Bauxite mining in Odisha: Activists warn "massive retaliation" if state government refuses to step back

By Our Representative
The National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM), apex body of tens of mass organizations of India, has strongly protested against the Odisha Govermnent’s reported attempt to conduct Gram Sabhas in the Niyamgiri area to allow the MNC Vedanta to begin mining of bauxite for its Rs 50,000 crore aluminia refinery project, calling the move as "illegal and contempt of the Supreme Court order".
NAPM's Prafulla Samantara, a petitioner in the case against Vedanta in the Supreme Court, suspected the government was doing it to raise "funds for the party for the elections", adding, "The state is planning to reconvene Gram Sabhas in Niyamgiri in all the 12 villages which had voted against the proposed mining in Niyamgiri between July 18 and August 19, 2013, held under direction from Supreme Court."
The senior activist, talking with newspersons in Bhubaneswar, said, it was "expected" of the government to hold them accountable for violations of established laws and acts of the land, and that it should have "realized its mistakes" by not allowing any further damage or harm to the already deteriorating trust between the vulnerable Dongaria community and the state."
In between, Samantara said, the Government of India even appeared to have started, in cooperation with the district administration, to bring certain state run schemes to the area. But now "real intention of the administration has been exposed after the fresh", he added.
Samantara alleged, "The state had abandoned Niyamgiri and the Dongaraias for 67 years and remembered only for bauxite mining after arrival of Vedanta in 2002. The administration was upset with Gram Sabha verdicts in 2013 and boycotted the hills for the last two years, and now has started figuring again proactively in the area."
Another activist Bhalachandra Sarangi warned the state government "not to resort to backdoor and corrupt anti-people practices”, saying, the Supreme Court-appointed committee, which submitted its report, on September 21, 2005, had clearly said that “the use of the forest land in an ecologically sensitive area like the Niyamgiri Hills should not be permitted."
The committee "recommended that this court may consider revoking the environmental clearance dated September 22, 2004 granted by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) for setting up of the Alumina Refinery Plant by Vedanta and directing them to stop further work on the project, said Sarangi.
He quoted the committee as saying, "The casual approach, the lackadaisical manner and the haste with which the entire issue of forests and environmental clearance for the alumina refinery project has been dealt with smacks of undue favour/leniency and does not inspire confidence with regard to the willingness and resolve of both the State Government and the MoEF to deal with such matters keeping in view the ultimate goal of national and public interest.”
The activist said, it would be "unfair" of the government to say that people were losing jobs and that’s why it was essential to hand over the bauxite source for the refinery and Niyamgiri hills. "Rather government should penalize Vedanta for the violations and use the money for mitigating the environmental damage caused to the region", he added, warning the government, it will "face massive resistance once again" if it does not pull back.

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Girl child education: 20 major states 'score' better than Gujarat, says GoI report

By Rajiv Shah
A Government of India report, released last month, has suggested that “model” Gujarat has failed to make any progress vis-à-vis other states in ensuring that girls continue to remain enrolled after they leave primary schools. The report finds that, in the age group 14-17, Gujarat’s 71% girls are enrolled at the secondary and higher secondary level, which is worse than 20 out of 22 major states for which data have been made available.

Savarkar in Ahmedabad "declared support" to two-nation theory in 1937, followed by Jinnah three years later

By Our Representative
One of the top freedom fighters whom BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi revere the most, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, was also a great supporter of the two nation theory for India, one for Hindus another for Muslims, claims a new expose on the man who is also known to be the original proponent of the concept of Hindutva.

Congress 'promises' cancellation of Adani power project: Jharkhand elections

Counterview Desk
Pointing out that people's issues take a backseat in Jharkhand's 2019 assembly elections, the state's civil rights organization, the Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha, a coalition of activists and people’s organisations, has said that political parties have largely ignored in their electoral manifestos the need to implement the fifth schedule of the Constitution in a predominantly tribal district.

Hindutva founders 'borrowed' Nazi, fascist idea of one flag, one leader, one ideology

By Shamsul Islam*
With the unleashing of the reign of terror by the RSS/BJP rulers against working-class, peasant organizations, women organizations, student movements, intellectuals, writers, poets and progressive social/political activists, India also witnessed a series of resistance programmes organized by the pro-people cultural organizations in different parts of the country. My address in some of these programmes is reproduced here...
*** Before sharing my views on the tasks of artists-writers-intellectuals in the times of fascism, let me briefly define fascism and how it is different from totalitarianism. Totalitarianism is political concept, a dictatorship of an individual, family or group which prohibits opposition in any form, and exercises an extremely high degree of control over public and private life. It is also described as authoritarianism.
Whereas fascism, while retaining all these repressive characteristics, also believes in god-ordained superiority of race, cultur…

Ex-World Bank chief economist doubts spurt in India's ease of doing business rank

By Rajiv Shah
This is in continuation of my previous blog where I had quoted from a commentary which top economist Prof Kaushik Basu had written in the New York Times (NYT) a little less than a month ago, on November 6, to be exact. He recalled this article through a tweet on November 29, soon after it was made known that India's growth rate had slumped (officially!) to 4.5%.

With RSS around, does India need foreign enemy to undo its democratic-secular fabric?

By Shamsul Islam*
Many well-meaning liberal and secular political analysts are highly perturbed by sectarian policy decisions of RSS/BJP rulers led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, especially after starting his second inning. They are vocal in red-flagging lynching incidents, policies of the Modi government on Kashmir, the National Register of Citizens (NRC), the demand for 'Bharat Ratna' to Savarkar who submitted 6-7 mercy petitions to the British masters (getting remission of 40 years out of 50 years' sentence), and the murder of constitutional norms in Goa, Karnataka and now in Maharashtra.

Post-Balakot, danger that events might spiral out of control is 'greater, not less'

By Tapan Bose*
The fear of war in South Asia is increasing. Tensions are escalating between India and Pakistan after the Indian defence minister's announcement in August this year that India may revoke its current commitment to only use nuclear weapons in retaliation for a nuclear attack, known as ‘no first use’. According to some experts who are watching the situation the risk of a conflict between the two countries has never been greater since they both tested nuclear weapons in 1998.

Rushdie, Pamuk, 260 writers tell Modi: Aatish episode casts chill on public discourse

Counterview Desk
As many as 260 writers, journalists, artists, academics and activists across the world, including Salman Rushdie, British Indian novelist, Orhan Pamuk, Turkish novelist and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in literature, and Margaret Atwood, Canadian poet and novelist, have called upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi to review the decision to strip British Indian writer Aatish Taseer of his overseas Indian citizenship.

Worrying signs in BJP: Modi, Shah begin 'cold-shouldering' Gujarat CM, party chief

By RK Misra*
The political developments in neighbouring Maharashtra where a Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government assumed office has had a trickle down effect in Gujarat with both the ruling BJP and the Congress opposition going into revamp mode.

'Favouring' tribals and ignoring Adivasis? Behind coercion of India's aborigines

By Mohan Guruswamy*
Tribal people account for 8.2% of India’s population. They are spread over all of India’s States and Union Territories. Even so they can be broadly classified into three groupings. The first grouping consists of populations who predate the Indo-Aryan migrations. These are termed by many anthropologists as the Austro-Asiatic-speaking Australoid people.

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