cednews december 2006

cednews - december 2006

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Issues in Focus

Celebrations are occasions to let down one's hair, cast aside the relentles issues that we grapple with throughout the year, and refill our spirits with energy and fresh determination. In the Festive Season ahead of us that lasts from Christmas, through the New Year, and right up to Sankranthi, we take this opportunity to wish for peace, harmony and goodwill to prevail amongst us all. It is not that suddenly there is a lot to cheer about. We all just need a break.

There is also a glimmer of hope. Slowly, inexorably the tide is changing. It is becoming increasingly clear that 'left to the market' the subterranean forces that fuel Climate Change, atrocities on dalits, the inexorable ghettoisation of Muslim communities, the nuclear debate and the mindless land-grab for so-called development would only grow stronger. The ugly face of neo-liberalism continues to expose itself - the swing of the pendulum towards self-absorption, self-indulgence and self-glorification has slowed down. 'Equity', 'justice', and 'inclusion' are beginning to intrude in regular discourse again.

Even so, the recent Conference of Parties 12, under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) made less headway than we would have liked to, given the gravity of the challenge facing the world, - there was more talk and less commitment to Action.

And, will the media, fresh from claiming victory in the Jessica Lall case, now take up the cases of the murderers of dalits going scot free? Unlikely. Khairlanji is not even in the inner pages. And after brief stories on the freeing of the Kambalapalli accused, the focus is back on celebrity crimes and nuclear machismo.

In just the same way, the media has brushed aside the news about the Sachar Committee Report on the State of Indian Muslims. Leaks from such reports cannot absorb us for more than a day or two. We do not want to dwell on the horrendous state of whole communities.

Talking about nulear machismo, isn't it strange that the debate in the media on the nuclear cooperation agreement with the US focuses on protecting our nuclear pride and weapons capability? Where has the debate on even the ethics of 'peaceful' nuclear energy disappeared?

Finally, has the Left gone Right? Or is it plain wrong in Bengal? It is a murky situation, and the media does not know which way to play it. You don't often find Medha Patkar on the same side as Mamta Banerjee in NDA mode, with George Fernandes applauding from the sidelines. Lost in these media battles is the debate - what is an acceptable face of industrialization? Under what conditions is the transformation from an agrarian economy to an industrialized mode acceptable, equitable and sustainable?

Read on ... some of the stories on these issues that we have picked out for you this month ...

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(For more on these stories and related issues visit doccentre.net) ...

It is a testament to the power of money that Nicholas Stern's report should have swung the argument for drastic action, even before anyone has finished reading it. He appears to have demonstrated what many of us suspected: that it would cost much less to prevent runaway climate change than to seek to live with it. ... hope it doesn't mean that the debate will now concentrate on money. The principal costs of climate change will be measured in lives, not pounds. Drastic action on climate change is needed now - and here's the plan, George Monbiot, The Guardian, October 31, 2006

As China and India emerge as new economic giants, 2bn people join the world's consumer class. It was perhaps too much to expect privileged, developed world citizens to provide a welcome gift, but a friendly hello might have been nice. Instead this development has triggered moaning and a rush of metaphorical sick notes, 'I can't/won't curb my CO2 emissions because India's are growing.' The subcontinent's boom has raised environmental alarms. But it could prove a wake-up call for the west. Why cut emissions if India's are on the up? Lucy Siegle, The Observer, November 26, 2006

"What can one man do? They have given all the witnesses money," said M. Venkatrayappa, whose wife Ramakka, sons Sriramappa and Anjaneya and daughter Papamma were among the eight Dalits who were burnt to death in Kambalapalli village in Kolar district in March 2000. Reaction to acquittal guarded in Kambalapalli, Parvathi Menon, The Hindu, December 12, 2006

The findings of the Sachar Report nail the long-touted right-wing disinformation about Indian muslims as a skein of lies. On the basis of facts that few dare refute, drawing on every conceivable data source, governmental and other, and interacting widely across 15 Indian states where muslims live in high concentrations, the Report records a litany of exclusion, alienation and immiseration. Sachar Committee Report on Indian Muslims: Right Wing Lies Exposed, Badri Raina, December, 2006, www.zmag.org

The Sachar report has the potential to affect all facets of Indian politics as the Mandal and Masjid issues did. A turning point, Javeed Alam, Frontline, December 02, 2006

The best argued case against nuclear industry in terms of environmental, health, sovereign and economic risks. The quickest primer you will ever read that will see you climb the steep knowledge curve in 20 minutes. ... Nuclear Power Dossier - Uranium Mining and Milling Remote, unregulated and...running out. Why the business of fuelling nuclear power can't give us energy sovreignty Jon Hughes sent by email by d v sridharan, November 13, 2006

Nuclear weapons are unique - their impacts are primarily on innocent civilian non combatants particularly women and children; they are intrinsically indiscriminate; they are largely uncontrollable; they are instruments of mass murder on a scale unparalleled in human history. Nuclear weapons have security, economic and political implications. In the ultimate analysis, however , the issue of nuclear weapons is an ethical question. Nuclearisation, Human Rights, and Ethics, Amulya K.N. Reddy, Twentieth JP Memorial Lecture, 2000

There are more than 10,000 families who live on the 1000 acres of land and other natural resources to be acquisitioned and destroyed for the upcoming Tata Motors (small, cheap car production) Project. Report of the Public Hearing conducted upon the Singur issue, on October 27, 2006 in Gopalnagar(WB), signed by Shrimati Mahashweta Devi, Justice (retd.) Malay Sengupta, Shri Dipankar Chakraborti & Ms. Medha Patkar

The smear campaign against the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Left Front Government on the Singur issue has been marked by a remarkable absence of facts. So many wild allegations and fabrications have been hurled. In respect of consultation, consent, compensation, and concern for employment generation, Singur stands in favourable contrast to what is being done in other States. Singur: just the facts, please, Brinda Karat, Opinion - News Analysis, The Hindu, 13/12/2006

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Sandeep Virmani: Disaster Rehabilitation, giving direction to Sustainable Development turns our understanding of what is conventional and how people make choices on its head.

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|Forthcoming from CED|

Development Digest (DD15) - includes: An Open Letter to M S (Swaminathan) from a farmer - Bhaskar Save; Amartya Sen on globalism, on Democracy; Vernacular Values by Ivan Illich; and more

Rebuilding our lives - A Backgrounder on the Right to Work & NREGA in the context of post-tsunami reconstruction (in English and Tamil)

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