SACW - 4 June 2015 | Sri Lanka: 20th Amendment / Pakistan: Women barred from voting; threats to Orangi workers; industrial relations / India-Pakistan should talk, allow pigeons to fly / India: Eggs disallowed, Reading Ambedkar not allowed / Rohingyas of Burma hounded by Buddhist fundamentalists / Women Under the Khmer Rouge

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire - 4 June 2015 - No. 2859 
[since 1996]

Contents:
1. Sri Lanka: CPA's Statement of Concern on The Twentieth Amendment
2. Affan Chowdhry: Killings targeting Bangladesh secular bloggers worry Toronto moderator
3. So much to talk about: Standoffs are old-fashioned, India and Pakistan should resume dialogue | A G Noorani
4. Pakistan: The outlines of a framework for industrial relations | B.M. Kutty and Karamat Ali
5. India: Religious sentiment drives eggs out of state-funded mid-day meals for children | Maps on the provision of eggs in MDMs and ICDS
6. India: Thousands in Mandala (Bombay) take back their land | Solidarity Protest in Delhi on 3 June 2014
7. India: social scientist Kancha Ilaiah faces the wrath of Vishwa Hindu Parishad for asking, 'Is God a democrat?'
8. India: IIT Madras unhappy with rationalism and Modi critique - weblinks to commentary and statements
9. India: Text of Memo to Haryana govt following communal violence in Ballabgarh
10. Daily Life of Segregation and Ghettoisation in Modi's Gujarat | Charlotte Thomas
11. Recent on Communalism Watch
 - India: No entry for non-Hindus’ to Somnath temple without permit in Gujarat
 - India: Atali Speaks - A report on communal violence in Atali is a village in Ballabhgarh Tehsil of Faridabad District of Haryana (Ravi Nitesh)
 - Religious sentiment drives eggs out of state-funded mid day meals for children | Maps on the provision of eggs in MDMs and ICDS
 - India : Arif Mohammad Khan on Shah Bano case
 - Dispute over mosque triggered communal violence in Ballabgarh, Haryana
 - Ayesha Hareem reponds to Ziya Us Salam's review of Denied by Allah the book by Noor Zaheer
 - India: Fifty kilometres from Delhi, hundreds of Muslims have become refugees overnight
 - India: Stories of Housing Discrimination on the Basis of Religion
 - India: Mainstreaming Savarkar as a national hero is part of the BJP’s unfinished agenda
::: RESOURCEs & FULL TEXT :::
12. Marooned on the High Seas | Asad Ashraf
13. Women barred from voting in parts of Pakistan | Jon Boone
14. Suspected spy' pigeon becomes jailbird after flight over Pakistan-India border | Aisha Gani
15. Pakistan: For Orangi Pilot Project workers, police have only one advice: leave the country | Express Tribune
16. Film Review: Red Wedding: Women Under the Khmer Rouge
17. Gadgets powered wirelessly at home with a simple Wi-Fi router | Chris Baraniuk

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1. SRI LANKA: CPA'S STATEMENT OF CONCERN ON THE TWENTIETH AMENDMENT
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30th May 2015, Colombo, Sri Lanka: The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) expresses its serious concern at the lack of clarity in the public discourse on electoral reforms in the country that has generated widespread misconceptions and confusion in the minds of the public. Many individuals and organisations have indicated support for the proposed Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution without appreciating that doing away with preferential voting is just one aspect of the reform proposals, and that critically assessing what will replace preferential voting, and the other features of the proposed Amendment, is very important.
http://www.sacw.net/article11222.html

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2. AFFAN CHOWDHRY: KILLINGS TARGETING BANGLADESH SECULAR BLOGGERS WORRY TORONTO MODERATOR
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A wave of killings targeting secular bloggers in Bangladesh is a long way from real-estate agent Farid Ahmed's suburban Toronto neighbourhood. But the murders could not feel closer.
http://www.sacw.net/article11217.html

