World Bank arm should have addressed concerns of fisherfolk while funding Gujarat coal project: Ombudsman

Counterview Desk
A top monitoring report on the International Finance Corporation (IFC) Gujarat, has said that the IFC should have properly studied livelihood and environmental concerns before forwarding $450 million loan to the 4,000 MW project. The report has been prepared by the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO), which directly reports to the World Bank Group president. The IFC has funded the prestigious Tatas’ Ultra Mega Power Plant (UMPP) in Kutch, at Mundra.
Among other things, the CAO's audit in 2013 had also found that environmental and social risks and impacts were not considered and addressed; there was no social baseline data; IFC’s policies for land acquisition were not applied despite physical and economic displacement; inadequate attention was paid to the requirement of biodiversity conservation; and IFC failed in its review and supervision of the impacts on air-shed and marine environment.
A member of the World Bank Group, IFC finances and provides advice for private sector ventures and projects in developing countries. The CAO’s monitoring report stresses on the “need for a rapid, participatory and expressly remedial approach to assessing and addressing project impacts”, which were raised by the complainants, Machimar Adhikar Sangharsh Sangathan (MASS).
The report also talks of “technical non-compliance” on findings regarding “the application of pollution control standards.” It refers to non-compliance “to the World Bank’s Environmental, Health and Safety Guidelines in relation to: (a) new power stations in areas with degraded airsheds; and (b) the thermal emissions of the project’s cooling system which releases warm water into the sea.”

Meanwhile, in a letter to CAO Osvaldo L Gratacos, the IFC has ensured that it would ensure compliance of all his concerns by November 2015, when the next round of monitoring would happen. The letter says, already, an action plan is well in place for taking care of the concerns of impact on livelihood of "seasonally migrant fishing communities." It has also ensured complete "socio-economic study" after "individual household level interviews, key informant interviews, focus group discussions, and other methods of consultation to be determined by the third-party experts."

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Click HERE for CAO's report

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Hindus to be 'sent' to Kashmir? Despite Israeli settlements, peace eludes the region

By Anand K Sahay*
Curfew, news and communications blackout, transportation shut-down... News reports from Kashmir are worrying. So are the views relayed through the media, especially television. Old-fashioned repression seems to be consorting comfortably with expressions of concern “for our Kashmiri brethren”. We are looking at Orwell’s 1984 in the making.

Dholera 'inundated': Gujarat govt tries selling low lying area as top smart city site

Counterview Desk
Even as the Dholera Special Investment Region Regional Development Authority (DSIRDA) of the Gujarat government was busy organising a junket for Gujarat-based journalists for the area sought to be sold as an ideal special investment region (SIR) for industrialists, well-known farmers' activist Sagar Rabari has wondered why no investor has so far agreed to put in money in an area situated in Ahmedabad district along the Gulf of Khambhat.

Congress' anti-democratic laws led to Modi govt's 'Constitutional' changes: Scholars

Counterview Desk
A large number of academics* said to be belonging to several Indian and international institutions, even as taking strong exception to the Narendra Modi government's alleged move to amend the Constitution through "illegitimate" means, have taken strong exception to their colleagues in academia who we have become "all too accustomed to adopting a calculated silence in the face of such indignities."

Savarkar 'opposed' Bhagat Singh's, Netaji's dream of India, supported British war efforts

By Shamsul Islam*
In a shocking development, the student wing of the RSS put the busts of martyrs Bhagat Singh and Subhash Chandra Bose with Savarkar's on one pedestal at the University of Delhi late in the night on August 20, 2019. Bhagat Singh sacrificed his life for a socialist-democratic-secular republic and Netaji raised Azad Hind Fauj (INA) consisting of people of all religions and regions for armed liberation of India.

UN experts object to GoI move to 'reinforce' trend of prosecution, eviction of tribals

Counterview Desk
In a report sent to the Government of India, three United Nations (UN) special rapporteurs, expressing "concerns" over the failure to ensure "adequate" implementation of the India Forest Rights Act (FRA), have regretted that the Government of India has not cared to reply their previous communications on this.

Modi's Gujarati mind? Why govt move to 'sell-off' defence PSUs isn't in national interest

By Sandeep Pandey*
The Standing Committee on Defence, 2017-18, of the 16th Lok Sabha highlights the idea of Buy Indian-IDDM (Indigenously Designed Developed and Manufactured). The Committee expressed concern over the import content of equipments produced and developed by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Ordnance Factories (OFs) and defence Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) because of the dependence it creates for military hardware on foreign suppliers.

As submergence stares Narmada valley, Patkar says: With powerful in throne, we're helpless

Counterview Desk
Well-known anti-dam organization, Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), plans to begin its “Resist Illegal Submergence in Narmada Valley” satyagraha on August 21 at Jantar Mantar, Delhi, amidst news that the situation in the valley is “critical”, with two persons having already died in flood-related incidents in the upstream of the Sardar Sarovar dam.

RTI Act holy cow for Govt of India? Official insists, don't ask why, when, what, where

By Pankti Jog*
The Government of India appears to have begun treating the Right to Information (RTI) Act as a holy cow. Its officials seem to believe that the Act is a sacred law, under which people shouldn't be questioning its functioning. One recalls what Prime Minister Narendra Modi said while addressing an RTI convention in 2015: “Why should government wait for people to ask information, we will have all information out in the domain, we have nothing to hide."

Can't go to court with RTI information, rule Ahmedabad authorities: Kankaria accident

By Pankti Jog*
In a shocking reply to an application filed by me, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) authorities have said that the information provided under the Right to Information (RT) Act should be used in court or in a judicial process. The Act is known to be a major tool that enables citizens to seek certified copies of documents, records from any public authority of state and Central government within 30 days, as per provisions of the Act.

Central Gujarat effluent channel 'releasing' highly polluted industrial wastewater: PM told

Counterview Desk
Senior environmentalists of the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti (PSS), Vadodara, Rohit Prajapati and Krishnakant, in an open letter to the Prime Minister, the Gujarat chief minister, the Gujarat chief secretary, and senior Government of India and Gujarat government officials dealing with environment, pollution and climate change have said that the authorities’ response their pleas to take action against the leakages and flow of polluted wastewater from the effluent channels of Central Gujarat industrial areas has met with complete inertia.

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