life in general: (part 1) 'unheard voices..' book written by harsh mander

There is one book that is very dear to me. It is Harsh Mander's 'Unheard Voices: Stories of Forgotten Lives' written by him some years back.

I share below excerpts from the book. It is one of the 20-odd stories of common Indian people that Mander has written about in the book.

Excerpts from the book:

Two decades after he was uprooted from the land of his ancestors, Nanhe Ram, still speaks little. Looking much older than his sixty years, he sits for long hours outside his dilapidated hut in the resettlement village of Aitma. He has no land, no cattle, no sons; his ageing wife labours all day in the forests or in the fields of the big farmers of the village, to keep the fires burning.

There is anguish but little recrimination, as he talks haltingly of the past. The first time they heard about the large dam that would submerge their village, he recalls, was when daily wages were twelve annas (which would probably be in the mid-1950s). Their village, as, indeed, the entire region, was hardly connected to the outside world, and until then they had encountered very few government officials. When men on bicycles, wearing trousers and shirts, rode into their villages to inform them about the dam, the tribal people living there had got scared and run away into the forests.

He did not know then that a gigantic thermal power complex was being planned in the neighbourhood of his village, at Korba, for which the two rivers that flowed there, the Hasdeo and Bango, were to be dammed. Fifty-nine tribal villages like his were to be submerged, twenty completely and the rest partially, along with 102 square kilometres of dense sal forest, to create a vast new reservoir of 213 square kilometres. No one consulted with the 2,721 families of these villages, condemned to become internal refugees in the cause of ‘national development’, profoundly and irrevocably. Some 2,318 of these families, who like Nanhe Ram were the least equipped because of their temperament, culture and lack of experience, to negotiate their new lives.

The survey work continued for six or seven years, and it was in 1961 that the first phase of the project, for the construction of the barrage and major canal was sanctioned. Nanhe recalls their fear and excitement when a small plane flew in as part of the on-going survey work. However, it was only a decade and a half later, in 1977, that the first settlement, Nanhe’s village, was actually submerged. In the intervening years, construction continued apace, but no one from the government planned any steps for their rehabilitation or even as much as spoke with them about how they might rebuild their lives in the future. They were completely ignored.

In 1977, a few months before their homes were actually submerged, the farmers were packed into a truck and driven to the divisional headquarters of Bilaspur, located in the heart of the Chhatisgarh region of Madhya Pradesh. Nanhe recalls that they arrived at the imposing building housing the district office in the late afternoon, and were bundled into a courtyard. There they were addressed by an official, who informed them that their village would be lost to the dam reservoir in just a few months, during the net monsoon, and that the government was therefore paying them the first installment of their compensation. For Nanhe, this was a niggardly Rs 540.

When their truck returned to their village, it was morning. The inhabitants found that the local revenue officer, the tehsildar, was waiting for them. The tehsildar wanted to recover the land revenue due from Nanhe out of this compensation amount. Nanhe lost Rs 300 to him, and the remaining Rs 240 also disappeared before long merely in day-to-day survival.

During the meeting at the district office, someone had timidly asked, But where are we to go when our village goes under in the next monsoon? The official had replied tersely, How do I know? Why don’t you go to your relatives’ homes? But, some weeks later, a bank of activists held a series of meetings in their village. How can they ask you to go to the homes of your relatives, they thundered. Did your relatives build this dam? They organized demonstrations and rallies, in which many young tribals of the village also participated. Nanhe was confused and frightened, and he held himself aloof. Eventually, the government conceded that the tribal families that were being submerged would be given house-sites in a resettlement colony located in the forest uplands.

In the few months that remained, Nanhe made plans in his own way for the future. Where and how they would live, he did not know. He was worried first about his cow, whom they all loved. He knew that he would not be able to take care of her in the resettlement village, at a time when even keeping his wife and two daughters alive would be very hard. He also could not think of selling her, because she was like a member of the family. So he gave her to an Ahir cowherd, and promised to pay him Rs 150 each year for looking after her. Nanhe continued, despite all his subsequent tribulations, to save and send money for the upkeep of the cow for ten years, until the cow died.

Just a day before the monsoon broke, the trucks arrived. The people were given only a few hours to bundle their belongings into the trucks. They were then driven to the resettlement village, in which house plots of .05 acres each had been hurriedly cleared for them in the forest. The rains broke early, and Nanhe and his family spent the entire monsoon huddled with their few belongings under a mahua tree. In the dry spells, Nanhe struggled, trying to build a small hut, while his wife scoured the forests for food.