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3. SO MUCH TO TALK ABOUT: STANDOFFS ARE OLD-FASHIONED, INDIA AND PAKISTAN SHOULD RESUME DIALOGUE | A G Noorani
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The present standoff in India-Pakistan relations is at once unreal, wasteful and dangerous. Unreal, because it has far exceeded the reasonable limits of resentment that it was supposed to express when talks between the foreign secretaries were called off last year. Wasteful, because it does not serve any national interest. On the contrary, talking points are piling up relentlessly. And it is dangerous because a long impasse can precipitate developments that neither side expects or desires.
http://www.sacw.net/article11212.html

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4. PAKISTAN: THE OUTLINES OF A FRAMEWORK FOR INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
by Karamat Ali and B.M. Kutty
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Ever since the promulgation of the 18th Constitutional Amendment, under which the subject of labour and industrial relations has been devolved to and brought under the purview of the provincial governments, a debate has been going on . . .
http://www.sacw.net/article11216.html

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5. INDIA: RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT DRIVES EGGS OUT OF STATE-FUNDED MID-DAY MEALS FOR CHILDREN | MAPS ON THE PROVISION OF EGGS IN MDMS AND ICDS
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Posted below is a news report saying Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has asked officials to not include eggs — a high-protein source — in the anganwadi mid-day meals. The decision was taken as he apparently, did not want to hurt the sentiments of the vegetarian Jain community. THis is followed by maps from the right to food campaign on the provision on eggs in Mid Day meals schemes across India.
http://www.sacw.net/article11227.html

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6. INDIA: THOUSANDS IN MANDALA (BOMBAY) TAKE BACK THEIR LAND | SOLIDARITY PROTEST IN DELHI ON 3 JUNE 2014
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Thousands of slum dwellers, who had been displaced from Mandala over ten years ago, came together today to reclaim their land and rebuild their houses, in a historic struggle for right to housing and basic facilities of urban poor in Mumbai.
http://www.sacw.net/article11214.html

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7. INDIA: SOCIAL SCIENTIST KANCHA ILAIAH FACES THE WRATH OF VISHWA HINDU PARISHAD FOR ASKING, 'IS GOD A DEMOCRAT?'
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The Hyderabad police have registered a case against renowned social scientist Kancha Ilaiah, after Vishwa Hindu Parishad activists complained that an opinion piece he wrote in the Telugu newspaper Andhra Jyothi had hurt their religious sentiments.
http://www.sacw.net/article11224.html

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8. INDIA: IIT MADRAS UNHAPPY WITH RATIONALISM AND MODI CRITIQUE - WEBLINKS TO COMMENTARY AND STATEMENTS
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a compilation of URLs following the derecognition of a student group by IIT Madras [updated on 3 June 2015]
http://sacw.net/article11221.html

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9. INDIA: TEXT OF MEMO TO HARYANA GOVT FOLLOWING COMMUNAL VIOLENCE IN BALLABGARH
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This memorandum was handed in at a civil society protest held outside the Haryana Bhavan in New Delhi on 30 May 2015 following communal violence in a Village in Ballabhgarh, Haryana.
http://www.sacw.net/article11220.html

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10. DAILY LIFE OF SEGREGATION AND GHETTOISATION IN MODI'S GUJARAT | Charlotte Thomas
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This paper is based on long ethnographic enquiries led in Ahmedabad, and mainly in Juhapura, between 2009 and 2014
http://www.sacw.net/article11211.html

