Centre plans to seize 3.9 lakh hectares land from farmers, alleges NAPM, plans rally on February 24 in Delhi

NAPM-sponsored rally in Bhubaneshwar

By A Representative
The National Alliance of People's Movement (NAPM) has estimated that the new Ordinance amending the 2013 Land Acquisition Act will lead to the "seizure" of 3,90,000 hectares (ha) of agricultural land from farmers for the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC). Calling upon a rally at Jantar Mantar in Delhi on February 24, the NAPM has added, the Ordinance was introduced by the BJP government “so that industrialists, Indian and foreign, and builders can construct industrial corridors, open mines and accumulate real estate profits in the name of building cheap housing for the poor by grabbing farmers’ lands.”
The estimation is said to be based on Section 10(A) of Chapter III A of the Ordinance, which doesn’t not just put defence-related establishments, affordable houses for the poor and rural infrastructure in the list of “exemptions category”, where no social impact assessment (SIA) or people’s consent would be required for acquiring land. Even the industrial corridors have been put under the exemptions category.
If applied on Gujarat, which is the main part of the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), it would mean, 60 per cent of the state’s land could be acquired without SIA or consent. Similar corridors are planned between Delhi and Kolkata, Kolkata and Chennai, Chennai and Bangaluru, and Bangaluru and Mumbai. The list is likely to expand to link Central India as well.
India's one of the biggest apex bodies of rights-based organizations, the NAPM said, already, following the Ordinance, “bulldozer attacks on slums of cities like Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Ranchi are increasing at an alarming rate.” It added, “Thousands of hectares of land belonging to the public are being looted to increase the breadth and lustre of smart cities.”

Odisha rally against land ordinance

The NAPM statement came alongside its supporters in Odisha, in alliance with about two dozen anti-displacement people’s movements and rights based organizations of Odisha , organizing a mass protest rally on February 14, 2015 in Bhubaneshwar against the Land Acquisition Ordinance, 2014. The rally demanded its “immediate withdrawal”.
Calling it “undemocratic and anti-people”, a statement issued by the rally organizers, Campaign for Survival and Dignity (CSD), demanded that the Odisha government should not implement the Land Acquisition Ordinance. The protest rally was addressed by Prafulla Samantara, convener of the NAPM, Rabi Das, Prof Manoranjan Mohanty, Trilochan Punji, Bilua Nayak and others .
The statement said, “The UPA government had brought new land acquisition Act in 2013 after consistent people’s struggles across different states against draconian land acquisition Act of 1894 of the British period, introducing a democratic process of social impact assessment (SIA) and public hearing. The very fundamental right to consent and prior information of 80 per cent and 70 per cent of land losers was mandatory for Land Acquisition for private and public partnership projects (PPPs).”
However, it added, the NDA Government under leadership of Narendra Modi “has brought land acquisition ordinance in December 2014. The new land acquisition ordinance will lead to forceful acquisition by the state which has no such authority in the constitution.”
“The provision of Social Impact Assessment followed by Public Hearing was the essence of democratic process of Land Acquisition in 2013, which has now been totally abolished for various sectors, and land acquisition will now be done for any private entity without any restriction”, the statement alleged.
The statement said the Ordinance was brought in though it was to come into force in January 2015, and not a single project anywhere in country had been stalled because of the Act. It also condemned the Government of India for “violating” the Gram Sabha’s authority established under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006 in diversion of forest for non-forest purposes.
Following the the protest rally, a memorandum was submitted to the President of India through the Governor of Odisha. Soon thereafter, the organizers announced that on February 24, 2015, during Parliament session, a mass protest rally would be organized in Delhi and “the anti-people Ordinance would be burnt.”

Comments

Plastic burning in homes threatens food, water and air across Global South: Study

By Jag Jivan In a groundbreaking study spanning 26 countries across the Global South , researchers have uncovered the widespread and concerning practice of households burning plastic waste as a fuel for cooking, heating, and other domestic needs. The research, published in Nature Communications , reveals that this hazardous method of managing both waste and energy poverty is driven by systemic failures in municipal services and the unaffordability of clean alternatives, posing severe risks to human health and the environment.

Economic superpower’s social failure? Inequality, malnutrition and crisis of India's democracy

By Vikas Meshram India may be celebrated as one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, but a closer look at who benefits from that growth tells a starkly different story. The recently released World Inequality Report 2026 lays bare a country sharply divided by wealth, privilege and power. According to the report, nearly 65 percent of India’s total wealth is owned by the richest 10 percent of its population, while the bottom half of the country controls barely 6.4 percent. The top one percent—around 14 million people—holds more than 40 percent, the highest concentration since 1961. Meanwhile, the female labour force participation rate is a dismal 15.7 percent.

The greatest threat to our food system: The aggressive push for GM crops

By Bharat Dogra Thanks to the courageous resistance of several leading scientists who continue to speak the truth despite increasing pressures from the powerful GM crop and GM food lobby , the many-sided and in some contexts irreversible environmental and health impacts of GM foods and crops, as well as the highly disruptive effects of this technology on farmers, are widely known today.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...

UP tribal woman human rights defender Sokalo released on bail

By A Representative After almost five months in jail, Adivasi human rights defender and forest worker Sokalo Gond has been finally released on bail.Despite being granted bail on October 4, technical and procedural issues kept Sokalo behind bars until November 1. The Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) and the All India Union of Forest Working People (AIUFWP), which are backing Sokalo, called it a "major victory." Sokalo's release follows the earlier releases of Kismatiya and Sukhdev Gond in September. "All three forest workers and human rights defenders were illegally incarcerated under false charges, in what is the State's way of punishing those who are active in their fight for the proper implementation of the Forest Rights Act (2006)", said a CJP statement.

Jayanthi Natarajan "never stood by tribals' rights" in MNC Vedanta's move to mine Niyamigiri Hills in Odisha

By A Representative The Odisha Chapter of the Campaign for Survival and Dignity (CSD), which played a vital role in the struggle for the enactment of historic Forest Rights Act, 2006 has blamed former Union environment minister Jaynaynthi Natarjan for failing to play any vital role to defend the tribals' rights in the forest areas during her tenure under the former UPA government. Countering her recent statement that she rejected environmental clearance to Vendanta, the top UK-based NMC, despite tremendous pressure from her colleagues in Cabinet and huge criticism from industry, and the claim that her decision was “upheld by the Supreme Court”, the CSD said this is simply not true, and actually she "disrespected" FRA.

Stands 'exposed': Cavalier attitude towards rushed construction of Char Dham project

By Bharat Dogra* The nation heaved a big sigh of relief when the 41 workers trapped in the under-construction Silkyara-Barkot tunnel (Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand) were finally rescued on November 28 after a 17-day rescue effort. All those involved in the rescue effort deserve a big thanks of the entire country. The government deserves appreciation for providing all-round support.

'Restructuring' Sahitya Akademi: Is the ‘Gujarat model’ reaching Delhi?

By Prakash N. Shah* A fortnight and a few days have slipped past that grim event. It was as if the wedding preparations were complete and the groom’s face was about to be unveiled behind the ceremonial tinsel. At 3 PM on December 18, a press conference was poised to announce the Sahitya Akademi Awards .

Search This Blog