At 201, India tops in number environmental conflicts, maximum cases relate to "thrust" on industry, mining

By A Representative
The Environmental Justice Atlas (EJAtlas), ejatlas.org, an online portal claiming to “help” academic and public policymakers across the world in identifying exemplary cases of peoples’ resistance against climate change and environment degradation, has said that India has the highest number of cases of environmental conflicts than anywhere else in the world.
Conceived as Environmental Justice, Liabilities and Trade (EJOLT) project as a European Commission-funded global research project operated during 2011–15 and concluded recently, says that India experienced in all 201 cases of environmental conflict, followed by 201 cases, Colombia with 101 cases.
Other countries with high number of environmental conflict cases are Nigeria (71 cases), United States of America (66), Brazil (63), Spain (56), Ecuador (49), Turkey (46), Argentina (37, Peru (37) and Chile (37).
An analysis of the data provided by the portal by Anup Kumar Das of the Centre for Studies in Science Policy, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, says. “Out of total 1604 cases reported (as on October 24, 2015), 764 (about 47.63 per cent) belong to these top 11 countries, and the remaining cases are reported from 114 countries.”
The stated purpose of the project is to bring “science and society together to catalogue and analyse ecological distribution conflicts and confront environmental injustice”, Das says in an article in "Current Science" (Vol 109, No 12, December 25, 2015), adding, “The Atlas records local or national-level conflicts on account of nuclear energy, thermal power plants, mining, land acquisition and infrastructure, among other parameters.”

A further analysis of environmental conflicts in India suggests that of the 201 cases, as many as 59 relate to the ‘water management’ category, followed by the conflicts in the ‘fossil fuels and climate justice’ category, and 47 cases, ‘industrial and utilities conflicts’ category with 36 cases.
Other categories of conflicts include cases related to mineral ores and building extractions, infrastructure and built environment, waste management, nuclear, biomass and land conflicts, tourism recreation, and biodiversity conservation.
According to VV Krishna, EJOLT project director, and professor at the Centre for Studies in Science Policy (CSSP), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, “One reason for India recording the maximum number of conflicts is the thrust on industrialisation, mining for natural resources and industrial units exploiting loopholes in environmental governance.”

Krishna further says, referring to large number of water-related conflicts, that “water is important and India is known for bad management of water resources”, which leads to water shortage. “There is the appropriation of water sources and channels by industrial units with political nexus," he adds.
Joan Martinez-Alier, professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain, says, "India appears at the top in the EJAtlas, but India is still under-reported — this is the largest country in the world in terms of population, and very likely in terms of environmental conflicts."
Adds Das, "EJAtlas includes the retrospective cases such as the one on the Bhopal gas tragedy. Each of the cases includes a structured detail of information such as description, basic data, source of conflict, project details and actors, the conflict and the mobilization, impacts, outcome, sources and materials, meta information and comments."

Comments

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 ...

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor* This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

India's health workers have no legal right for their protection, regrets NGO network

Counterview Desk In a letter to Union labour and employment minister Santosh Gangwar, the civil rights group Occupational and Environmental Health Network of India (OEHNI), writing against the backdrop of strike by Bhabha hospital heath care workers, has insisted that they should be given “clear legal right for their protection”.

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu. He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

Uttarakhand tunnel disaster: 'Question mark' on rescue plan, appraisal, construction

By Bhim Singh Rawat* As many as 40 workers were trapped inside Barkot-Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi after a portion of the 4.5 km long, supposedly completed portion of the tunnel, collapsed early morning on Sunday, Nov 12, 2023. The incident has once again raised several questions over negligence in planning, appraisal and construction, absence of emergency rescue plan, violations of labour laws and environmental norms resulting in this avoidable accident.

Job opportunities decreasing, wages remain low: Delhi construction workers' plight

By Bharat Dogra* It was about 32 years back that a hut colony in posh Prashant Vihar area of Delhi was demolished. It was after a great struggle that the people evicted from here could get alternative plots that were not too far away from their earlier colony. Nirmana, an organization of construction workers, played an important role in helping the evicted people to get this alternative land. At that time it was a big relief to get this alternative land, even though the plots given to them were very small ones of 10X8 feet size. The people worked hard to construct new houses, often constructing two floors so that the family could be accommodated in the small plots. However a recent visit revealed that people are rather disheartened now by a number of adverse factors. They have not been given the proper allotment papers yet. There is still no sewer system here. They have to use public toilets constructed some distance away which can sometimes be quite messy. There is still no...

Women's rights leaders told to negotiate with Muslimness, as India's donor agencies shun the word Muslim

By A Representative Former vice-president Hamid Ansari has sharply criticized donor agencies engaged in nongovernmental development work, saying that they seek to "help out" marginalizes communities with their funds, but shy away from naming Muslims as the target group, something, he insisted, needs to change. Speaking at a book release function in Delhi, he said, since large sections of Muslims are poor, they need political as also social outreach.

Warning bells for India: Tribal exploitation by powerful corporate interests may turn into international issue

By Ashok Shrimali* Warning bells are ringing for India. Even as news drops in from Odisha that Adivasi villages, one after another, are rejecting the top UK-based MNC Vedanta's plea for mining, a recent move by two senior scholars Felix Padel and Samarendra Das suggests the way tribals are being exploited in India by powerful international and national business interests may become an international issue. In fact, one has only to count days when things may be taken up at the United Nations level, with India being pushed to the corner. Padel, it may be recalled, is a major British authority on indigenous peoples across the world, with several scholarly books to his credit.

Gujarat Bitcoin scam worth Rs 5,000 crore "linked" with BJP leaders: Need for Supreme Court monitored probe

By Shaktisinh Gohil* BJP hit a jackpot in the form of demonetisation, which it used as an alibi to convert black money into white in Gujarat. Even as party scrambles for answers of how the Ahmedabad District Cooperative Bank (ADCB), whose director is BJP president Amit Shah, received old currency worth Rs 745.58 crore in just five days, and how Rs 3118.51 crore was deposited in 11 district cooperative banks linked with Gujarat BJP leaders, a new mega Bitcoin scam, worth more than Rs 5,000 crore has been unraveled.

Counterview

Search This Blog