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11. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH:
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 - India: No entry for non-Hindus’ to Somnath temple without permit in Gujarat
 - India: Atali Speaks - A report on communal violence in Atali is a village in Ballabhgarh Tehsil of Faridabad District of Haryana (by Ravi Nitesh)
 - Religious sentiment drives eggs out of state-funded mid day meals for children | Maps on the provision of eggs in MDMs and ICDS
 - India : Arif Mohammad Khan on Shah Bano case
 - Dispute over mosque triggered communal violence in Ballabgarh, Haryana
 - Ayesha Hareem reponds to Ziya Us Salam's review of Denied by Allah the book by Noor Zaheer
 - India: Fifty kilometres from Delhi, hundreds of Muslims have become refugees overnight
 - India: Stories of Housing Discrimination on the Basis of Religion
 - India: Mainstreaming Savarkar as a national hero is part of the BJP’s unfinished agenda
 - Rana Ayyub on Discrimination and Denial in Access to Residential for Muslims in Metropolitan India
 - India: Why Zeeshan’s job denial should be a game-changer (Praful Bidwai)
 - Ghar Wapsi victims join US lawsuit to name RSS a terror outfit
 - India: Not a sprinkle, but a spread of saffron (Manjari Katju)
 - Sagarika Ghosh on Long distance nationalism and the diaspora
 - India: World Hindu Council or VHP Wants Ban on Rafting in the Ganges - it promotes obscene activities
 - India: Communal tensions in Atali village of Ballabgarh Division – A preliminary report (Janhastakshep)
 - India: Ballabgarh Communal Tension - houses set on fire, Muslims flee village
 -  Username India, Password Gujarat (R.K. MIsra / Wordsmiths & Newsplumbers)
 - The Salafi war on Sufism (Shail Mayaram)
- India: No flat for her in Mumbai because she is Muslim

 - available at: http://communalism.blogspot.in/

 
::: RESOURCEs & FULL TEXT :::
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12. MAROONED ON THE HIGH SEAS
by Asad Ashraf
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Denied citizenship in the country of their birth and hounded by Buddhist fundamentalists, the Rohingyas of Burma present a classic example of the plight of Stateless people. 

While living in exile may mean constant worrying over whether one would ever get to see the loved ones back in the land of one’s birth, that is not the be-all and end-all of the refugee’s existence. At the Khadar camp, for instance, they have built their own imaginary world from bits and pieces of the memories of the past and the everyday hassles of the present. News of home comes beaming in through the few television sets in the camp, and more often than not, all news is bad news, reopening old wounds and sending everyone into a huddle of silence.

But, sometimes, the silence is interrupted by old tales of loss and horror when the exiles recount their individual stories — an act of subdued defiance, a revolt against a world where personal experiences of pain are often drowned in the din of collective woes.

Grotesque human suffering is not new to journalists, who often run into it as a part of their everyday job. But imagining some thousands of people marooned in sea and with nowhere to go does not come easy even to media professionals with years of experience in reporting stories of human tragedy.

Making it worse is the hypocrisy implicit in countries condemning the treatment meted out to the Rohingyas even as they refuse to support the persecuted minority. The only country to have offered them refuge was the Philippines, a Catholic-dominated country, while others, including the Muslim-dominated Malaysia and Indonesia, denied them entry for as long as they could fend off the pulls and pressures of international public opinion. In fact, even after relenting, they continued to insist that the refuge is being provided only temporarily and expect the international community to come up with a permanent resettlement plan for the Rohingyas.

http://www.tehelka.com/marooned-on-the-high-seas/

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13. WOMEN BARRED FROM VOTING IN PARTS OF PAKISTAN
by Jon Boone
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(The Guardian - 29 May 2015)

Parties strike deals before district council elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and court rejects complaint over byelection

In some of the most socially conservative regions of Pakistan this weekend’s local government elections will be men-only affairs.

Local politicians and elders say parties contesting elections for district and village council seats in Hangu and parts of Malakand, districts of the north-western province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), have struck deals barring women from voting.

There are fears of similar arrangements across KP, a province bordering Afghanistan where many Pashtun communities observe purdah traditions so strict that many female candidates do not publish photographs on election posters.

The cultural difficulties are often compounded by dire security in areas where the Taliban and other militant groups are active.

In a parliamentary byelection in Lower Dir this month, none of the eligible 50,000 women in the constituency turned out to vote. One report said mosques broadcast warnings to women, and polling stations were guarded by “baton-wielding men” who blocked the few women who did try to vote.

