In order to use tenanted land for setting up of projects for community or public purpose, the Goa government has introduced the Goa Land Use (Regulation) Bill, 2024 seeking amendment to Section 3 of Goa Land Use (Regulation) Act, 1991 so as to specify in the Right to Fair Compensation …
THE ecodevelopment project being prom6ted by the ministry of environment and forests (MEF) and the World Bank (WB) in seven protected areas, has' taised yet another storm regarding the issue of forced relocation. The venue this time is the Gir National Park, the only home of the Asiatic lion in …
The Singrauli region, which produces 10% of India's electric power, has experienced rapid industrialization and urbanization over the last 30 years. Along with this growth has come environmental degradation in terms of coal cycle and industrial pollution, displacement of populations, housing and occupational hazards, related health effects, and land degradation. …
Nearly 100 caged baboons had the fright of their lives when the inundated Olifants river climbed under their cages at a remote reserve in northern South Africa recently. Rescue workers worked night and day to carry the baboons and some other animals like jackals, civets, warthogs and monkeys to the, …
PEOPLE in rural areas are surely waking up to fight for their rights. A hundred odd families belonging to two tiny villages of Mitihini and Khairi in Sonebha,dra district of Uttar Pradesh, have drawn the battle lines against the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPc). They have stopped its attempts to …
THE Supreme Court will resume the hearing of the comprehensive writ petition against the Sardar Sarovar Project on January 24. Significantly, the petitioners, Narmada Bachao Andolan and the state of Madhya Pradesh managed to get some assurances from the Centre during the last hearing, which was adjourned on December 7, …
THE latest figures of the oustees of the Sardar Sarovar Project (ssp) show that relief and rehabilitation (R&R;) has almost come to a standstill. In the last 14 months since June 1994, the Gujarat government has been able to resettle just 94 families from all the three states of Gujarat, …
THE Environmental Activists' Handbook edited by Gayatri Singh, Keban Anklesharia and Colin Gonsalves carries the pic an old fdic of a woman, named Sunderbai, on its cover. coptim below reads - "Sunderbai, twice displaced by 0 Am project, eventually died of starvation on 21.1.93". nor picture provoked many questions in …
AFTER 8 months had passed since the Great Hanshin Earthquake struck Kobe in western Japan, all damaged rail lines have been restored, most of the collapsed buildings have been removed, and reconstruction has begun. However, as of mid-August, some 7,600 residents who lost their homes, still continue to live in …
Stereotyping and labelling of things and process is a practice of comfort: it gives the mind the luxury of having little to exercise itself over. This is more evident in the way people normally talk of the urban poor in negative terms. But Vandana Desai veers away from that practice …
THE Indian government's plans of green signalling the Nagarhole Tiger Project in Karnataka's Mysore district has incurred the wrath of several activists, academicians and lawyers - many of them tribals. A meeting was held at Anandwan, in Chandrapur, Maharashtra, from July 14 to 19, to formulate alternate drafts of the …
THOUSANDS in the Kolaghat area of Midnapore district in West Bengal are suffering from silicosis, due to dumps of flyash generated by Kolaghat's 1,260 megawatt thermal power project, according to a retently published booklet, Anusandhan: Jal, Vayu, Matee, compiled by Nagarik Manch, a Calcutta-based group. Silicosis is a major respirlory …
IN A dramatic volte face, the Action Research in Community Health and Development (ARCH) Vahini, a well- known Gujarat NGo, has backtracked on its support to the Sardar Sarpvar Project (isp). Citing the poor rehavilitation measures for project affected persons (PAps), Anil Patel, ARCH Vahini's head said that the ssp …
A scheme initiated by Sulabh International, a voluntary organisation, to bring scavengers into the mainstream by encouraging well-placed residents of Delhi to adopt a scavenger family each, has invited loud criticism. Critics call the scheme a gimmick. Sulabh has approached hundreds of the la de da in the Capital to …
UPROOTED 4 times in 3 decades. Thirty thousand villagers of Madhya Pradesh were first displaced during the construction of the Rihand dam (late '50s); later, again, when coal was found in the mid-70s; a third time, to make room for industry; and finally, when the Singrauli mega thermal power station …
Democracy entails statutory safeguards against infringement of the inalienable rights of the people. But in the country today, the state of legislations protecting the people from wanton development is abysmal. Only Madhya Pradesh (MP) and Maharashtra have some kind of an act regarding resettlement and rehabilitation. In Karnataka, the Act …
What do you give to oustees who have been cleared away in the name of a developmental project? Take land, give land, says the government, without, however, seeming too eager to stick by its own cryptic formula. The Sardar Sarovar Project, for instance, guarantees every displaced adult (defined as a …
"We were thrown out in July 1974, during the rains. They didn't give us houses, or even money to build them. We took shelter under the trees," says Khudyan Singh Moravi, a Baiga tribal from Lonadhar, Balaghat district, Madhya Pradesh. Moravi's only fault was that he had been staying within …
...cried the NGOs, oustees, social scientists and mass leaders in unison. Neither the secretive methods of the government nor the general policies laid down in the draft were acceptable to them. "It is a matter of shame that this draft policy is being formulated more for satisfying the conditions laid …
HOMES were rebuilt, but the pastures vanished. Money came pouring in but trades were lost. And now the reconstruction of the quake-devastated Marathwada villages by urban thinkers resembled a Babelian confusion. The result: the rehabilitation of the people ended up disrupting the village ecosystem. "Everyone -- the government, the NGOs …
A MAJOR disaster is not enough. It takes censure and orders from the courts to shake the somnolent bureaucracy into action. The still-traumatised Marathwada quake victims have created history by resorting to public interest litigations (PIL) to ensure relief through the natural disaster management efforts of the government. "Such legal …