The remaining instalments of compensation were paid only fifteen years later, in 1992. Nanhe received a cheque of Rs 2,000, which he used to repay loans to the moneylender. Nanhe survived on occasional wage labour, but only barely. It was around then that for the first time, under pressure from activists, the government initiated a few livelihood programmes. Although the government has since spent some two crore rupeeds in the resettlement region in recent years to belatedly provide livelihoods to the displaced families, there has been little success. Fishing in the new reservoir is dominated by outside contractors. Forty lakh rupees were spent on a poultry farm, which ran for a few months, with twelve beneficiaries who were given 100 birds each. The birds suddenly died of some illness, and the farm closed down. The manager of the poultry farm departed after making a young tribal girl pregnant. Ambar charkhas or spinning looms were installed, but raw material supply and marketing were erratic. The looms provided wages in fits and starts, and that too only one rupee a day.

The resettlement villages are at the periphery of the large artificial reservoir, connected by earth roads that get submerged after the rains each year. In these inaccessible, remote, artificial settlements, not only are jobs hard to come by but life is very hard in other ways as well. Schools, health centres, credit cooperatives and ration shops rarely function. If someone is seriously ill during the rainy months, the only way to reach a hospital is by undertaking a perilous journey of three hours on a small leaking dinghy.

Not surprisingly, of the 208 families that had been resettled in Aitma, only sixty remain. The rest have migrated, either to the forests as encroachers, or to the city slums, in desperate search of means for bare survival.

Nanhe is among the few who remain, because he had neither the strength, nor the will to struggle and to start life anew one more time. He sits quietly outside his hut for most of the day. But sometimes when he speaks, he says softly to anyone who is willing to hear. When I am on a boat, in the middle of the reservoir, and I know that hundreds of feet beneath me, at that very point, lie my village and my home and my fields, all of which are lost forever, it is then that my chest rips apart, and I cannot bear the pain…

life in general: real india's abysmal human rights record

Like it does for most countries, Human Rights Watch organisation has articulated the state of India's human rights reasonably correctly. The first article below is what HRW has to say about India in 2009 and the second article below is what a HRW official has to say about how  in the United Nations India supports abusive regimes in the world.

1]
INDIA
Events of 2009

The ruling alliance led by the Congress Party returned to power after elections in 2009. In its first term in office the Congress-led coalition made only modest progress on rights. It has not yet addressed some of India's most pressing needs, including better training and reform of its police force; providing health, education, and food security to millions still struggling for subsistence despite the country's economic growth; ending discrimination against Dalits, tribal groups, and religious minorities; and protecting the rights of women and children.

A spate of indiscriminate bombings in various Indian cities, culminating in the seaborne-based attack in Mumbai in November 2008, which killed at least 171, and injured over 300 people, led to continued tensions with Pakistan. While the Mumbai attack was attributed to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, earlier deadly bombings were blamed on Muslim and Hindu extremist groups. Under intense public pressure, the government amended the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, reinstating harsh provisions from previous counterterrorism laws that had either been allowed to lapse or been repealed.

Maoist insurgents known as Naxalites broadened their attacks in 2009, resulting in increased deployment of paramilitary and police forces. Although government officials announced a "zero tolerance" policy for human rights violations during security operations against the Maoists, separatist militants, and other armed groups in various parts of the country, cases of custodial killings, torture, and arbitrary arrests continued.

These abuses occur in part because of failure by the government to properly train or modernize its police force. Police officers face dismal working conditions and recruitment lags far behind increasing duties, creating an overstretched force that is likely to take short-cuts to gain convictions. Embittered and overworked, the police regard themselves as enforcers of the law-but not beholden to it.

The government's failure to protect minorities and other vulnerable groups engenders justified grievances and contributes to militant activity around the country. At senior levels of government there is growing acceptance that Maoists are attracting supporters in part because of the state's long failure to address basic socioeconomic needs; the continued arbitrary displacement of families to make way for government-backed infrastructure, mining, and factory projects; and discrimination based on caste or ethnicity.
Justice and Accountability
India points to its independent judiciary, vibrant media, and active civil society as evidence that it is a thriving, rights-respecting democracy. Yet fundamental, structural problems remain including, most glaringly, widespread impunity for human rights violations. The government routinely fails to hold security forces accountable for abuses.

2009 marked the 25th anniversary of mass killings of Sikhs to avenge the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984. A10-year security operation against Sikh militants, who were responsible for numerous human rights abuses, resulted in the arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, and extra-judicial killing of thousands of young Sikh men for suspected affiliation with separatist groups. Many victims, witnesses, and alleged perpetrators have died in the long, fruitless wait for accountability.

In Jammu and Kashmir and in the state of Manipur and elsewhere in the northeast, many citizens have lost confidence in the state's willingness to hold perpetrators of human rights violations accountable. Kashmiris protested on the streets after the death of two women in Shopian in May, refusing to believe a police investigation would be fair. An ongoing inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation has calmed tempers, but the protests were symptomatic of the government's failure to address impunity. In July an unarmed 27-year-old in Manipur was shot and killed by police in a crowded market place, a killing captured by a photo-journalist. Despite widespread outrage, the Manipur chief minister initially praised the police for shooting a "militant." Only after weeks of protests did the state government order a judicial inquiry.

