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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
While the Marathwada quake victims waited for succour, lucre and its distribution ensnared the NGOs, the voluble critics of government's callous habits, in attritious squabblings. S Parasuraman's paper on NGO activity, presented at the workshop, does not exactly do them pride. In the aftermath of the earthquake, more than 130 …
SUDDENLY, everything was gone: home and hearth, families and friends. The earth had danced a tarantella. And thousands in Marathwada joined the army of the living dead. How much time is enough to erase memories of such an upheaval? In the post-disaster period in Marathwada, mental health did not receive …
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 …
THE Review Committee on the Sardar Sarovar Project, instead of taking a principled stand and rejecting the extremely limited frame of reference set by the government, produced a report that was indicted by the Supreme Court in January for being "vague" and "ambiguous". The convenor of the committee, Planning Commission …
DECEMBER 3, 1994. The stage was set in Bhopal, again, for an army of people. Mediapeople. Activists. As for those who had rushed out of their homes 10 years ago to the day straight into the most poisonous mist the world had seen since mustard gas had ravaged the fields …
In 1961, this promise came with the Union Carbide Corp (UCC) visiting card. The small print added -- A hand in things to come. On December 3, 1984, UCC showed its hand. Thousands died and continue to die in well-documented agony and tens of thousands were maimed and traumatised for …
Razia Sultana I ran away with my husband and 6 children on the night of the leak. But there was no escape from the toxic fumes. My husband was diagnosed stomach cancer and a heart condition. Till his death 2 years ago, we spent about Rs 70,000 on his treatment. …
Cry justice An indifferent legislature and an impotent administration has forced the onus of defining the cost of lives and damages to the environment caused by industrial "development" onto the courts. THE justice meted out by the Indian courts to the victims of the Bhopal disaster is a tale of …
