With more Mumbai slumdwellers likely to be uprooted, protest rally in Andheri against government "plan"

By Our Representative
Uprooted slum-dwellers of Malvani, Mandala and Mankhurd area off Mumbai took out a rally in the city's suburb of Andheri to demand housing rights, which they alleged they were deprived of following “reckless demolition” by the Maharashtra government authorities. Andheri (West) is the next target the demolition drive, they declared.
Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao (GBGB), housing rights movement which led the protest, said, “Recently, homes of the people living in slums were brutally demolished citing various reasons and vague excuses. Thousands of people including senior citizens and children were rendered homeless overnight.”
“Still unsatisfied, the government is now planning demolition drives in Sidhartha Nagar, Chaar Bangla (Andheri West) where there is massive unrest among the people”, the GBGB statement says.
“Sometimes slums are demolished in the name of cut-off dates, sometimes citing forest land or sometimes encroachment but there is no procedure for alternative shelter or rehabilitation for the displaced”, the statement says.
“Grand promises are made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the name of Housing for all by 2022. If the government is serious about providing housing, then why has Maharashtra government declared January , 2000 as the cut off date which will decide the legality of the slums and shelters of the poor?”, the housing rights organization wonders.
“While slums are being razed in order to protect mangroves, the same spaces are being parceled to builders who are building complexes and multi-storeyed in these protected lands causing more environmental damage”, it points out.
“In a megapolis like Mumbai cost of livelihood is so high that a poor person cannot buy a house or even rent a decent house”, the statement points out, adding “Facing the brunt of unemployment in their respective states, many landless labourers and skilled artisans migrate to the city looking for a livelihood and are ready to work even for wages below the minimum rates.”
“After they set up small shacks in lands and make them habitable, they are uprooted and the lands are given off to builders”, the statement underlines.
Jamil Akhtar, a GBGB worker and a tailor by profession, speaking at the rally, said the government mentality is that “slum-dwellers are a burden on the city”, adding, “For every Rs. 250 of a minimum wage that a labourer is paid, the business owners earn a profit of Rs. 2,500-3,000.”
“Domestic workers from bastis take care of the homes and food of people who work in white collar jobs”, he said, adding, “How can their invaluable contribution to the society be denied?”
Girija Gupte and Mary from Jagruk Kamgar Manch said, “Politicians woo slum dwellers for their votes and later ruin their homes and livelihood.” Zubaida and Asha. The rally reached general body meeting in Sidharth Nagar in Andheri (West).
Putting up a list of demands, the GBGB has said, it wants the slumdwellers be given give legal rights at places they are based. The slum, it adds, should be give “the basic necessities like water, toilets, electricity, public distribution system facilities, primary schools and health centres, and withdraw the cut off date clause for demolishing the slums.”

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…

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.

India, Pakistan told to eliminate nuclear weapons: N-war "would kill" 2 billion

Counterview Desk
The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), a non-partisan federation of national medical organizations in 64 countries, representing tens of thousands of doctors, medical students, other health workers, and concerned citizens, claiming to share the common goal of creating a more peaceful and secure world freed from the threat of nuclear annihilation, has warned that “an unprecedented global catastrophe” awaits the globe against the backdrop of warmongering in India and Pakistan.

Counterview

Search This Blog