Laws such as article 197 of the Criminal Procedure Code and the Armed Forces Special Powers Act provide legal protection for members of the security forces who violate human rights. The problem of de jure impunity is likely to be exacerbated by December 2008 amendments to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, which expand the already vague definition of terrorism, authorize search and seizure with few safeguards, and double periods of pre-charge detention to 180 days, 30 of which may be in police custody. The use of draconian laws such as the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, which allows confessions to police to be used as evidence despite it being evident that they are coerced, is a cause for serious concern, as are efforts by other states such as Gujarat to enact similar legislation.

While India claims that its National Human Rights Commission ensures the protection of rights, the commission often defends government behavior, lacks sufficient resources to conduct its own investigations, and is not empowered to investigate violations by the army. State human rights commissions are even more poorly equipped and vulnerable to political pressure.
Conduct of Security Forces
Militants in many parts of the country have been responsible for large numbers of killings. Nearly 2,000 people, including over 500 civilians and 350 security personnel, were killed by militants in 2009, while over 1,000 civilians and nearly 40o security personnel were killed in 2008. At the same time nearly 2,000 alleged terrorists have been killed since January 2008.

The Indian government and militants in various parts of the country are locked in a vicious cycle of violence. Cases of arbitrary arrest, torture and forced confessions by Indian security forces are common. The use of "fake encounters"-in which people are taken into custody and shot, with officials falsely claiming that the deaths occurred during an armed exchange-are a continuing cause of serious concern. Police torture is also common, including in counterterror operations. Some Indian Mujahidin suspects, blamed for a series of indiscriminate bombings in Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, and Delhi in 2008, have claimed that they were tortured and forced to make false confessions, as have Hindu militants arrested for bombings in Malegaon, Maharashtra.
Violence against Minorities

Following attacks on Christians in Orissa in 2008, mob attacks on churches and other Christian institutions, apparently instigated by Hindu extremist groups, occurred in several states. While some of the alleged perpetrators of the Orissa attacks have been arrested, there has been little success in containing Hindu extremists.
Women's and Girls' Rights
The rights of women are often neglected. A 2005 UN study estimated that two-thirds of married women in India suffer domestic violence. Female infanticide and sex-selective abortions are the primary causes of skewed sex ratios and reflect the unequal share of resources made available to women and girls in areas such as access to education, food, and medical aid.

In part because of healthcare system failures, tens of thousands of Indian women and girls die each year in childbirth and pregnancy. More suffer preventable injuries, serious infections, and disabilities. Recent data show that more than a fourth of maternal deaths worldwide take place in India. The country's maternal mortality ratio is many times that of Russia, China, and Brazil, and a girl who reaches reproductive age in India is 100 times more likely to die from such causes than a girl in the developed world.
Access to Education, and Child Soldiers
Millions of children in India have abysmal educational opportunities. While the constitution provides for free and compulsory primary education, actual delivery remains patchy. High numbers of students are out of school for reasons that include poverty (with millions of children still employed in hazardous and other "worst forms" of labor), gender discrimination, early marriage, poor quality of teachers and curriculum, and lack of basic facilities. Many are further affected by internal conflicts. For instance, the education of tens of thousands of children has been disrupted by the Maoist conflict, with the Maoists bombing remote government schools and government security forces occupying and using schools as long-term outposts.

The Maoists admit that it is standard practice to recruit 16 and 17-year-old children in their forces; they have used children as young as 12 in some armed operations.
Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
In a positive development, the Delhi High Court in July ruled that section 377 of the Indian Penal Code can no longer be used to treat consensual homosexual conduct between adults as a criminal offense. While the ruling was challenged in the Supreme Court by a few groups and individuals, the Indian government decided not to oppose the verdict.

International Role
India has failed to adequately use its considerable influence to address human rights problems in other countries or to be a human rights promoter at the United Nations. India has played a negative role at the UN Human Rights Council, siding with a bloc that opposes strong action to address violations. As India's regional and global influence grows, it needs to modernize its foreign policy to reflect its status as the world's largest democracy.
In the past India was a strong opponent of apartheid in South Africa, supported the democratic opposition in Burma, and backed groups demanding democracy in Nepal and Bangladesh. But officials now often use the language of "non-interference in the internal affairs" of other countries to defend their inaction. In part, this reflects India's growing strategic concerns about China's role in the region, which has strongly invested in Burma and Pakistan and is expanding its influence in Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.
India claims that it needs good relations with its neighbors to counter threats to national security by groups operating across borders. It wants Bangladesh, Burma, and Pakistan to arrest and prosecute separatists. In particular, it wants the international community to pressure Pakistan to end tacit protection of groups blamed for attacks like the one in Mumbai in November 2008.
Key International Actors
India's rapidly growing economy and increasing importance as a trading partner has meant that its domestic human rights record rarely elicits serious international scrutiny, including from the US, the country with the greatest external influence.
After a visit to India in March 2009, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay called upon the government to bridge the gap in implementing "national laws and policies that promote and protect human rights and seek to support the most vulnerable." She also sought repeal of laws such as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act "that breach contemporary international human rights standards" and encouraged India to welcome the visits of UN special rapporteurs. India is yet to act on those recommendations. India has also not responded to international recommendations that it more effectively combat caste- and religion-based discrimination.
India has been repeatedly urged to play a greater role in advancing human rights and protecting civilians in Burma and Sri Lanka. While India claims that it privately raises such subjects with the governments concerned, Indian officials say little publicly and do not play a leadership role in protecting

