Call to join campaign against "unlivable" Narmada oustee rehabilation sites, starting July 31 at Badwani

A Narmada dam oustee gets a damaged house. Photo source: NBA

By Our Representative
Giving a call to activists across India to join its campaign to “save” Narmada river, starting at Badwani along the Narmada river on July 31 and ending on August 2 at Manibeli, the anti-dam Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) has alleged that the campaign is in response to the February 8, 2017 Supreme Court judgment, which, over the last one year, has “created panic” and “outcry” across the valley.
The Supreme Court judgment – even as ordering Rs 60 lakh and Rs 15 lakh compensation to two different categories of Narmada dam oustees of Madhya Pradesh (MP) – asked the state government to begin vacating all oustee families from the submergence area starting July 31, 2017.
In the course of the last one year, says NBA, “The MP government spent crores of rupees in the name of temporary rehabilitation, which was not accepted by even a single family”, adding, “Tin sheds, food camps and fodder camps lie vacant till date.”
Even as state assembly elections are approaching later this year, says NBA, the MP government has been forced to “announce a Rs 900 crore worth of package, approving the rights of fish workers, potters and boatsmen.”
It adds, “While thousands of families got house-plots and grants were distributed, the rehabilitation is still incomplete. The rehabilitation sites do not have permanent source of water yet, the oustees have to depend on tankers for drinking water.”

A flooded resettlement site. Source: NBA

Despite this package, which has been given to nearly 15,000 families, NBA says, “Even today, around 35,000 families are living in the submergence area. The whole environmental condition of the Narmada river has deteriorated. The river is drying up and sea water has ingressed up to not less than 60 km inside the estuary in Gujarat.”
Meanwhile, NBA says, Narmada river’s banks are being subjected to illegal mining with the help of a politician-mafia nexus. “Having lost the sand that retains water and forests that refills the aquifers to rivers and reservoirs, the depletion of water sources has reached its peak in the river”, it adds.
At the same time, it says, “Huge pipelines as ‘links’ are being tendered to extract Narmada waters by corporates and other vested interests. These vested interests are grabbing farmlands along the valley to build power projects, claiming land and water both.”
This year’s campaign would be on lines of the one, which took place last year around the same time, when when hundreds of supporters and activists rushed to the valley and participated in its struggle, even as “saving lakhs of people from drowning and eviction by massive police forces”.
“From Amarkantak to the districts of Narsingpur, Jabalpur, Mandala and Khargone, there is an anger and agony felt everywhere, with a plea to save Narmada from the dams raised along the river”, NBA says, adding, the campaign would take place along the Narmada river, and reach Manibeli via Nandurbar district of Maharashtra on August 2, visiting rehabilitation sites.

Comments

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.

Church in India 'seems to have lost' moral compass of unequivocal support to the poor

By Fr Cedric Prakash SJ*
In 2017, Pope Francis dedicated a special day, to be observed by the Universal Church, every year, as the ‘World Day of the Poor’. This year it will be observed on November 17 on the theme ‘The hope of the poor shall not perish for ever’; in a message for the day Pope Francis says:

There may have been Buddhist stupa at Babri site during Gupta period: Archeologist

By Rajiv Shah
A top-notch archeologist, Prof Supriya Varma, who served as an observer during the excavation of the Babri Masjid site in early 2000s along with another archeologist, Jaya Menon, has controversially stated that not only was there "no temple under the Babri Masjid”, if one goes “beyond” the 12th century to 4th to 6th century, i.e. the Gupta period, “there seems to be a Buddhist stupa.”

As fear 'grips' right liberals, Arvind Panagariya, too, would be declared anti-national?

By Rajiv Shah
It is surely well-known by now that India's top people in the power-that-be have been castigating all those who disagree with them as "anti-nationals". Nothing unusual. If till yesterday only "secular liberals", and "left-liberals" were declared anti-national, facts, however, appear to have begun surfacing that, now, guns are being trained against those who could be qualified as right liberals, too. Let me be specific.

'First time' since 1970s poverty up 10%, consumer spending down 4%: GoI survey

By Our Representative
In what may prove to be a major embarrassment for the Government of India (GoI), a new official survey, carried out in 207-18, has reportedly said that average consumer spending in India fell by more than 4% the previous six years "primarily driven by slackening rural demand." The survey, "Key Indicators: Household Consumer Expenditure in India”, carried out by the National Statistical Office (NSO), says that money spent per person in a month fell by 3.7% from Rs 1,501 in 2011-12 to Rs 1,446 in 2017-18.

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…

National award winning film 'Hellaro' co-produced by three chartered accountants

By Our Representative
“Hellaro”, a Gujarati feature film produced by Saarthi Productions in association with Harfanmaula Films (Ahmedabad) was declared as the Best Feature Film at the National Film Awards which was conferred by the Government of India. The film also won the Special Jury Award for the Best Actress to all the 13 actresses of the film.
Ashish Patel produced the movie, which has been co-produced three co-producers, Aayush Patel, Prateek Gupta and Mit Jani, all of whom, interestingly, started their filmmaking journey after becoming Chartered Accountants in 2012.
“Hellaro” is directed by Abhishek Shah, who has been working in Gujarati theatre since the past 17 years as writer, director and actor and has received numerous awards for his plays. He has also worked as a casting director for 12 films.
“Hellaro” is a period drama based in Kutch and has been co-written by Abhishek Shah and Prateek Gupta. Gupta previously received the Best Debut Director Award, along with Mit Jan…

Counterview

Search This Blog