks are being slaughtered and there is still nowhere near enough being done to protect them, see TRAFFIC’s report here (the link features a downloadable .pdf which makes very grim reading indeed) - http://www.traffic.org/home/2011/1/27/shark-populations-dwindle-as-top-catchers-delay-on-conservat.html

And for a comprehensive and sobering look at what we are doing to the marine ecosystem, see the incredible Sylvia Earle’s outstanding TED talk at http://www.ted.com/talks/sylvia_earle_s_ted_prize_wish_to_protect_our_oceans.html

Some raw video from my trip to Pattaya is up on my Facebook page http://www.Facebook.com/ST.Nirmal

The village, Ban Pulu, was the first to have its signboard nailed at its entrance road. -- PHOTO: NIRMAL GHOSH 

So I decided to go and check them out.
 
Accompanied by Inter Press Service correspondent Marwaan Macan-Markar, I spent two days in Isan last Sunday and Monday, travelling extensively and conducting interviews in Udon Thani and Khon Kaen.

The red shirts began developing a few months after the September 2006 coup d’etat that ousted Thaksin Shinawatra, and have since grown into a wide, deep and well-organised movement only temporarily disrupted by the army’s crackdown last summer. The movement supports the opposition Puea Thai party, currently leading the ruling Democrat Party according to almost all opinion polls.
 
We witnessed an inauguration ceremony for 10 villages, all declaring themselves "Red Villages for Democracy." We found that the "Red Villages" tactic is a symbolic one. The villages are not exclusion zones, and there is no attempt to set up a parallel administration.

The signboards were taken on a procession through the village. -- PHOTO: NIRMAL GHOSH 

But it seems to be a trend, a new avenue of expression.
 
The red shirt movement seems to be adapting and evolving under pressure. The "Red Villages" is one example of creativity; in another, coffee shops (in Udon Thani) now offer more options for locals to gather and talk politics especially as many community radio stations are out of action and those that are still broadcasting, have really toned down political content.

All subjects are discussed at these gatherings, we were told.
 
At the coffee shop we visited, the group included a teacher, a primary school director, and several farmers - both men and women. We asked two women about the Democrat Party’s farmer income guarantee scheme. One said she had not registered; the other said she had received 2,000 baht. We asked whether that would influence her vote. Both in unison said "No".
 
One man there said he had received 2,000 baht last year – and used it to go to Bangkok to join the red shirt protests.
 
It is also clear that there is active debate and even disagreement on strategy and tactics, between different red shirt groups and leaders, and the formal leaders of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD).

A village representative receives her signboard on stage. -- PHOTO: NIRMAL GHOSH

Evolving

The UDD itself is not monolithic; the red shirt movement is an even looser entity than the UDD, and evolving in its own way, in different directions, though largely with the same objective.
 
This evolution in effect is producing a multi-pronged effort – the UDD’s democracy schools which are back in action; the "democracy villages" and coffee gatherings; and an effort to train volunteers to monitor polling stations.

There are some radicals who are waiting and watching the election and its aftermath.

Of course there are also red shirt leaders now on the Puea Thai’s party list for the July 3 election. It will be interesting to watch the evolution of the movement.
 
While former prime minister Thaksin remains the rallying point, several red shirts we spoke to, who made speeches at two different locations in Udon Thani province, did not exhort their audiences to vote for the Puea Thai party.

Of course they were speaking to the converted anyway. But they harped on the democracy theme, telling the audiences they could vote for anyone they liked, that their vote was their weapon.
 
One speaker, on a hot afternoon told about 500-odd gathered in Udon Thani, said: "If political parties give you money, take it – but vote for whoever you want. The only chance for change is now."

"This is an arena for you. You are free to vote for whoever you like. But I want you to think about what we are going to do if our vote is ignored again, if our votes are wasted. Think about it."