On Wednesday the high court in Peshawar threw out a petition lodged by 12 women from Lower Dir who demanded the election be re-run. Shahab Khattak, the women’s lawyer, said the case was dismissed after 15 minutes, during which the judge seemed unsure whether women really were entitled to vote.

“The honourable judge asked whether it was a fundamental right for women to vote,” Khattak said. “We said indeed it is a fundamental right and a constitutional right.

“That there has been massive discrimination against women should be clear from the zero participation at the polls.”
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Siraj-ul-Haq, leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamist party that jointly controls the KP government, argued that the women of Lower Dir had merely chosen to respect local traditions by not voting.

Jamaat-e-Islami governs KP in coalition with the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), which is led by the former cricketer Imran Khan.

One of the PTI’s elected provincial representatives told the Guardian that the party had been complicit in keeping women away from the ballot box in KP, including in this weekend’s poll in Hangu.

In the runup to the 2013 general election the PTI in Upper Dir signed a written agreement with other parties barring women from voting and stipulating large fines for anyone breaking the agreement. In the end just one woman’s vote was recorded.

Ijaz Khan, a professor at Peshawar University, said political parties were to blame for not challenging social pressures in the most “backward” areas of the province. “In order to win the seat they refuse to take a strong stance with their local chapter,” he said. “The PTI may have women who go to their meetings in Islamabad or Lahore, but in the more traditional areas the party compromises on women’s rights.”

The courts and the provincial government have shown little interest in pursuing the issue of the Lower Dir byelection, but the election commission is investigating. It said it had taken “serious notice” of reports that women would be prevented from voting this weekend.

Saima Munir, of the Aurat Foundation, a campaign group, said that if the election commission nullified the result and disqualified the winning candidate it would force dramatic change in the province.

Nida Khan, a women’s activist in Hangu, said elders in her community would continue to act with impunity. “There is no government writ in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” she said. “We don’t need any Taliban since our so-called politicians with their extremist mindset are enough to push women into the dark.”

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14. SUSPECTED SPY' PIGEON BECOMES JAILBIRD AFTER FLIGHT OVER PAKISTAN-INDIA BORDER
by Aisha Gani
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(The Guardian - 29 May 2015)
The suspect, spotted with words written in Urdu on its tail feathers, has been detained and x-rayed by Indian police in an area where ‘infiltration is common’

A pigeon suspected of being a “spy” for the Pakistani authorities has been detained in India after it landed in a village close to the countries’ border.

A 14-year-old boy said he became suspicious of the bird when he saw a stamped message in Urdu on the bird’s tail feathers, according to the Times of India.

The memo on the pigeon read: “Tehsil Shakargarh, district Narowal” along with a string of numbers.

The pigeon had landed on the home of Ramesh Chandra, a local barber, on Wednesday evening in Manwal village, which is 4km from the border with Pakistan.

The son of the barber took the bird to the nearest policeman. “Unfortunately, mobile phones rarely work in the border areas,” Chandra said, adding: “My son ran to the nearest police post.”

Yet the message and wire-like object on the pigeon’s body led officers to later take the bird to a veterinary hospital in Pathankot in Punjab for further inspection.

After x-rays had been done, senior police superintendent Rakesh Kaushal told local media: “Nothing adverse has been found, but we have kept the bird in our custody.”

The numbers on the pigeon appeared to be a landline telephone in Pakistan’s Narowal district, according to local reports.

“This is a rare instance of a bird from Pakistan being spotted here. We have caught a few spies here. The area is sensitive, given its proximity to Jammu, where infiltration is quite common,” added the police superintendent.
The bird has been listed in police records as a “suspected spy”, according to the newspaper.

The pigeon was found on a day when an inter-state meeting on security was being held among officials from the Punjab police and the Indian army as well as officials from Kathua and Jammu districts.

