Appeal to join Campaign to Defend Nature and People amidst large-scale displacements

By Dipak Dholakia*
India has a large number of people, more than 60 crore, who are directly working with and dependent on nature -- land, water, forest and sea. There are 14.6 crore farmers, 14.4 crore agricultural labourers, 27.5 crore forest-dependent people, 2.8 crore fishers and 1.3 crore pastoralists. There are almost 6 crore circular migrants who constantly move out of their villages for work and return.
The livelihoods of nature-dependent communities are under threat by policies that displace them, deprive them of access to their natural resources, or render their productive activities unremunerative. The same set of policies promote large-scale commercial and corporate interests that destroy nature in their relentless quest for capital accumulation, thereby threatening the survival of not just nature-dependent communities, but everyone. The policies and programmes to tackle the resultant environmental and climate crises also threaten the livelihoods of those who work with nature.
At the initiative of the Indian Community Activists Network (ICAN), activists working with nature-dependent communities and unorganised sector workers met at Sevagram on 29th and 30th August 2022 and deliberated on the need for a countrywide “Campaign to Defend Nature and People”. The participants stressed the need for an “Ecosystem-based Human Rights Approach” and spelt out the guidelines underpinning it. They issued the attached declaration drawing on relevant provisions of the Constitution of India and various UN declarations that India is party to.
This Campaign cannot remain confined to a handful of small organisations. It cannot succeed without the support of many co-travellers. We invite you to join the Campaign and request you to forward this appeal and the attachment to like-minded people and organisations.

We look forward to your response and suggestions.
---
*Convener, Indian Community Activists Network (ICAN)

Right to walk, right to livelihood: Clearing footpaths 'can't mean' clearing out the urban poor

By Aseem Mishra* India’s cities are locked in a quiet but intensifying struggle over one of their most contested public spaces: the footpath. For pedestrians, a footpath is basic infrastructure—a strip of ground that should allow people to move safely, independently and with dignity. For millions of informal workers, the same stretch of pavement is a workplace, a source of daily income and often the difference between survival and destitution.

Ample evidence of child labour in South Gujarat's cash rich sugarcane belt: Study

By Rajiv Shah A recent German government-funded study , undertaken jointly by the NGO Prayas Centre for Labour Research and Action and the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, which mainly deals examines the working conditions of migrant workers in the cash-rich sugarcane zone of South Gujarat, has gone a long way to suggest large scale prevalence of child labour during the harvesting season.

Women lawyers petition Supreme Court, seek reconsideration of Aug 4 order on bar council co-option

By A Representative A group of women advocates who stood sixth and seventh among female candidates in the recent Bar Council elections have filed a petition before the Supreme Court, seeking a recall and reconsideration of the Court’s August 4 order determining the mechanism for co-opting women into State Bar Councils.

Counterview

Search This Blog