But at the coffee shop gathering we observed, there was also a sign on the wall (next to a poster which included a picture of Thaksin riding a white horse) saying: "Selling your vote makes you a slave."

Monks chanted blessings for the Red Village for Democracy inauguration ceremony last Sunday in Udon Thani. -- PHOTO: NIRMAL GHOSH

There are also active discussions at a very basic level, on strategy on various post election scenarios.

Some red shirts said they would not return to mass protests in Bangkok because the last time around they had done that, many had been killed and they came away with nothing.

They could find other ways, in the countryside itself, they said. One said they could "shut down" the country if they "shut down" Isan.
 
There is clearly no let-up in the frustration and resentment against the "amaat" - the aristocratic establishment.

Much depends on the outcome of the election - and its aftermath. Machinations will be closely watched across the country in an election that has the potential to be either a land mine, or a watershed.

See Nirmal's video on his Facebook page wall here.

FORMER Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra appeared relaxed and upbeat when I met him in Dubai last week (May 26). It seems he keeps extremely busy; his private jet flies an average of 2.5 hours a day, he said. "I am hyperactive!" he exclaimed.

Among his business interests now are gold and platinum mines in Africa. Even his cars – four of them, with four drivers – in Dubai do a lot of mileage, mainly picking people up from the airport and dropping them off. He has a constant stream of visitors, but we met alone in his gleaming chrome, black and tan living room.

The interview was published in The Straits Times on May 28, and part of it was translated into Thai and posted by Prachatai.com at http://www.prachatai3.info/journal/2011/05/35170

Thaksin is considered a fugitive from the law in Thailand, where he was handed a two-year sentence on a charge of conflict of interest in 2008. He is now in self-exile, but has been trying to claw his way back into Thailand on the coat-tails of his still-significant popularity.

His supporters have since joined hands with other groups and individuals who are against the army’s role in internal politics, and this "Red Shirt" movement has swelled. Successive summers of protest by the Red Shirts have been beaten back by the government with the help of the army; in the summer of 2010, the clashes in Bangkok and elsewhere left 92 dead, most of them civilians.

At the next general election, scheduled to take place on July 3, analysts expect it to be a close race, though most opinion polls show the Thaksin-backed Puea Thai coming out ahead of the ruling Democrat Party.

In my interview with Thaksin, we talked about his view of the army, whose support is critical to any Thai government. Thaksin was frank in his view of the armed forces, saying it should stick to its "own duties", but also spoke about a future relationship between Puea Thai and the military.

"The army has two major duties, first to protect sovereignty, second to protect the monarchy," he said. "The military want to show their loyalty (to the monarchy) by coming out too much, but this is not good for the military and not good for the monarchy."

He added: "I think it’s time everyone goes back to their own duties. The military must go back to the barracks and if any sovereignty issue happens, that’s their duty, not meddling in politics. In the past politicians invited the military to come out and justified it (saying) it’s about the monarchy. It’s a created story, all untrue. It’s time the military performs its duty, and the government after the election has to protect the monarchy and try to bring unity and finish all kinds of activities that are not good for the monarchy."

Thaksin was adamant that the military and the government not interfere in each other's work.

"If there is nothing that affects the monarchy, the military will be in the barracks and the government, the politicians, should not meddle with them, let them do their work. I still believe when Puea Thai becomes the government we will have a good relationship with the military; not (with) we under them or they under us, but we can jointly work together."

I also asked him about Puea Thai’s proposal for a wide amnesty for those facing charges related to politics – a controversial proposal which the Democrat Party says is aimed at paving the way for Thaksin’s return.

The former premier replied: "(If) you can accept amnesty (for those who) staged the coup (in 2006) which robbed people of power, then why not accept amnesty, why is it so strange? The amnesty will be for all. You provide amnesty for everyone to come back to normal life, and at the same time correct what went wrong in the past."

When I told him that his political enemies say he thinks only about himself, he said: "They are afraid of me. Even when I’m not there they are losing every time."