However, this is not the first time that a bird has been caught in the middle of an international dispute. In 2008, Iranian authorities arrested two pigeons accused of spying on a nuclear facility, while a stork was detained in Egypt two years ago after being spotted with a mysterious device attached to its feathers.

Earlier this year, Islamic State militants reportedly captured at least 15 pigeon breeders in Iraq. Three of those held by the group in the eastern province of Diyala were reportedly killed, according to a security official.

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15. PAKISTAN: FOR ORANGI PILOT PROJECT WORKERS, POLICE HAVE ONLY ONE ADVICE: LEAVE THE COUNTRY
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(The Express Tribune - 3 June 2015)
By Our Correspondent
KARACHI: It’s best for you to leave the country, a high-ranking police officer advised the officials of the Orangi Pilot Project (OPP) when they complained about receiving threats.

The workers at OPP have been threatened allegedly by the same people who shot dead its director, Perween Rahman, in March 2013. The social activists shared this information at Karachi Press Club as they criticised the attitude of the police and were saddened over the state’s failure to provide protection.

“In other words, the police were telling us that they cannot do anything to protect us,” said the executive director of Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research, Karamat Ali. “We want to tell the Sindh government and the police that they are our servants and they get money from our taxes. To provide security, is their responsibility.”

Ali pointed out that these threats have forced OPP’s current director Anwar Rashid, who took the reins after Rahman, to leave Karachi. Moreover, two unidentified men paid a visit to Rahman’s mother and misbehaved with her and caretaker. They wanted information on the whereabouts of Rahman’s sister and Rashid, he added.  It is the state’s responsibility to protect the lives and properties of citizens, said Ali. “Before Perween’s murder, she received threats that were recorded but nothing was done about it,” he pointed out.

No backing out

Meanwhile, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) chairperson Zohra Yusuf said that they will not withdraw Rahman’s murder case. “All those who are giving us threats, I want to tell them that we will not take back the case, and keep on fighting till we get justice.”

The civil society had gone to the Supreme Court and demanded fresh inquiry into Rahman’s murder. Yusuf said the government should take these threats very seriously. In the last two years, three prominent women, Rahman, Zahra Shahid and Sabeen Mahmud have been gunned down, she pointed out, saying that the space for people is being reduced.

Mapping section

While speaking about the hurdles being faced by the OPP to function properly, urban planner Arif Hasan said that they had to shift their mapping section from Orangi to the Urban Resource Centre in the wake of threats. “After an attack on OPP’s Saleemuddin, we decided that we can’t work in Orangi,” he admitted.

The mapping section is working on land recording and surveys. Hasan said that after Rahman’s death, they continued working on documenting goths [unplanned settlements] that were forcibly occupied and grabbed but are now working from their office in the URC. “This [kind of] work cannot be done away from the katchi abadi and people ask us why we don’t visit,” said Hasan. “We wanted to shift the mapping section back but the threats came again.” The activists feel that the threats are being issued to them by those who are against the documentation of the land, but said that it is the work of the police and judiciary to find that out.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 4th, 2015.

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16. FILM REVIEW: RED WEDDING: WOMEN UNDER THE KHMER ROUGE
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(From: Pacific Affairs)
RED WEDDING: Women Under the Khmer Rouge. A film by Lida Chan and Guillaume Suon; writer, Lida Chan, Guillaume Suon; produced by Rithy Panh. New York: Women Make Movies, 2012. 1 DVD (58 min.) US$350.00, Universities, Colleges & Institutions; US$125.00, Rental; US$89.00, K-12, Public Libraries & Select Groups. In Khmer, subtitled in English. Url: http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c849.shtml.

Shot in Pursat Province, Cambodia, between 2010 and 2012, “Red Wedding” explores one of the forced marriages of more than 250,000 women during Khmer Rouge rule (1975-1979). Interspersed with film footage and songs from the period, it is at times eerie in its flashbacks. The documentary follows the struggle of 48-year-old Sochan Pen who, at the age of 16, was forced to marry a Khmer Rouge soldier and was subsequently raped. Early on, the film displays the warm friendship of Chhean and Sochan, two adult women, bordering on middle-age, roughhousing.

