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cednews - december 2006
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
Talking about
nulear machismo, isn't it strange that the
debate in the media on the nuclear cooperation agreement with the
Finally, has
the Left gone Right? Or is it plain wrong in
Read on
... some of the stories on these issues that we have
picked out for you this month ...
(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,
"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,
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,
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,
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