INSIDE:
- Media workshop and fellowship: National Rural Employment Guarantee
Act
- Training: Managing information resources in the digital age
- Green Schools Award: India's most environment friendly schools
- Editorial: Another India is (not) ours
- Cover story: Red alert in Chhattisgarh
- News: SC imposes ban on field trials of GM crops
- News: Parties in West Bengal set their anti-industry image right
- News: Maharashtra set to notify standards for private healthcare
units
- Features: Revisiting a deceased farmer's family in Andhra Pradesh
- Science: El Nino, Indian monsoon may be linked
- Work with CSE: Science Editor & Technology editors
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Media briefing workshop and fellowship
Hyderabad, November 16-17, 2006
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Join us for a media workshop on India's ambitious poverty eradication
scheme the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.
The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), which came
into force in February 2006, is the latest initiative to try to combat
poverty: it envisions regeneration of the rural economy by creating
productive assets like water harvesting tanks, watershed development
and plantation of trees for soil and moisture conservation. But is
the Act equipped to meet its ambitious objectives, or is it just ~Qanother
wage-employment~R scheme?
You are invited to a two-day workshop in Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh),
where this and other related questions will be discussed and debated
to facilitate understanding and reportage on the issue. The workshop
will bring together media persons, policy experts, researchers and
activists to explain the key topical areas.
Journalists participating at the workshop are also invited to apply
for a one-month CSE Regional Media Fellowship to investigate the dynamics
of poverty and environment in India, and explore the scope and potential
of the NREGA as a development programme.
Areas of focus include:
- The productive sectors on which money is being spent
- The institutional arrangements being made for sustainable assets
creation
- People~Rs participation in identifying and implementing works
- The role of panchayats and their empowerment for implementation
of the programme
- State-level trend analysis of implementation
- The development impact of the programme on rural economy/livelihoods
Participants are invited to apply for a fellowship on poverty and
environment.
Compensation: Rs. 40,000
For more information>>
http://www.cseindia.org/programme/media/nrega.htm
Contact>>
souparno@cseindia.org
Last date for application>>
November 5th, 2006
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Training: Managing information resources in the digital age
New Delhi, November 21-25, 2006
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This unique course covers the management of information at an institutional
level and effective dissemination using the web.
The popular, hands-on training programme includes:
- Sourcing information (information acquisition and research)
- Classification and indexing (including digitised resources)
- Developing and managing audio-visual resources (films, photos, CDs)
- Library automation tools
- Product planning, services and marketing
- Digital library fundamentals (IT for information management)
- Web-based tools for information outreach
- Basic Webmaster skills
- Developing an information resource centre: Planning
Last date for registration: November 4, 2006
Register online >>
http://www.cseindia.org/misc/library_form.htm
For more information contact:
Kiran Pandey < kiran@cseindia.org
>
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Green Schools Award: India's most environment friendly schools
===============================
For over a year, students have been monitoring the environmental
performance of their schools under the Gobar Times Green School Programme.
All participants performed a rigorous self-audit following a set of
guidelines outlined in the Green Schools Manual. Now it is time to
announce the winners of the Green Schools Award for India's top performing
schools. You are cordially invited to attend the awards event.
Date: November 27, 2006
Time: 3:30 pm onwards
Venue: Stein Auditorium, India Habitat Centre, Lodi Road, New Delhi
Awards will be given in the following categories:
- Top green schools of India
- Green teachers' team award
- Best students' audit team award
=================================
Editorial: Another India is (not) ours
=================================
By Sunita Narain
At a media-studded book release function, a leading editor was recounting
a recent incident. He was traveling with a top Uttar Pradesh politician
(who we will not name but call Mr A) in his brand new plane. The politician
told him that the plane was a gift from a leading industrialist (who
we will not name but call Mr AA). The editor was then told that the
return gift by the politician was not meagre: it was 1,000 hectares
(ha) of prime agricultural land for a new special economic zone (SEZ).
Hearing this tale, we in the audience smiled wisely. This was titillating
sleaze.
The idea of SEZs is borrowed from China, where zones are created
to facilitate manufacturing and business activity, which are special
in terms of labour and tax laws. These are countries within countries,
intended to expedite reform that cannot be done across board. With
the enactment of the SEZ Act 2005, the idea is catching on like wildfire
in India.
And why not? After all, which industrialist will turn down the chance
to get between 1,000-10,000 ha of prime land, for industrial and real
estate development? The land is acquired from farmers by government
- using all its persuasive and muscle power - and then handed over
to industry. Which industrialist will not cut many corners to ensure
that this scheme, which gives them not just exemption from custom
duties but also income and excise tax, is not expedited? It is only
incidental, they will say, that the scheme also allows them to build
hotels, schools, hospitals, houses, airports and ports. They will
not tell you that these mega-profit developments are carefully regulated
by some clumsy rules so that the 'real estate' purpose is assured.
Why should we be surprised then by the sleaze and scam stories that
surround these zones? These are the deals of modern India, in which
corruption comes in many colours and kinds.
Two key concerns have been raised: the fact that large areas of
cultivable lands are being acquired for industry and there is inadequate
compensation to farmers and others displaced. Two, that there will
be a substantial loss of revenue for government with manufacturing
and services moving to these tax-free havens. It is also suggested
in fact that these zones will not lead to a flood of new investment,
but indeed the flight of old investment, which will want the tax-free
status. The case of Korean giant Posco's mega steel plant is a case
in point. It 'managed' to get categorised as an SEZ, well after it
had already come into the country to set up shop.