2]
India’s Slippery Moral High Ground
by Meenakshi Ganguly, senior South Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch
February 3, 2010
Western colonialism collapsed after the Second World War, leaving much of the world in shambles, resources looted, and people suppressed and impoverished. As Indians know all too well, borders of newly independent states were often carelessly drawn, leading to violence that plagues us generations later. Those most affected by these decisions never had a voice at the high table.
Decades later, new faces have gathered at that crucial table. India, left traumatised and unable to fully celebrate its freedom from colonial rule in 1947 because millions had perished or been displaced, has become a visible and vocal negotiator. In a recent instance, minister of state for environment Jairam Ramesh claimed that India played a constructive role in the climate change conference in December, as it could speak for the G-77, the BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) group and the industrialised nations. Few agreed, sadly. Depending on their politics, critics either said India had been obstructive or that it compromised too much.
Unfortunately, much of India's foreign policy remains shrouded in a similar lack of clarity. India often ends up considered either an obstruction or a cop-out.
In Burma, for example, India has moved away from supporting the democracy movement and honouring detained Opposition leader Aung San Su Kyi to deciding that economic and security concerns take precedence. India's business-as-usual relations with the repressive military regime have been widely criticised. Indian diplomats respond that activists like to complain without understanding how nuanced diplomacy works.
However, what remains baffling is what exactly India can claim to have gained from supporting one of the most abusive regimes in the world. India has not won significant access to Burma's energy reserves and is regularly beaten by China at the finishing line. The Burmese military has not cooperated consistently with efforts to contain rebels in India's Northeast. Nor has India been able to undercut China's influence with the junta. Yet, in October, India voted against a United Nations General Assembly resolution to protect human rights in Burma. The resolution was passed with 92 votes in favour. Of the 26 that voted against, India was in the company of countries such as Syria, Zimbabwe, China, Libya and North Korea - not quite the best examples of the democracy Indians celebrate so much.
There are other, equally odd decisions. India rightly joined the world in condemning Sri Lanka's abusive Tamil Tigers. But many believe that when the Sri Lankan Army committed apparent war crimes and caused unimaginable human suffering among civilians caught up in the conflict, India did not speak out forcefully enough. In May 2009, at a special session of the UN Human Rights Council, India opposed a resolution criticising abuses by both sides; the weak resolution adopted instead largely commended the government. In June 2009, A. Gopinathan, India's permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva, responded shockingly to concerns about Sri Lanka expressed by Navanethem Pillay, UN high commissioner for human rights, suggesting that her office may have been motivated by its own agenda or that "of some states, or unrepresentative or unaccountable organisations". Ms Pillay, a South African of Indian origin with a full understanding of apartheid and colonialism, would instead have expected the support of the world's largest democracy.
India is a part of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS), an attempt to end the trading of diamonds unearthed in conflict zones, known as "blood diamonds". Human rights groups have made repeated appeals to suspend Zimbabwe from the process for continuing human rights abuses and widespread smuggling in the Marange diamond fields after the government of Zimbabwe failed to comply with the recommendations of a KPCS review mission. India, chair of the group's participation committee, was in a strong position to influence the decision to suspend Zimbabwe but instead agreed to its empty promises that it would adopt compliance measures.
There are indications that significant numbers of raw Marange diamonds have already been channeled to India's large diamond cutting and polishing industry. Why is India willing to risk tainting the reputation of its domestic industry by championing the Mugabe regime?
India is keen not just to gain a greater say in global policy discussions, but also a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. For India to present a compelling case for its candidacy, it needs to focus on its obligation to protect individual rights.
Yet at the Human Rights Council and General Assembly and in backroom diplomacy, India is often on the side of abusive regimes, blocking, slowing down or voting against efforts to protect rights.
India now has a voice and it should use it to speak for many that still do not. It cannot allow its uneven domestic human rights record to come in the way of becoming a robust and moral champion to hold all states - including powerful ones that often escape scrutiny - to account. No nation can claim a perfect record, as the United States has displayed with great success since 9/11. Ironically, India is now often mimicking the behaviour it has so long decried in other countries.
Caprice or strategic and economic gains are the legacy of colonial history. India may have won its place at the negotiating table, but if it wants to be respected it should not display the same behaviour that caused it such suffering in the past.
In Burma, the generals have promised elections this year. India should insist that they release all political prisoners, allow the Opposition freedom to contest and campaign, and establish an independent and impartial election commission (one of India's own most prized institutions), or the poll will be considered a sham. India should call upon Sri Lanka's recently re-elected President Mahinda Rajapakse to initiate a reconciliation process that ensures civil and political rights for Tamils and other minorities, to end the repression of media and dissident civil society, and to support an impartial international investigation into all allegations of war crimes.
New Delhi has appointed a highly respected former diplomat as the new national security adviser. Shivshankar Menon should recommend that the government take these first steps as proof of India's vision and commitment to protect the rights of every citizen of the world.
Otherwise, despite the promise of trade and a robust economy, it will find itself alone, or in the company of those most disliked by the world community.

