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The end of Keoladeo’s avian glory?
A serious water crisis at Keoladeo National Park, exacerbated by caste politics and strife, has put its World Heritage Site status at risk. Barely 10% of the migratory birds that used to flock to Bharatpur are to be seen today. How feasible are the solutions proposed? More... Confining childhood in IndiaDo child rights activists need to step out of the boxes of ‘development’, ‘survival’, ‘protection’ and ‘participation’ into which they have confined India’s children? Do we need to interrogate child rights programming and the somewhat limiting notions of childhood around which it is built? More... If not GDP, what?GDP as a measure of progress is being shown the door. But what should take its place? Shruti Sharma reports on the Happy Planet Index and other proposals, but argues that retaining GDP but including within it additional natural capital flows might still be the best way to protect the environment More... Harbouring trouble: The impact of ports on commonsGalloping capital flow into coastal infrastructure development will see a port built every 33 km along India’s coast. This has serious implications for over 3,000 fishing hamlets along our coast, and will deprive these communities of the beaches on which their lives and livelihoods depend More... KG Kannabiran: Warrior for civil libertiesRajindar Sachar pays tribute to KG Kannabiran, one of India’s foremost human rights activists, who died in December 2010 More... How government agencies fast-tracked LavasaLavasa, the picturesque planned hill station being developed by Hindustan Construction Company (HCC) near Pune, is facing charges of illegal land acquisition and environmental violations and construction has been stayed pending an inquiry. This article says that the focus should be not on the misdemeanours of the corporation but on the collusions and oversights of government More... Speak up, speak outAs the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan completes over 20 years, a story of the songs and street plays created by the people’s movement to demand accountable governance, confront administrations and inspire communities More... CRZ Notification 1991-2010: Anti-people? Anti-environment? Or anti-climax?Seldom do ‘environmentalists’ and ‘local communities’ demand the same reforms in legislation. But fishworkers today are at the forefront of the struggle to retain the integrity of the original CRZ rules. Aarthi Sridhar documents the history of the Coastal Regulation Zones law, which both environmentalists and fisherfolk are critiquing despite five years of engagement on its reform More... MGNREGA performs poorly in poverty-stricken OrissaThe MGNREGS is particularly relevant in states such as Orissa, where different estimates put the number of poor at 48% to 84%. But while Rajasthan provided 74% of eligible families with work in 2009-10 and Andhra Pradesh 52.6%, Orissa provided work to only 24% of eligible families. No wonder there’s been a 116% increase in rural migration More... Malabar, 1811: The long road to freedom from slaveryTwo hundred years ago the first battle against slavery in India was won when Magistrate Thomas Hervey Baber freed 123 slaves, including children, from private trader Murdoch Brown’s plantation in Malabar. This is a story of marauding imperialism, a cruel caste system, and a crusade for human rights which led to a ban on slavery in British India in 1843 More... The unfairness of doing goodConservation is good, but is it always fair? It is indigenous and local fishing communities that are bearing the costs of marine protected areas. They are faced with denial of livelihoods, displacement from fishing grounds, arrest and harassment for asserting their rights to use coastal spaces and the sea as common property resources More... Eminent domain, absolute doubt: Crusade for Goa's comunidadesUnder Portuguese rule there were 223 comunidades, or independent village republics, in Goa. The people of each comunidade were absolute owners of its lands -- from hilltops to coasts. A people’s movement is now challenging the Indian state’s right to walk in and exercise eminent domain powers and jurisdiction over these lands More... Challenging the tourism juggernautHotels and emporia have crowded out the fishworkers in Puri, in coastal Orissa. But the state has been deaf to the demand for land rights of fishing communities who have traditionally used the beaches to land their craft, dry their fish etc. Aarthi Sridhar addresses the tricky question of who ‘owns’ the coast and who has rights to it, in the first of a series on coastal commons, researched as part of the FES-Infochange Media Fellowships More... The journey from the private to the commonDoes private ownership give the landowner the right to do as he pleases with land and water? It is only a new consciousness of the finiteness of natural resources that will lead to the appreciation that they exist in the common domain; that they can never be left to individual or private discretion, says Jyothi Krishnan More... Ponds are more than receptacles of waterPanchayats in Palakkad district are working towards better water management. But their focus is on structural measures like cement and stone linings for pond restoration. They are not addressing the conservation of catchment areas or preventing changes in land use in an area where fields are being given over for construction or being mined for sand, clay and stone More... |
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