Civil society "disturbed" over Congress support to BJP on CAMPA Bill, approaches Rahul Gandhi

By A Representative
Disturbed by the news on “compromise” of the Congress with the ruling BJP at the Centre on the Compensatory Afforestation Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) Bill, 2016, rights-based organisations working on the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006 across the country have prepared a petition for Rahul Gandhi's Office to review the party's decision.
A Campaign for Survival and Dignity (CSD), Odisha, statement has quoted activists to say that “they are using social media, i.e Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, emails etc. to reach out to the Congress vice president and request him to halt the Bill in the Rajya Sabha at any cost."
Significantly, activists had mobilised and convinced the Rahul Gandhi Office, Congress and other opposition parties, including the Left, during the last Parliamentary session, resulting pushing several amendments to the CAMPA Bill by Jairam Ramesh of the Congress. As a result, the Bill could not be passed.
In their, activists have raised three fundamental questions:

What compelled Congress to compromise and withdraw the amendments which they pushed through Jairam Ramesh in the last Parliamentary session?
How can the Congress compromise with Modi government on CAMPA Bill when it claims to have launched a mega campaign across states against it alleging dilution of FRA, 2006 and undermining Gram Sabha?
How will Congress ensure that what it had brought in as amendments in the CAMPA Bill in Rajya Sabha will get placed in the rules to be framed when the amendments would not be there in the Act itself?

The Bill is was passe d in the Lok Sabha in the last Parliamentary session and is being place before Rajya Sabha. Most probably, the Bill will be placed in the Rajya Sabha on Monday and may be passed by the House.
“In this crucial moment, the rights based organisations have no other way out but to approach the Congress, which along, taking the support from Left parties, can halt the CAMPA Bill in the Rajya Sabha”, says CSD.
The rights based organisations are of the view that if the CAMPA Bill gets passed in its present form, it would be a “disaster for the tribals and forest dwellers and would be in direct contradiction with the “historic” FRA, 2006 which they have owned after long struggle since India’s independence.
They assert that in the CAMPA Bill passed by the Lok Sabha, there is no mention of any role of Gram Sabha, which has been recognised as the “authority” over its people and natural resources falling within the community Forest Resource (CFR) area.
“Rather the Bill in its present form over empowers the forest bureaucracy to use the CAMPA fund without the approval of the Gram Sabha”, insists CSD.
“We are not against the CAMPA Bill, we also want regeneration and restoration of lost forest and wildlife, but our main concern is that let not the forest burcecaracy, the servants bypass the real authority and owners, the Gram Sabhas while taking up plantation over Community Forest area”, it adds.
Under the FRA, 2006, it suggests, many tribals occupying over forest land in different villages across the country have got titles but at the same time, in most of the cases occupied forest lands have not been demarcated properly, and many tribals and other traditional forest dwellers occupying forest land are yet to get titles.
“In this context, who will decide where to do plantation? The forest department which has been has been blamed for evicting the tribal and forest dwellers from their forest occupied land? Who will decide what species will be plant?”, wonders CSD.

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”.

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.

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

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