life in financial markets & general: food gets expensive in india

My country was abundant in natural resources until the industrialists, consumers and likes of Chidambaram and Manmohan Singh decided to fiddle too much with the nature's bounty in the name of 'development'.

Vagaries of climate, particularly rainfall, induced by global warming and other harmful consequences of mankind-generated toxic gases' emissions in the atmosphere and destruction of ecology, are creating with agriculture in India. And the Indian government is outright refusing to play its part in bringing down such emissions.

Anyway, agriculture-rich India is since the last couple of years facing a problem in keeping up the produce of essential food items such as grains, pulses and vegetables. The soil of India has also been badly affected by excessive use of chemical fertilisers and insecticides (that government calls as "green revolution").

Prices of food items have shot up by 50% and more in the last one year. See the graph below that shows India's Wholesale Price Index and the food index (click on the image to see it enlarged & clear).

life in financial markets: home bias in markets such as india & china!

Unfailingly, over the last 10-12 years, we have clearly seen a strong and sustained home bias in the writings and views of almost very economist and market/investment analyst/guru in fast-growing economies such as India and China.

I think, half of this is based on genuine factors but the other half is on account of complete blindness to the internal developments, their causes and long-term implications.

The same is, however, not the case with North American and West European economists and market analysts as there are always a decent number of them who do not hold themselves back from highlighting the negatives in their own countries' economic developments.

Nowadays, Indians and Chinese economists/analysts are also beginning to get extremely confident that their countries' economies will soon become larger than the western economies. No problem with this confidence but then these same very jingoist Indian and Chinese economists/analysts lose their courage when it comes to aggressive lobbying by western companies to set up large industrial projects in all violation of environmental, forest and tribal laws and at tax rates much lower than those applicable to domestic companies.

In the ongoing tussle at Copenhagen climate change summit between India/China/etc on one hand and US/UK/Australia/etc on other hand, I fail to understand why the former does not say 'yes' to firm commitments on carbon emissions and then charge a hefty 'carbon tax' on all their exports to the latter. This is a direct way of making western consumers pay for their high carbon footprint. Also, a high carbon tax should be imposed on the consumption of the very affluent within India/China/etc as their carbon footprint is at par with the affluent of the West.

life in general: india needs to face china with courage

I would prefer not to look at human relations from the prism of nation-states. But given the unfortunate state of reality on Mother Earth that we have nation-states I have little choice but to succumb to the fact that militaries would be required to defend the borders and lands of nation-states.

In this context, last week, tensions have risen along India-China border. The media have been forthright in reporting on China's more-than-normal military incursions and firings on Indian soil (read here and here). But Indian governmental spokespersons and military spokespersons have been shamelessly playing it down by potraying it as a routine thing and not to be bothered about. The same, however, if were to be happening along India-Pakistan border strong words would already have been used by them.

In this newsreport, India's Chief of Army Staff, General Deepak Kapoor, claims Chinese military exercises are not signficant enough to be concerned about and that media is unfair in writing about the incidents (the newsreport stated 'The General dismissed media perception that the Chinese incursions were a sign of muscle-flexing by Beijing. “I do not share that at all... that is why I say at times the press has not been fair in reporting this very accurately,” he said.).

This is sad but not unexpected. With regard to China, India always has been weak-kneed. The religious zealots that would raise a hue and cry at every single opportunity against Pakistan go silent when it comes to Chinese malfeasance.

I do not think that the people of China are against the people of India or vice-versa. But China's government and military can never, I repeat never, be relied upon to be fair. Not that India has treated the people of its states on the north-eastern part like Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, etc with respect. On the contrary, several Indian central governments have been least concered with obscene violations of human rights in those states by Indian security forces.

But China can't be relied upon to maintain peace. Absolutely not. It is well known that it claims Arunachal Pradesh to be Chinese territory. As and when it wants to fight a war against India for whatever reasons it will use Arunachal as the starting point.

I have culled out from wikimapia the section of the India-China border and marked the hotspots. See the image below (click on it to see it enlarged & clear).

life in general: subversive ciruclars & notifications by state governments in india

The constitution of India and the various Parliament-enacted legislations may not be the most foolproof democracy-enhancing documents but they are certainly worthy of implementation. But the ruling state governments in India subvert this rights-protection umbrella through manipulative and rights-circumventing circulars and notifications. Below is one example of how this happens (its an email that I received, as a part of being on a mailing list).

