Skip to main content

Cancel Jindal project seeking to 'dispossess' people from forest land: Odisha govt told

By A Representative 
The civil rights group, Indian Community Activists Network (ICAN), commenting on the “barbaric” police action on the night of December 3 against the people of Dhinkia village, Jagatsinghpur district, Odisha, has said that the attack took place on people who were “peacefully protesting against the proposed project of JSW Utkal Steel Limited by forcefully acquiring their land.”
In a statement, it said, “Even as Odisha was bracing for the fury of Cyclone Jawad and people were being evacuated to shelters, the police attacked the village, attempted to arrest a leader of the protest, Debendra Swain, and injured four village residents who resisted them.”
According to ICAN, “This is an area where people’s resistance was successful against the State Government’s attempt to grab land for the project of the South Korean steel company POSCO. Now, in the name of development, the Biju Janata Dal government of Odisha is attempting a land grab on behalf of the Indian corporate Jindal, dispossessing people and depriving them of their livelihoods from betel, prawn and fruit cultivation.”
Stating that this area has forests on revenue land, on which, according to the Forest Rights Act, 2006, ICAN said, “The local people can have individual, community and community forest resource management rights under the aegis of their Gram Sabhas. Instead of decentralised, community-led development based on local natural resource-based livelihoods, the State government is seeking to violently impose a model of corporate-led development that will destroy natural resources and the livelihoods of local communities who manage these resources.”
Putting forth a series of demands, it said, the injured “must be provided medical treatment and compensation by the government”, action must be taken against the police personnel “involved in this grave violation of human rights”, the Forest Rights Act must be “implemented and management rights over the local natural resources be vested in the Gram Sabhas.”, and the “proposed project of Jindals in the area should be cancelled.”

Comments

Post a Comment

TRENDING

Can free‑living Indian street dogs teach us about how to care for pet dogs?

By Daniel Ramp, Kapil Vishwas Patwardhan, Rosalie Chapple  We give our pet dogs shelter, veterinary care, affection, training and play. We decide when they eat, where they sleep, when they go outside, who they meet, and how they move through the world.
Post a Comment
»

Grid bottlenecks threatening India’s renewable energy growth, Centre warned

By A Representative   Senior p ower and climate policy analyst Shankar Sharma has urged the Ministry of Power and other senior policymakers to undertake an urgent review of India’s power-sector priorities, citing rising renewable-energy curtailment, transmission bottlenecks, delays in battery storage projects and the growing financial and ecological costs of conventional power infrastructure.
Post a Comment
»

Rights groups condemn arrests and security buildup amid Siang mega-dam protests in Arunachal

By A Representative    A  coalition of  several civil rights, labour, student and social justice groups,  Campaign Against State Repression (CASR), has condemned the arrest of three anti-dam activists in Arunachal Pradesh following recent violence in Pasighat, demanding their immediate release and the withdrawal of security forces from protest areas opposing the proposed 11,200-MW Siang Upper Multipurpose Project (SUMP).
Post a Comment
»