"Making Place": The "Pacific Solution" and Australian Emplacement in the Pacific and on Refugee Bodies

In September 2001, Australia effected a "Pacific Solution" to its "refugee problem": the interception and transfer of "unauthorised boat arrivals" to processing centres in the Pacific Third World. These centres were agreed to by poor countries that were approached precisely because of their vulnerability and dependence upon Australia, in exchange for increases in aid. Australia thereby created a regional refugee problem and, in so doing, Australian seignorage also demands that the laws of those sovereign countries be placed in stasis so that people not convicted of a crime may be detained indefinitely. The Pacific region, in effect, came to be mapped in terms of its utility to Australia, both downplaying and concealing complex economic, social and political issues. This essay studies the Pacific Solution as a means of Australian "emplacement" in the Pacific and on refugee identity/bodies. Both refugee identity and the Pacific Third World are assessed in terms of their utility in serving as sites for Australian emplacement, whereby and wherein the borders of Australia are reinforced, to the detriment of extant "local" emplacements.     

Induction by long period geomagnetic variations in the Indian sub-continent

In the present paper storm time variations and 27-day geomagnetic periodicity have been analysed to estimate the depth of the substitute conductor, assuming an infinitely (super) conducting core model of the earth. The advantage of using data from a restricted longitude range is that the uncertainties arising from lateral contrasts in the upper mantle and contributions from Sq current systems are considerably reduced. The result of the present analysis, which has been done in the time domain, gives a value of 522 km for the depth of the substitute conductor in case of storm time variations which rises to 870 km for 27-day recurrent storms. A higher value of the depth for 27-day variations indicate that the rise in conductivity inside the earth is not like a step function rather is a gradual one. The value of 522 km for storm time variations for the Indian region is smaller than the global average. This is natural to expect because the Indian sub-continent is known to be a tectonically active region.     

Seasonal variabilities of low-latitude mesospheric winds

Observations of mesospheric winds over a period of four years with the partial reflection radar at Tirunelveli (8.7°N, 77.8°E), India, are presented in this study. The emphasis is on describing seasonal variabilities in mean zonal and meridional winds in the altitude region 70–98 km. The meridional winds exhibit overall transequatorial flow associated with differential heating in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. At lower altitudes (70–80 km) the mean zonal winds reveal easterly flow during summer and westerly flow during winter, as expected from a circulation driven by solar forcing. In the higher altitude regime (80–98 km) and at all altitudes during equinox periods, the mean zonal flow is subjected to the semi-annual oscillation (SAO). The interannual variability detected in the occurrence of SAO over Tirunelveli has also been observed in the data sets obtained from the recent UARS satellite mission. Harmonic analysis results over a period of two years indicate the presence of long-period oscillations in the mean zonal wind at specific harmonic periods near 240, 150 and 120 days. Results presented in this study are discussed in the context of current understanding of equatorial wave propagation.     

Velocity of small-scale auroral ionospheric current systems over Indian Antarctic station Maitri

The Indian Antarctic station Maitri (geog. 70‡45’S, 11‡45’E, geom. 66‡.03S, 53‡.21E) occupies a sub-auroral location during magnetically quiet conditions(Σκρ < 10), but attains an auroral position when the auroral oval shifts equatorwards with increasing strength of magnetic disturbance. At the latter times, triangulation with 3 fluxgate magnetometers located at the vertices of a suitable triangle provides a means of monitoring mobile auroral ionospheric current systems over Maitri. The spacing between the magnetometers is typically kept at 75–200 km, keeping in mind the scale-sizes of ∼ 100 km for these mobile current systems. This work reports the results of two triangulation experiments carried out around Maitri in January 1992 and January 1995, both during Antarctic summer. The velocities estimated for pulsations of the Pc4 and Pc5 type were about 0.59 km/sec in the direction 102‡.7 east of due north, in the first case, and about 1–3 km/sec in the second case in the east-west direction. While several magnetometer arrays exist in the northern auroral regions (e.g., the Alberta array in Canada, the Alaskan array in the U.S. and the IMS Scandinavian array), there is no report in literature of triangulation through arrays in Antarctica, except for a one-day study by Neudegget al 1995 for ULF pulsations of the Pc1 and Pc2 type. The velocities obtained for the Pi3 type of irregular pulsations over Antarctica in the present study tally well with those obtained for northern auroral locations.     

Rapid visual screening of different housing typologies in Himachal Pradesh,India

Natural Hazards - Methods capable of assessing the vulnerability of houses for future earthquakes are of fundamental importance for the safety and development of an area. As the detailed assessment...     

Incorporating Groundwater-Surface Water Interaction into River Management Models

Accurate representation of groundwater-surface water interactions is critical to modeling low river flows in the semi-arid southwestern United States. Although a number of groundwater-surface water models exist, they are seldom integrated with river operation/management models. A link between the object-oriented river and reservoir operations model, RiverWare, and the groundwater model, MODFLOW, was developed to incorporate groundwater-surface water interaction processes, such as river seepage/gains, riparian evapotranspiration, and irrigation return flows, into a rule-based water allocations model. An explicit approach is used in which the two models run in tandem, exchanging data once in each computational time step. Because the MODFLOW grid is typically at a finer resolution than RiverWare objects, the linked model employs spatial interpolation and summation for compatible communication of exchanged variables. The performance of the linked model is illustrated through two applications in the Middle Rio Grande Basin in New Mexico where overappropriation impacts endangered species habitats. In one application, the linked model results are compared with historical data; the other illustrates use of the linked model for determining management strategies needed to attain an in-stream flow target. The flows predicted by the linked model at gauge locations are reasonably accurate except during a few very low flow periods when discrepancies may be attributable to stream gaging uncertainties or inaccurate documentation of diversions. The linked model accounted for complex diversions, releases, groundwater pumpage, irrigation return flows, and seepage between the groundwater system and canals/drains to achieve a schedule of releases that satisfied the in-stream target flow.