I also mentioned a recent remark by politician Newin Chidchob - a former Thaksin ally who crossed over to the Democrats - that neither Thaksin’s sister Yingluck Shinawatra nor prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva would be prime minister after the election. The remark had caused a stir in Bangkok’s political circles.

Thaksin’s response was: "When he (Newin Chidchob) was with me he was a different person. Now he is so big he can dictate who is going to be the prime minister? I don’t think so, I don’t think so. I think Thais have learned a lesson. All the political conflict and chaos in Thailand stems from not respecting the people’s decision."

Thai political divide reality check : I just got a call from a Thai friend, asking what I was doing this Sunday afternoon. When I said I was in Chiang Rai covering Yingluck's campaign, she said: ''So, you support her.''

Likewise on Twitter, after I tweeted that I was at the Phayao rally (the first of the day) someone responded saying: ''Why do you advertise this party?''

All this would be amusing if it wasn't so starkly illustrative of the political divide which has so bitterly polarised Thailand.

Many fail to distinguish between the messenger and the message, and fail to see that it is the job of a journalist to cover the news, whoever is making it.

My covering something or somebody, does not mean an endorsement of the subject or the point of view.

It's been this way in Thailand since about 2008.

The middle ground of objective reporting and analysis has been squeezed until it is a very, very narrow space indeed.

Interested, because I have often taken the Express, and while it has been running for a few months now, none of the problems have been sorted out. As a result, I have never come across more than a handful of passengers in a single carriage.

Some of the complaints listed in the article I have written on before, and can readily still agree with, include:

-    bad signage
-    escalators are not where they are needed
-    there are no trolleys
-    there is no easily used link to nearby public transport

Indeed there are so few passengers that staff at the city end – Makkasan station – seem almost surprised when you disembark.

But the mystery starts at the airport end itself – where you can’t buy a ticket. You go to the top of the escalator that leads down to the platform and a security staffer asks where you are going. It’s clear that he has to do this because passengers get confused – and they get confused because the ticket machines aren’t working, so you don’t know what you are getting into.

At Makkasan, invariably a platform staffer has to guide you to the single working escalator at one end of the platform. When you have reached ground level, you wander through a vast concourse with almost nobody around, until you get to the ticket counter, where you buy your 150 Baht token and then slip it into the turnstile gate to get out.

That’s where the problems really start. At an upper deck, taxis are sometimes available. If, like me, you live in the Sukhumvit area above Asoke (Sois 16 and 23 upwards) you have to do a long loop around or a U-turn in heavy traffic if you take a taxi on that deck.

If you are lucky enough to have light hand luggage, and want to get to Sukhumvit fast, you have to hoof it out of the station, up 50m to the busy road, and either cross it to get a taxi, or turn right to get to the underground station. At the entrance to the underground line, you have to open your bags for the security staff to check them.

All this is a small nightmare if you have heavy luggage, or in the hot sun, or if it is bucketing rain.

But the Bangkok Post article noted problems that passengers don’t notice – thankfully. Apparently the system doesn’t have enough spare parts. Efforts are on to rectify this, as well as to construct the linkages that will make the service more user-friendly.

But these problems have been known since the Express started operations in June 2010. Yet, none seems to have been addressed and today, it still makes sense to use the Express only if you have light hand luggage.

The Post report quoted permanent secretary for transport Supoj Saplom as saying the target for the system was 2,200 passengers a day. But since fares were increased from 100 to 150 Baht in January, the number of passengers has dropped to 700 a day.

That’s not surprising, given that most times, a taxi will get you to the airport for between 200 and 300 Baht, depending on where in the city you live, and whether you use the toll roads. Transfer time in a taxi varies between 40 minutes to one hour also, depending on the route and time of day. Taxi prices and transfer times are actually comparable to those on the Express, because it is such a chore to get to and from the train.

