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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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. …
Even as the Maharashtra government faces flak for its inept handling of bubonic plague in Beed district, experts have denounced the state's earthquake reconstruction and rehabilitation programme in the Marathwada region, following the devastation in September last year. In the first comprehensive review of the rehabilitation measures undertaken, A S …
Rajasthan's forest department warns that the Union ministry of environment and forest's (MEF) proposal to translocate Asiatic lions from the Gir sanctuary in Gujarat to habitats in Rajasthan, will increase the pressure on the state's sanctuaries. In August 1993, MEF had proposed the introduction of the animals at the Darrah, …
DEOLI had seen nothing like it. On April 25, over 500 villagers took out a rally through this small township in the Tonk district of Rajasthan, under the banner of the Samanvay Samiti, Bisalpur Bandh Doob Kshetra. They were protesting against the inadequacy of rehabilitation measures for the Bisalpur Drinking …
THERE was something questionable and baffling about the closure of the construction sluices on the Sardar Sarovar dam on February 23 this year. First, the suddenness of it: the Narmada Bachao Andolan says that 40 families were still present at Vadgam and were affected by the closure when the sluicedoors …
THE World Bank has commended the Chinese government's resettlement record - at "well over 30 million", the world's largest - as a "model" for most types of resettlements. A leaked report, in which the bank reviewed its own resettlement policy, said, "Over the past 40 years, tens of millions of …
JAPANESE environmentalists have objected to an Indian press report, which said Japanese non-governmental organisations had welcomed India's resettlement and rehabilitation (R&R;) package for oustees of the Sardar Sarovar Project. In fact, Yukio Tanaka, coordinator of the Narmada Action Committee of Japan, has denied this outright. The controversy erupted on February …
Tribals in Nagarahole National Park in Karnataka are opposing a state government plan to relocate them within the park, claiming it would adversely affect their way of life. According to the plan, the 6,145 tribals living in 54 settlements spread over the park are to be relocated in a 2,000-ha …
PASTORALISTS are a vanishing breed the world over. These herders of sheep and cattle have a key role to play in the rehabilitation and sustainable management of fragile ecosystems. India has 34 million pastoralists managing a livestock population of more than 50 million. Apart from producing milk, meat, leather and …
IN MANY agricultural ecosystems, manure is used to provide the nutrients and organic matter needed for soil fertility on cropland. Even where chemical fertilisers are available, organic matter such as that provided by manure is the key to sustainable cropping. Farmers and pastoralists often develop relationships centred around each other's …
CITIZENS' groups have flayed the World Bank's (WB's) new information policy -- Expanding Access to Bank Information (EABI) -- for keeping information in and people out. In a desperate attempt to shore up its sinking image and secure a $18 billion capital replenishment, WB had recently cobbled together the information …
Inhabitants of the Sariska Tiger Reserve (STR) in Rajasthan are to be moved once again. The STR authorities have decided to relocate 20 villages inside the sanctuary to sites outside it because, they contend, the villagers are taking a heavy toll of the reserve forest, which is made up chiefly …
Vilasrao B Salunke, father of the pani panchayat concept in the drought-prone Marathwada region in Maharashtra, has evolved quake-resistant houses in areas affected by the September 30 earthquake. Salunke, convenor of the Pune-based Earthquake Disaster Management Group, advocates ferrocement technology to build new houses on existing foundations of the recently …
IN THEIR quest for cultivable land, tribals have cleared more than 2,025 ha of virgin forest in the Hadgarh sanctuary in Orissa's Keonjhar district in less than two years. According to the Antyodaya Chetana Kendra (ACK), a voluntary organisation that has been working in the area for nearly a decade, …
