Western India NGOs seek to "nationalise" sustainable development goals, being finalized at United Nations

By Our Representative
A fortnight after the UN drafting committee deliberated on the final draft of the revised Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030 after taking suggestions from all the stakeholders, including an Indian civil society network led by Wada Na Todo Abhiyan and Oxfam India (click HERE), several of the country’s well-known NGOs met in Ahmedabad to deliberate on the type of institutions needed to achieve SDGs. The effort allegedly was to "nationalize SDGs" in western India.
Among those who sponsored the meet Beyond Copenhagen, Cecocdecon, FPA India, IPPF, Landesa, Pairvi, Third World Network, Vaagdhara, Vikalp, and Wocan. Paryavaran Mitra, Ahmedabad, coordinated the deliberations, which continued for two days. The UN drafting committee met in New York on June 22-25 to finalize the SDG draft, and by its new goals are likely to be a final word at the UN General Assembly at its September meet. The topic of the deliberations was "Nationalizing the Sustainable Development Goals: Economic, Social and Environmental Sustainability in Western India", and the discussions were about how to do it in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.
Talking with newspersons soon after the two-day discussions, Pairvi’s Ajay Jha said, “We tried to find out ways to ensure how to implement the SDGs at the grassroots level through our collective effort. While implementing the SDGs, we will not be guided by the limited view of poverty, which is income based. We believe that poverty definition should take into account social backwardness, environmental issues, and democratic freedoms.” He thought, all this would provide them a "national" character.

Paryavaran Mitra’s Mahesh Pandya said, the main effort would be to ensure that people are empowered to ensure implementation of SDGs. “Unless people are made aware about the SDGs, the government in power will not be implementing it. There is a need for sustained advocacy both at the grassroots level and the government and politicians and local self-governing institutions. In fact, a legal framework would need to be created for implementing SDGs.”
Mina Bilgi of Wocan, a women’s advocacy network, said, special focus would need to be placed on women’s empowerment. “It is by now proved that 70 per cent those who work in the farm sector are women. Yet, they have no say in what they produce, not provided with any access to market, have no say on land on which they work. There is talk of gender budgeting, but nobody cares to finance women”, she said.
A statement issued by the organizers expressed “compelling concerns related to sustainability” adding, “We have failed to address it adequately.” It emphasized that “the development paradigm has been lopsided in favour of economic growth to the large exclusion of social and ecological aspects.”
Talking about the need to finance sustainable development, it insists on the need to get rid of the “ecologically damaging growth path”. It adds, “While it is important for India and other developing and poor countries to raise issues of justice, equity and resources in the global debate without which sustainable development cannot be achieved; it is also equally compelling to address sustainability nationally.”

Industry intervention

Meanwhile, in a related development, the industry in Gujarat is reported to be successful in having a say in the deliberations on sustainable development. A meet organized on sustainable development by well-known NGO Vikalp, Ahmedabad, saw the state's premier industrial house, Adanis, Gujarat government agency Gujarat Pollution Control Board, the state's environmental group Paryavaran Mitra and the Southern Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry discussed the issue.

The meet, which took place on June 20 at Surat, particularly focused on the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in sustainable development. No details of the meeting, however, have been made public so far.

Comments

World Bank clarifies: Its 26th rank to India not for universal access to power but for ease of doing business

By Our Representative
In a major embarrassment to the Government of India, the World Bank has reportedly clarified that it has not ranked India 26th out of 130 countries for providing power to its population. The top international banker’s clarification comes following Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal’s claim that India has “improved to 26 position from 99” in access to electricity in just one year.

"Misleading" satellite images being shared on Balakot surgical strike on Jaish camp

By Dr Vinay Kate*
With every passing day more questions are being raised about the surgical strike India did in Balakot as a response to Pulwama attacks. So far the Indian media has claimed mass casulaty of 300+ terrorists of Jaish-e-Mohammad in this surgical strike, but there is hardly any report from foreign media about the same.