According to Mr Supoj, the system is losing money to the tune of 42 million Baht a month.

The originator of the Gaia hypothesis which maintains that the Earth is a living self-regulating organism a few years ago came to the conclusion that human beings are incapable of or do not want to adapt to mitigate global warming.

Therefore, given that we want business as usual, we need energy – and more of it given the growing needs of countries like India and China.

Since we want to continue enjoying life as we know it, we have to build more nuclear plants regardless – because we are all going to fry anyway when the Earth inevitably heats up several degrees.

I am putting this in simplistic and even facetious terms, but you get the drift. I highly recommend James Lovelock’s book The Vanishing Face of Gaia. It is visionary, realistic - and sobering.

A child evacuated from the Fukushima exclusion zone: the cost of our hunger for energy? -- ST PHOTO: NIRMAL GHOSH

At a cafe in Tokyo, as young men and women chatted and laughed around us (belying an undercurrent of concern as the population gets a crash course on the arcane details of radioactivity), I met with Yu Tanaka, one of Japan’s lonely breed of anti-nuclear activists. 

He spoke of the entrenched nuclear power industry in Japan – a cosy club of big corporations (power utilities and construction), bureaucracy, politicians and the media.

Later, I met with Mr Tetsuo Saito, a physicist and PhD holder from Princeton University who has been minister of environment and now sits in the opposition.

Even he agreed there was no longer a consensus in Japan about the safety of nuclear power plants.

Nuclear power debate 

Use Google News and key in "Nuclear, Japan, Fukushima" and you will come up with a mass of articles discussing nuclear power.

UN talks on climate change are under way right now in Bangkok, and Fukushima has put a cat among the proverbial pigeons. The nuclear renaissance – over 300 plants are planned around the world – is partly driven by the need to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from coal-burning power plants.

But the critics say if you go back to look at Chernobyl in 1986, and then fast forward to Fukushima 2011 which is still unfolding (there seems to be something inherently wrong about a system that keeps going even if you flip the OFF switch?) it warrants a pause for serious thought.

The big question is what we use from our menu of options – from the benign (solar, wind, waves) to the dangerous (coal, nuclear). Somewhere in the middle is hydro power. And at the root of it is our hunger for energy.

Yu Tanaka: Japan's energy structure needs a revolution. -- ST PHOTO: NIRMAL GHOSH

It is this – the key input that maintains our life as we know it – combined with the big business interests, that leaves us with only dangerous solutions.

Somewhat like how the entrenched interests of the US auto industry delayed the development of fuel-efficient or electric cars, if the resources that go into nuclear power (or indeed the importing of oil) were to be diverted to renewable energy, remarkable achievements are possible.

This is especially so in Japan with its long coastline. Will the still-leaking radioactive water from Fukushima force this kind of revolution?

The debate rages. See this article for an critique of George Monbiot’s views : http://links.org.au/node/2246

Hugh Gusterson in an article last week for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, wrote "Countries with other energy options, strong democratic structures, and powerful environmental movements will probably de-emphasise, and maybe eventually renounce, nuclear energy.

"Switzerland has already suspended plans to build new reactors, and Germany's Angela Merkel, responding to large antinuclear protests, announced plans to close seven reactors pending further evaluation of their safety and to reconsider plans to extend the lives of Germany's oldest reactors.

"In the meantime, countries with weak environmental movements and weak regulatory norms seem to be proceeding as if nothing has happened."

As the Fukushima nuclear disaster unfolded, Turkey announced plans to go ahead with two reactors, and we can surely expect China, Russia, and India to do the same.

It seems supremely ironic to me that Japan – the only country ever to be struck by nuclear bombs, twice – should be facing a nuclear disaster which is the result of its own marriage with nuclear energy.

I mentioned this to a friend on Saturday as we left an evacuation centre housing people from the 20 km exclusion zone around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

"Yes" she said. "We are idiots if we still do not learn."