But once the laughter dies down, Sochan tells us, “I feel sorry for my body. I hate my ex-husband. I want to cut off the parts of my body that he touched at that time.” Sochan remarries after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, has six kids, but her husband is killed and leaves her to feed them.

The Khmer Rouge had a policy of population growth; part of this can be explained by the idea that to fight neighbouring Vietnam, Democratic Kampuchea would need people (relaying Khmer Rouge wishful thinking, Ben Kiernan once lectured that the Khmer Rouge even argued that if one Cambodian could kill ten Vietnamese, Democratic Kampuchea could wipe out Vietnam). The film has an audio clip from a Khmer Rouge broadcast translated as follows: “The chief of the Community Party of Kampuchea gave a speech… [Pol Pot’s voice:] Today our country is small and sparsely populated. The country has only eight million inhabitants. We’re still far from the potential of our country. In the coming ten years, we will need twenty million Cambodians. We have no reason to reduce the number of our people or to maintain it. Our goal is to increase the number of people as soon as possible.”

Sochan’s story is emblematic of those women forced to marry men they did not know or love. Sochan suffered multiple rapes—a form of torture—and today suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. She can’t sleep and has headaches.

When Sochan and her friend are in a lotus pond harvesting, the scene is a metaphor for the lotus which grows in muddy water but is fragrant and beautiful, embodying the resilience that these women represent. What she wants to know, in her own words is the following, and she hopes the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia can produce answers:

“Why I was forced to marry…

Why the spies had to watch us…

Why after starving me the Khmer Rouge wanted to kill me.

And why I was forced to marry if … if after the marriage the couples couldn’t stay together. Whether we got along or not, we were killed.”

If viewers watching expect closure, they will be disappointed; there appears to be no rhyme or reason. When Sochan questions those individuals responsible for her own forced marriage and suffering, they deny any knowledge. It’s a hall of mirrors. A character named Oeum blames the district chief. Then when the district chief is interviewed by Sochan, he denies being a district chief. He asks: “Do you have any proof?” The minimalist filmmaking style doesn’t let us understand who is in front of us at any given moment, which can be confusing.

The sister of Sochan’s ex-husband is more forthcoming. She sheds some light, but doesn’t know much. She concedes that “If we behaved correctly, we lived. Otherwise we died.” Of course that is an observation of life under Khmer Rouge rule, but it provides no satisfaction.

At times, the film feels as if the conversation is guided/scripted, but without an interviewer. It has a narrative film feel, but is a documentary. The directors, Chan and Suon, protégés of legendary Franco-Khmer filmmaker Rithy Panh, are probably asking questions. The movie has a very different atmosphere from “Enemies of the People,” which I have also reviewed. There is no smoking gun. No Nuon Chea character explaining that people were killed because they were enemies of the people. People were forced to marry because, apparently, the Khmer Rouge needed more people—but without food you aren’t going to have child-bearing mothers. Moreover, as Sochan attests, the newlyweds were killed whether or not they got along! Actually, we learn later that if they didn’t get along by the third night, they’d kill you because you were not going to procreate.

Men do come out looking pretty bad, except for one hero: Sochan’s uncle, who rescues and helps her during her ordeal with her ex-husband.

The movie ends with Sochan’s daughter getting married; it’s a parallel to Sochan’s own experience and a happy contrast. Many survivors of Pol Pot time—as the period is known for many—especially those who did not have a proper marriage, can do right for themselves through their children’s marriage. When I first returned to Cambodia in 1996, after 20 years away, I often saw excessive food ordering in restaurants as a kind of kneejerk reaction to the starvation felt during the Khmer Rouge period—a kind of “we will never be for want” testament. Marriage is perhaps another expression of this need to undo the mistakes of the past. Sochan sits her daughters down to tell them about her own forced marriage experience, but any resolution to the lack of justice for Cambodia’s past (an present) will need to wait for the next generation to remedy.