Here goes:

From:
Date: 2009/8/24
Subject: [nbapresslist] Narmada Valley roars: LOK SABHA ke oopar GRAM SABHA
To: nbapresslist@lists.riseup.net

NARMADA BACHAO ANDOLAN

• 62 M.G Marg, Badwani, Madhya Pradesh - 451551
Telefax: 07290-222464; E-mail: nba.medha@gmail.com
•Maitri Niwas, Tembewadi, Behind Kakawadi, Dhadgav, Dist. Nandurbar,
Maharashtra - 425414 – Telefax: 02595-220620
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For Immediate Release Date: 24th August, 2009

NARMADA BACHAO ANDOLAN KICK STARTS MASSIVE
GRAM SWARAJ ABHIYAN IN NARMADA VALLEY WITH THE SLOGANS

‘LOK SABHA KE OOPAR GRAM SABHA’
‘HAMAARE GAON MEIN HAMAARA RAJ’

Hundreds of adivasis, farmers, fish workers, potters, artisans, women and men,
including various persons affected by the Sardar Sarovar Project, Indira Sagar
and Omkareshwar Canal Project, Jobat Dam, Goi and Gomai Projects and many
others took out a huge ‘mashaal juloos’ through the main streets of Badwani
today and gathered before the Old Collector office to participate in a mass
Sammelan to assert their constitutional and fundamental right to development
planning within their Gram Sabhas.

People at the Sammelan welcomed the recent Order of the Hon’ble High Court of
Madhya Pradesh ordering a status quo on the land acquisition and canal
excavation work in the Indira Sagar and Omkareshwar Canals since the concerned
Gram Sabhas in the scheduled areas were not consulted before the land
acquisition as per the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas), Act, 1996;
which the Court said “is a legislation that has been enacted by the
Parliament by virtue of the power conferred by Article 243-M 4(b) of the
Constitution”.

Prominent speakers at the Sammelan included Prof. Manoranjan Mohanty, Former
Professor of Political Science, Delhi University, Shri Kalyan Jain, Former
Parliamentarian and Shri Gautam Bandopadhyay; Social Activist, Nadi Ghati
Morcha, Chattisgarh. They all, in their fiery address to the people asserted
the fact that the first right to plan and decide how the resources must be
utilized in their regions must only taken place with the informed consultation
and consent of the local people.

Bava Mahariya of Jalsindhi, Kamla Yadav, Chhota Barda (Badwani), Kesariabhai
from Goi (Badwani) Devenbhai from Piplaj (Tehsil Manawar, Dhar Dist.),
Mansarambhai from Kothada (Manawar Tehsil), Jagdish bhai from Gogawa (Maheshwar
Tehsil, Khargone Dist) and many other representatives of the above mentioned
project – affected persons from the villages of Badwani, Khargone, Alirajpur
and Dhar districts also spoke in detail on how planning within their Gram
Sabhas is becoming a challenge in the face of an insensitive and bureaucratic
State. Nevertheless they shall struggle tooth and nail to ensure that their
basic democratic rights within the Gram Sabha are not snatched away by the
State. Medha Patkar and Ashish Mandloi of Narmada Bachao Andolan also
addressed the gathering on the pivotal role and rights of Gram Sabhas within
the constitutional scheme and called upon people not to relent in their
non-violent struggle. The Sammelan was also attended by some Janpad Members
from Badwani, Manawar and Kukshi Tehsils who also expressed concern that there
is a need to consult the people at the Gram Sabha.

It is unfortunate and infact unconstitutional that the Government of Madhya
Pradesh is making fervent attempts to weaken the constitutional mandate and
democratic processes by bringing out ‘Circulars’ and ‘Notifications’ to
violate the PESA Act. While the State Gram Swaraj Adhiniyam itself has omitted
by the non-negotiable features of the PESA Act, GoMP has issued one more
Circular on the 30th July (even as the High Court stay is in vogue) declaring
that “for Narmada valley projects ‘Janpad’ will be the ‘appropriate
Panchayat’ for consultation and not the Gram Sabha! The people have
challenged this inside and outside the Court and today, the speakers joined the
people of the valley in publicly burning off this Notification and demanded
that this state-sponsored attempt to finish off the villages and Gram Sabhas in
the adivasi areas would not be brooked.

The Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 (Section 4) makes
consultation with the Gram Sabhas pre-conditional not just before land
acquisition and before resettlement and rehabilitation but infact before any
scheme is planned in the scheduled areas. But the Government of Madhya Pradesh
is till date openly flouting this law, which is seriously compromising the
rights of adivasis.

We, the nature-based communities see the Order of the High Court as a step in
the just direction and an opportunity before us to really participate in the
planning process in our Gram Sabhas before large projects such as dams and
canals are imposed upon us by mis-information and force. While today, the lands
and resources of farmers and adivasis is being looted and given at throwaway
prices to huge builders, corporates and capitalists, owing to the pressure of
the latter and ignoring the interests of the country’s majority, the people
don’t have a choice but to fight back this exploitation and injustice and
guard their common resources such as water, lands, forests, minerals and fish
from going into private profiteering hands.

