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As
Roman scholar Pliny the Elder (c. 23-79 AD) once said:
"The only certainty is that nothing is certain".
Several millennia on, the killer waves triggered by the Indian
Ocean earthquake represent uncertainty on an unprecedented
scale. Natural calamities such as earthquakes and typhoons
are known to periodically affect the southern Asian coast
and the communities and countries affected by the Tsunami
are no strangers to local-level shocks and uncertainty (a
situation where we don't know what we don't know). However,
what's new is that the magnitude of the disaster and the ecological,
livelihood and knowledge uncertainties involved are global
in scope and have rarely been experienced in our lifetime.
This warrants for universal responses aimed at immediate recovery
and rehabilitation and, more importantly, for the deployment
of future preventive measures.
This
is the introduction to a brief paper which explores uncertainties
in today's world and in particular for those affected by the
tsunami.
Click
here to read the rest of this paper
http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/news/Archive2005/Tsunami-Mehta.html
This
paper has been published in the Al
Ahram Weekly and the Economic
and Political Weekly
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