Indian supreme court directs govt to grant land to farmers displaced by dams

Good gracious God, in India things do move, albeit very verrry slowly. Soon it may be time that due compensation for project affected people becomes a norm. Soon Indians can proudly say that we dont build our development on sacrificial lambs, viz. project affecties!

The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked Madhya Pradesh govt to identify the farmers whose 75 per cent or more land were acquired for carrying out of excavation and construction of canal work for Indira Sagar and Omkareshwar projects.


A Bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan favoured the proposal for granting land-for-land by identifying the project-affected families of farmers.

The Bench accepted the plea of Madhya Pradesh government that it would need two weeks to identify such farmers and posted the matter for further hearing on 13th February.

The apex court had on 18th December last refused to stay the Madhya Pradesh High Court order restraining the state government from further acquisition of land and carrying out of excavation and construction of canal work for Indira Sagar and Omkareshwar projects.

The High Court had passed the order on the petiiton filed by Narmada Bachao Andolan activist Medha Patkar.

Green GDP in India

Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh recently announced that the government plans to release the first round of “green” gross domestic product (GDP) data for India by around 2015. While details on the methodology and data sources to be used in the proposed metric remain relatively sparse, the Central Statistical Organisation is reported to have started preparation of a national database to estimate the costs of environmental degradation associated with GDP growth.

Complete article in this can be found at http://epw.in/epw/uploads/articles/14201.pdf

(I only pray that announcements are strongly supported by actual actions. Recently India has announced emission reduction targets, but I dont see initiation for initiating actions! I strongly believe that mere technology is inadequate to effect any substantial reduction in emission. It needs fundamental changes in our lifestyles and how we look at 'economy'- - - Amen!)

Free market forces towards innovative ways in Indian mobile sector

A mobile service company in India has launched an Agri voucher for farmers. Without knowing the details of the scheme, I find it interesting that market competition is encouraging companies to address customers, segments, regions, needs in innovative ways. Its interesting for sure.

This voucher will cost Rs75 (USD1.5) per month. Farmer can choose 2 out of 49 types. And on those two he will get information on market volumes, rates. He will also get weather forcast for 24 hrs, best ways of farming for the two types he has selected, much more related information on farming and marketing.

Barter System

I met a poor rural guy living in the backwaters of Mulshi lake near Pune. He was saying that he was not getting kerosene from the government shop till he builds a WC of his own and stop clearing in the open. But he did not have money to build one. But he desperately needed to get kerosene. He needs kerosene to to light his home lamps (there is no electricity to his house though he lives near the lake which is built for generating electricity!) and as fuel for his cooking. These days there is hardly any forest left around and firewood is not easy to gather. He does not have money to buy material required to build a WC, neither he had money to employ a meson to actually build it. He somehow got a old WC pot from a urban relative and could uste little money buy little cement etc. Then he brokered a deal with a local meson. The meson does not get a lot of work to fully employ him as a meson. When he does not have work as meson he is employed for some petty work. So our man made a barter arrangement with the meson. When the meson is building our man's WC. our man goes to work for the meson on his petty jobs.

I find this interesting. I had heard of barter system only in terms of exchange of goods. But here manual labour and skills are being exchanged, or you can even say, traded, one skill for another, one's time for something with other's time for some other thing etc.

Woman of Steel

On 26.11.2008 Dayamani Barla was awarded Chingari Award for Women Against Corporate Crime 2008. This award iitself is instituted by two women who took on UC after Bhopal Tragedy. They, Rasheeda Bee and Champa Devi Shukla, won Goldman Environmental Prize in 2004.They put the prize money into a trust which would choose every year a woman working for the same cause.

Dayamani Barla is 44 years old tribal dalit woman, born to an extremely poor landless laborer and wen on to become journalist and activist. She is leading the fight against the giant steel plant coming up in Jharkhand, because she belives that the prices tribals will have to pay when they are displaced from their land can not be compensated by a few jobs or money.

Through her writting, Dayamani has set a standard for the kind of relevant journalism that is rare at a time when celebrity and sensation dominates media.

In Jharkhand, as in other tribal dominated states, local people are organising resistance gaisnt giant industrial and minning projects. The outcomes of these struggles may well shape the economics and politics of our country. These battles actually represent opportunities to devise developement that is inclusive, participative, sustainable, respects limited availability of natural resources.

It is with help of women and men like Dayamni Barla that governments and administrations are being forced to consider alternatives to their immediate limited perspective and vestsed interests. Only in the availability of such space for view and counterview, to offer and accept that democracy can survive, let alone flourish.

My salute to all these crusaders because of whom we can express whatever we wish to.

Financial Inclusion

Indian central bank (RBI) issued financial inclusion directives in 2006. Within a span of two years No-Frill accounts have increased thrity times from 0.5 million to 15 millions.