Extreme repression, corporate loot, cultural genocide "characterise" India's tribal belt

Counterview Desk
As Lok Sabha polls approach, there is considerable ferment in one section of the population -- India's Adivasis, forming about 8.6 per cent of India's population. Things became particularly critical following the February 14, 2019 Supreme Court order, allegedly seeking to evict lakhs of tribals from their forest lands.

Industry in India "barely growing", export growth 0%, whither moral anchors?

Counterview Desk
In a sharp critique of the Modi government, the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), one of world renowned economist Prof Kaushik Basu, who is Professor of Economics and Carl Marks Professor of International Studies at Cornell University, has told students at the IIM-A’s 54th Annual Convocation on March 16, 2019 that they have a “special responsibility” on their shoulders, “the responsibility to reject narrow sectarianism, uphold scientific thinking, openness to new ideas, and freedom of speech.”

Gujarat model? Industrial effluents "invade" borewells, discharge coloured water in farms

By Rajiv Shah
In a major embarrassment for Gujarat model, of the 21 samples taken by officials of the state government's environmental watchdog Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) in two villages of Vadodara district and analyzed by its laboratory in Gandhinagar, the state capital, to find out pollution level in groundwater, 16 were assessed as highly contaminated – these were, in fact, found to be discharging reddish, brownish, reddish, or yellowish water.

Refugees as criminals? US govt report blames Amit Shah for calling Bangladeshis termites

Counterview Desk
The chapter “Freedom of Movement” of the US State Department’s “India 2018 Human Rights Report”, released recently, has criticized BJP chief Amit Shah for terming alleged Bangladeshis who may be in Assam as “termites”, because their names were struck down from the list of National Register of Citizens, under preparation in the state.
Pointing out that four million residents were excluded from Assam’s final draft list, leading to “uncertainty over the status of these individuals, many of whose families had lived in the state for several generations”, the report regrets, the Indian law does not even contain the term “refugee,” treating refugees like Rohingiyas as “any other foreigners.”
“Undocumented physical presence in the country is a criminal offense. Persons without documentation were vulnerable to forced returns and abuse”, the report says.
Text of the Freedom of Movement chapter: The law provides for freedom of internal movement, foreign travel, emigration, a…

Mental health: India's 95% patients "deprived" of medical care, treatment gap 70%

By Moin Qazi*
Among the many challenges India faces, the most underappreciated is the ongoing mental health crisis. Mental illness is actually India’s ticking bomb. An estimated 56 million Indians suffer from depression, and 38 million from anxiety disorders. For those who suffer from mental illness, life can seem like a terrible prison from which there is no hope of escape; they are left forlorn and abandoned, stigmatized, shunned and misunderstood.

Congress would win just 9 of 26 Lok Sabha seats: Gujarat Assembly segment-wise analysis

By Rajiv Shah
Even as the Congress plans its first working committee meet in Gujarat on February 28 after an almost 58 year gap, there is reason to wonder what is in store for India’s grand old party in a state which has been long been a BJP bastion – in fact ever since mid-1990s. Ahead of the then assembly polls in late 2012, talking with me, a senior Gujarat Congress leader, currently Rajya Sabha MP, frankly said he saw no reason why Congress would win.

"Pro-corporate" Supreme Court order on FRA would further marginalize Adivasis

By VS Roy David, JP Raju*
For millions of Adivasis and other traditional forest dwellers February 13, 2019 will go down in history as the day of apocalypse. This is like the proverbial Black Friday where millions of most marginalized people of India were ordered by malicious anti-people draconian Supreme Court order depriving them the life and livelihood by evicting them from their habitats.

Financial inclusion? Not micro-loans; India's poor "need" investment in health, education

By Moin Qazi*
India has grown into a global powerhouse. Its economy is soaring but the picture on the ground is still quite arid. The green shoots that you see are only a patch of its landscape. Most Indians are hapless victims of inequity. India is one country where intense poverty abounds in the shadow of immense wealth.

Counterview

Search This Blog