The Supreme Court is to be commended for its order banning the Salwa Judum. But the Salwa Judum was already a thing of the past; its worst phase was in 2005-06. The violence now in the amoral war in Chhattisgarh is being conducted as part of Operation Greenhunt. When will …
AnRak Aluminium is moving ahead with the bauxite mining project in Makavarapalem in Visakhapatnam district despite the local opposition warns this analysis in the Economic and Political Weekly with focus on social and environment impact of the project. A bauxite/aluminium project very similar to the Vedanta project in Odisha is …
A central plan for piped water supply through dual solar powered pumps will cover six panchayats in Saranda, with Union minister Jairam Ramesh closely monitoring progress to effect a promised turnaround at villages in the former rebel hub in West Singhbhum. According to a report prepared by the Union drinking …
Steel minister Beni Prasad Verma has cautioned environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan against holding up clearances for SAIL’s iron ore mines in Orissa and Jharkhand, saying this would force the state-owned steel giant to scale down operations and could stoke Naxal activity in the tribal region. Verma’s November 30 missive to …
Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Sunday said solution to internal security threat does not lie merely in weeding out Naxals in security operations. Ramesh had called a group of Gandhians and activists working in Naxal-affected areas here to take home an 11-point charter of measures for implementation. The …
It is not just allocation of coal blocks that is being questioned. Just how misgoverned coal mining, and in fact the entire mining sector, is has emerged from a study sponsored by the Planning Commission. Focusing on four states, the study has found that illegal mining beyond the environment’s “carrying …
Putting the heat on Government to withdraw operation Green Hunt, the Naxals have now opposed the Mendha-Lekha model which allowed Tribals to exercise rights to harvest bamboo under the Forest Rights Act, terming at as a “ploy to loot forests”. The Gadchiroli Divisional Committee of the CPI (Maoists) have launched …
Battalions of para-military forces will stand guard around the naxal-affected mines of India’s iconic Bhilai steel plant as government workers slog it out in the pits. Twelve battalions of BSF, anti-naxalite Cobra force beside Chhattisgarh policemen will straddle the Rowghat iron ore mines in the state to ensure Steel Authority …
Gram sabha’s total control over forest produce makes ultras unhappy, reveal reports The government’s plan for economic empowerment of tribals to combat Left-wing extremism is yet to take off, despite the positive experience in Mendha Lekha in the Naxal affected Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra. Notwithstanding legal guarantees, many village assemblies …
A movement promoting self-rule in villages and community rights to forests has come under attack from Naxals in the region where it was pioneered. Maoists in Gadchiroli have hit out strongly at leaders who have been using the “Gandhian” ideal of non-violence in spearheading the community forest rights (CFR) movement …
The Centre has sanctioned 2,389 projects under the Integrated Action Plan for the construction of 9,070 km of road at an estimated cost of Rs 3,387 crore in rural Bihar to mitigate the impact of naxal insurgency. Rural Works Minister Bhim Singh said that rural road projects with a specific …
Union minister Kishore Chandra Deo has criticized the Andhra governor for inaction on his request to stop bauxite mining in Vishakhapatnam, saying that special powers of Raj Bhavans were a waste if not used to safeguard the interests of tribals. Deo had written to Andhra governor E S L Narasimhan …
Farmers allege compensation not enough A group of men is sitting under a grove, playing a game of cards at noon. Around them, thousands of acres of land, mostly arable, lie dotted with small hamlets. There are no roads, just dust tracks that wind around low limestone stocks and through …
Facing stiff opposition from the Naxals, the Indian Railways, which is building a track to augment supply of iron ore for Bhilai Steel Plant, has told the Ministry of Home Affairs that contractors are threatening to abandon the project and certain measures need to be taken with immediate effect. Among …
NMDC, whose presence in Bailadila predates the Naxal problem, now pours money into security and faces issues of despatching the ore India’s finest iron ore deposits rise abruptly from the forest floor — 32 km of undulating massiveness, four km wide and over 1,260 metres above sea level at its …
State government transfers all rights of minor forest produce and major timber to forest management committees The Centre’s efforts to ensure economic empowerment of tribals in forest areas received a fillip with the Maharashtra government’s order to bring all joint forest management committees under the control of gram sabhas. The …
Bhubaneswar: Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh on Thursday strongly opposed private mining in areas affected by Left wing extremism on the ground that it allows Maoists to extort money from companies. I continue to hold the view that particularly in Saranda given the fact that this area has been …
With Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on their side, the Orissa government has sidestepped the concerns expressed by Central intelligence agencies and the Home Ministry to work with gram panchayat heads who were elected unopposed. Panchayat polls in February had seen a jump in the number of candidates winning unopposed …
Government should consider a freeze on mining in Naxal-hit areas, tribal affairs minister V Kishore Chandra Deo has said. Deo clarified that he was not against the industry or economic development, but unresolved land rights and mining were principle causes of alienation among tribals. This gave Maoists a toe-hold to …
With contractors avoiding rural road projects in Naxal-hit districts, the Union Rural Development Ministry plans to entrust local panchayats to execute them under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY). “If there are no contractors ready to construct rural roads in these areas despite repeated tenders, we are ready to …
BHUBANESWAR: In what can be seen as a missive to embarrass Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on the tribal issue, Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Wednesday alleged that a large number of ‘adivasis’ are in jail in Odisha, for no reason whatsoever, and they should be freed at the …