Sophal Ear, Occidental College, Los Angeles, USA


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17. GADGETS POWERED WIRELESSLY AT HOME WITH A SIMPLE WI-FI ROUTER
by Chris Baraniuk
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(New Scientist Magazine issue 3024 - 1 June 2015)

Throw away those power cords and chargers. Signals from a Wi-Fi router providing wireless electricity could soon be used to power gadgets and charge phones

Our homes are a tangled mess of wires and chargers. But that might be about to change. Work is under way to use the Wi-Fi signals that surround us to power our gadgets.

In Seattle, six households have taken part in an experiment in which modified electrical devices were put in their homes along with a Wi-Fi router. Over 24 hours, the devices were powered solely by the router's signal, which also continued to provide wireless internet access to the home.

How was this possible? The energy of the radio waves the router sent out was converted into direct current voltage with a component called a rectifier, much as solar panels convert light energy into electrical energy. That voltage was then boosted to a useful level by a DC-DC converter (arxiv.org/abs/1505.06815).

The system powered temperature sensors and battery-less low-resolution cameras, and charged standard batteries.

The hard part is getting the router to constantly push out enough energy, says team member Vamsi Talla from the University of Washington in Seattle.

When someone is browsing the web, the Wi-Fi signal is active and can be used to power devices. However, when not browsing the signal goes quiet.

"With Wi-Fi for communications, you only want to transmit when you have data to send," Talla says. "But for power delivery, you want to transmit something all the time. There's a clear mismatch."

To get around this, the team designed software that broadcasts meaningless data across several Wi-Fi channels when no one is using the internet.

Small devices could use this as part of an internet of things, says Ben Potter at the University of Reading, UK. "Where we're heading is to have more sensors in everything around us," he says. "Innovations with microchips mean they can run with less power. For that type of application, this is interesting technology."

The problem is that Wi-Fi is never going to provide a very powerful signal. Wi-Fi is tightly regulated in many countries – the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), for example, limits the power of a Wi-Fi broadcast to 1 watt. An iPhone charger delivers at least 5 watts – and has no other demands on its output.

One company with a solution is Ossia in Bellevue, Washington. It has a system called Cota that gets around the FCC regulations by designing a wireless hub that transmits waves at a Wi-Fi frequency but doesn't send a communications signal.

The Cota set-up can produce up to 20 watts, but would only deliver 1 watt to a single phone. CEO Hatem Zeine says that's enough to charge an iPhone 5 several times over in a single day if it has constant access to the signal.

"Unlike Wi-Fi, our power signal is unmodulated," says Zeine. "It's a continuous wave, there's no message in it."

A receiver chip on the device being charged tells the hub which of Cota's thousands of antennas it is receiving signals from. Those antennas alone are kept active and the system is able to ignore other objects in the room, such as a human body.

Eric Woods, an IT infrastructure researcher at consultancy firm Navigant in London, thinks there will be demand for this type of technology for the many sensors that will fill the smart homes and cities of the future.

Sensors powered by Wi-Fi could be used to monitor air quality or the status of systems across a city, says Woods. "Removing the need to think about batteries takes away one of the barriers to the exploitation of those technologies," he says.

This article appeared in print under the headline "Power from Wi-Fi"
o o o

Recharge cars from afar

We might be able to use radio waves to power small devices (see main story). But that won't be enough to charge an electric vehicle. WiTricity in Watertown, Massachusetts, has an alternative method.

Electromagnetic induction – moving magnets in an electrical field to generate current – is already used in charging pads. But these must touch to charge a battery. WiTricity uses an oscillating magnetic field tuned to a specific frequency. This means a car can be further from the charger, and might be useful for chargers built into a driveway.

Toyota will include this as an option for new Prius electric cars next year, says Grant Reig, a product manager at WiTricity.


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South Asia Citizens Wire
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. Newsletter of South Asia Citizens Web: 
www.sacw.net/

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DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.
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