Towards the end of the Sammelan, the Tehsildar had to come to the people on
behalf of the District Collector Mr. N.B.S. Rajput to accept the memorandum
which was read out in his presence and would be reached to the Collector who
would also, it was demanded, have to forward this to the Chief Minister with a
detailed covering letter of his own. The hundreds of people present also took
out a resolve to fully endeavour to assert all their constitutional rights,
working towards the protection of human interests and the environment and stall
any related destruction.

It was also declared that soon after the Sammelan; people from the valley would
reach Bhopal on the 26th of August to meet the Governor Shri Rameshwar Thakur
and convincingly remind him of his constitutional duty towards ‘peace and
good governance’ in the adivasi areas.

With this Sammelan, thousands of adivasis and farmers have flagged off a
massive campaign for democratic rights-assertion in the Narmada Valley and give
a call to all fellow-organizations in the country to come together to translate
our long-pending vision of Gram Swaraj into reality by demanding for a
comprehensive legislation based on Article 243 of the Constitution. We also
appeal to all the intellectuals and concerned citizens of the country to
support this people’s struggle to achieve our constitutional goals of
equality and justice.

Mohanbhai Patidar Surbhanbhai Bhilala Gopalbhai Kamla Yadav
Kailash Awasya
Bhavaria Kakrana Mandil Chhota Barda
Bhilkheda

Ranveersingh Patel Jamsingh Richa Kishore Bhilala
Teekambhai Devram Kanera
Semalda Limbi Kharya Bhadal Jatpur
Kadmal

Kailash Yadav Devendra Tomar Dayaram Yadav Kailashbhai
Balabhai / Karan Patel
Kasravad Piplaj Piplood
Karondiya Pipri

Khaja Baba Kesariyabhai Jagdishbhai Mukheshbhai
Bhagore Khemabhai / Samratbhai
Malkotar, Pansemal Goi Gogawa, Maheshwar,
Nimola Jobat

Mohanbhai Sahdevbhai
Pipari Maan Shirsala

Contact: Ashish Mandloi (094248555042) Shrikanth (07290-222464)

life in general: largest rate of groundwater loss on earth

"This is probably the largest rate of groundwater loss in any comparable-sized region on Earth." that study said.

Now, thats chilling .

Its the last line of a latest news story on water woes on our Mother Earth. The focus is on India but coming from a study conducted by a non-Indian entity. Many affluent, educated Indians tend to arrogantly disregard any warnings given by Indian ecologists/environmentalists but do not mind being open to reading about the same coming from international groups. I know of a Editor-in-chief of a top business magazine in India who with unabashed arrogance criticises everything that is written by the head (who is Sunita Narain) of an Indian environmental group, Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment.

Anyway, even as many urban and semi-urban Indians use water in an excessive, wasteful manner (see the pic alongside for one such wasteful use -- it is of a water park in Bombay, Water Kingdom, operated by a Zee Group company -- I took this pic in Dec '03 specially for a water story i wrote in a Bombay-based NGO's montly magazine), I am reproducing the news report in totality below and after that a summary of the original report in Nature magazine's latest issue.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j3wYwMXHvL0heFLfcre8c_yy0tGwD9A1NK6G0 Study sees dramatic drop in Indian groundwater By TIM SULLIVAN (AP)
NEW DELHI — Excessive irrigation and the unrelenting thirst of tens of millions of people are causing groundwater levels in northern India to drop dramatically, a problem that could lead to severe water shortages, according to a study released Wednesday.
The study comes as India's struggles with water have become a major political issue. The problem reaches across the country's vast class divide, touching everyone from residents of elite neighborhoods where the taps regularly go dry to poor farmers in desperate need of irrigation to grow their crops.
Giving free electricity to farmers — who use that electricity to pump more groundwater — has become a common promise by campaigning politicians. That, though, simply makes the problem worse.
"This issue is of grave importance," said K. Sreelakshmi, a natural resource economist at New Delhi's Energy and Resources Institute, TERI. Sreelakshmi, who was not connected to the study, noted that previous research projects had revealed lowering groundwater, though this one used a new approach by relying on satellite data. "The question is what do we do about the problem," she said. "How do we recharge" India's dropping water table?
The study, led by Matthew Rodell of the United States' NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, indicated that groundwater across a swath of India from New Delhi into heavily farmed agricultural belts dropped at a rate of 1.6 inches (4 centimeters) per year between August 2002 and October 2008. That decrease in groundwater is more than double the capacity of India's largest reservoir.
The study noted that the drop in groundwater came in years where there was no shortage of rainfall to cause a natural decline. The region, though, has seen an enormous increase in water use since the 1960s. Part of that is because of the growing population, though even more resulted from the so-called Green Revolution, which dramatically increased India's agricultural production — in part by exponentially expanding the use of groundwater for irrigation.
"Severe groundwater depletion is occurring as a result of human consumption," the researchers concluded in the study, released online in the journal Nature.
The study was based largely on data provided by GRACE — the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment — a satellite system launched in 2002 by NASA and the German Aerospace Center. GRACE allows scientists to estimate changes in groundwater storage by measuring tiny variations in the Earth's gravitational pull.
Another recent study based on GRACE data, using results from a 1,200-mile (2,000-kilometer) swath across eastern Pakistan, northern India and into Bangladesh, showed about 1.9 million cubic feet (54 cubic kilometers) of groundwater lost per year.
That study, in Geophysical Research Letters, was led by geophysicists Virendra Tiwari of the National Geophysical Research Institute in Hyderabad, India; John Wahr of the University of Colorado, Boulder; and Sean Swenson of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder.
"This is probably the largest rate of groundwater loss in any comparable-sized region on Earth," that study said.
On the Net: Nature magazine: http://www.nature.com/nature
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.