But SEZ status is the ultimate development dream. I have no doubt
that in the current weak-political scenario industry will wriggle
out with some glib answers and some tall promises of providing employment
to the displaced.
I have also no doubt that SEZs are the beginning of the end of the
idea of one India.
The fact is that SEZs are not even about creating a few special
zones. They are about the abdication of responsibility to sort out
the underlying problems that plague the country as a whole. The fact
is that infrastructure, power, water, housing, education and health
services are in a mess. Over the past 50 years, we have tried in our
ham-handed socialist ways to find answers to provide services for
all. We don't know why, but this approach is not working. There is
growing impatience about growth. Therefore, the easier and much less
complicated answer is to let that part of India, which can provide
for itself, to prosper. The grandiose idea will be then the government
can take care of the needy with some sops and some more developmental
schemes. But we forget that the reason why the answers of the past
were not working was precisely because we ensured that the rich were
ecologically subsidised in the name of the poor. Now this will get
worse.
But in this way enclave India will grow. Water will come, not from
public municipal taps, which cannot be fixed, but from private companies,
who will purify it and supply it in bottles or colony taps, for those
who can pay. It is another matter that these companies will not pay
or pay a pittance for the same water they consume. Power will come
from electricity companies, who will produce it exclusively for those
who pay bills covering the cost, plus profit, of its manufacture.
Of course, there will be no garbage in the colony as cleaners will
come from outside - for a price - and take it away. Where and how,
it is best not to know. In this way, infrastructure development is
no longer a problem: it is built for those who can pay. Flyovers can
take people straight from the company-run airport to their homes and
work. Rich and poor India are now separated at birth.
The fundamentally fatal flaws in this approach are many: first,
let us be clear, this rich and exclusive India will continue to be
subsidised to the hilt. Second, it will be built on the backs of the
poor using the might of the state. The land, for instance, is not
bought by the rich private sector paying the price the seller is willing
to sell on - the market price and above. This private property will
be acquired under the convenient cover of land acquisition acts at
discounted prices. Third, the resources for development will be severely
compromised, as growth will no longer contribute to revenues of government.
Who said that civilised countries had to tax their rich to support
their poor? That was old India's baggage. This new India only dreams.
Nightmares are for others. This is another India. Here, everything
is possible. It is another matter that it is not ours.
Read the editorial online >>
www.downtoearth.org.in/
To comment, write to >>
feedback@cseindia.org
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Cover story: Red alert in Chhattisgarh
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Land acquisition is at the centre of intense political and social
conflict in the tribal hinterland of Chhattisgarh. On the one hand,
Naxals enforce their version of justice by opposing land alienation.
But the new state has its compulsion: industrialisation. This is where
the Salwa Judum movement kicks in: a citizens' militia patronised
by the state, it moves tribals out of their land to expose rich subterranean
resources.
=================================
More in Down To Earth magazine
=================================
News: SC imposes ban on field trials of GM crops Following massive
campaigns by civil society organisations against genetically modified
(GM) crops, the Supreme Court has passed an interim order banning
all field trials in India and has slammed the regulatory mechanisms
in place. The movement against GM crops started after reports that
planting of Bt cotton -- the country's only approved and commercially
available GM crop -- had caused death of sheep in Andhra Pradesh.
Read complete article >>
www.downtoearth.org.in/news/fatal-fibre-26430
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News: Parties in West Bengal set their anti-industry image right
Political parties in West Bengal are in a fix. On the one hand they
are opposing Tata's plan of setting up a small car plant in Singur
as they fear many farmers will lose their agricultural land. However,
on the other, most parties do not want come across as anti-industry
and anti-development, and are therefore trying to get the project
shifted to an alternate location.
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News: Maharashtra set to notify standards for private healthcare
units Regulating private healthcare units, which have sprung up all
over India, is a huge task. Though the Centre has not taken any steps
in this direction, the Maharashtra government will soon notify standards.
The rules specify the minimum standards required for private in-patient
facilities like nursing homes, hospitals and maternity homes. Referral
facilities such as pathological labs, blood banks, clinics and government
hospitals have been left out of their purview.
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Features: Revisiting a deceased farmer's family in Andhra Pradesh
Sopan Joshi visits the family of a debt-ridden farmer in Andhra Pradesh
who had killed himself two years ago, and finds out that the debt
trap has imprisoned more.
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Science: El Nino, Indian monsoon may be linked Scientists have established
a link between the Indian monsoon and the El Nino phenomenon, an abnormal
warming of the Pacific Ocean. During the course of their research,
they found that whenever the monsoons failed, the sea surface temperature
was high in the central Pacific Ocean. This development could lead
to more accurate weather forecasts.
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CSE is an independent, public interest organisation that was established
in 1982 by Anil Agarwal, a pioneer of India's environmental movement.
CSE's mandate is to research, communicate and promote sustainable
development with equity, participation and democracy.
Contact CSE: http://www.cseindia.org/aboutus/feedback.htm
E-mail: < cse@cseindia.org>
http://www.cseindia.org/misc/privacy.htm
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