http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature08238.html

Satellite-based estimates of groundwater depletion in India
Matthew Rodell1, Isabella Velicogna2,3,4 & James S. Famiglietti2

1. Hydrological Sciences Branch, Code 614.3, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, USA
2. Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, California 92697-3100, USA
3. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91109-8099, USA
4. Department of Physics, University of Udine, 208 Via delle Scienze, 33100 Udine, Italy

Correspondence to: Matthew Rodell1 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to M.R. (Email: matthew.rodell@nasa.gov).

Groundwater is a primary source of fresh water in many parts of the world. Some regions are becoming overly dependent on it, consuming groundwater faster than it is naturally replenished and causing water tables to decline unremittingly1. Indirect evidence suggests that this is the case in northwest India2, but there has been no regional assessment of the rate of groundwater depletion. Here we use terrestrial water storage-change observations from the NASA Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites3 and simulated soil-water variations from a data-integrating hydrological modelling system4 to show that groundwater is being depleted at a mean rate of 4.0 plusminus 1.0 cm yr-1 equivalent height of water (17.7 plusminus 4.5 km3 yr-1) over the Indian states of Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana (including Delhi).
During our study period of August 2002 to October 2008, groundwater depletion was equivalent to a net loss of 109 km3 of water, which is double the capacity of India's largest surface-water reservoir. Annual rainfall was close to normal throughout the period and we demonstrate that the other terrestrial water storage components (soil moisture, surface waters, snow, glaciers and biomass) did not contribute significantly to the observed decline in total water levels. Although our observational record is brief, the available evidence suggests that unsustainable consumption of groundwater for irrigation and other anthropogenic uses is likely to be the cause.
If measures are not taken soon to ensure sustainable groundwater usage, the consequences for the 114,000,000 residents of the region may include a reduction of agricultural output and shortages of potable water, leading to extensive socioeconomic stresses.

life in general: ...without any collateral damage whatsoever

Elaborating further on what I said in my previous post "...And if the US can attack Taliban inside Afghanistan, and if Israel can carry out operations inside its neigbouring countries including Palestine, and if Russia can carry out operations inside Georgia, then India can too carry out operations in the mountains of Pakistan where these terrorist groups receive their training..." I think any Indian military-led assault or aerial bombings of those training camps in the mountains of Pakistan has to, in my view, be carried out without any collateral damage whatsoever.

If that is not possible then we should desist from carrying out any operations and instead aim, through super-efficient intelligence information gathering operation, to eliminate, one by one, the leaders of the heads of these terrorist groups including the ISI guys involved in it.

No innocent civilian life in Pakistan should be taken in India's response to last week's terrorist attacks in Bombay. Everyone, including the private terrorist groups the kinds of which were involved last week, has some kind of mental justification, whether valid or not, to do their violent deeds and 99% of the time their deeds involve taking the lives of innocent non-combatant civilians. India should ensure that it does not end up becoming like the terrorist killing innocent civilians. We have seen how the US-UK military has shamed itself by doing just that (killing civilians) in Iraq and Afghanistan. We should not emulate them.

Jingoism by Indians has to be avoided if we have to be considered as being fair. As I had mentioned in that same previous post terror has many forms. I would like to add that our desire for justice on such heinous wrongs should be extended to every form of terror including state terror and the terror of companies on tribals & villagers in remote places. Many affluent Indians' lives were taken in the Taj and Oberoi and while I pray for their souls' peaceful transition to the astral plane for healing I must point out that the strong reactions against terrorist emanating from the affluent circles in India is a bit selfish. These same very people don't care when their excessive materialism/consumerism or their involvement as senior/middle management in industries/companies are the causes of corporate-police-state terror in remote areas of India.

Below is a wikimapia snapshot, with a white circle added by me of the region in Pakistan where terrorist bases & training camps are believed to be. Click on the image to see it enlarged & clearer.