Monday 3 October 2016

Green Features: September 2016:1-15 (FORTNIGHTLY)



September 2016:1-15 (FORTNIGHTLY)
  (1-15)  September 2016 (पाक्षिक)
GREEN      FEATURES

                                                     - जलवायु संकट, पारिस्थिकी
                                                     - प्रदूषण                
                                             - आदिवासी विमर्श
                                              - कृषि और किसानी
                                        - जल दर्शन
                                                    - देशज ज्ञान और स्वास्थ्य
                                     - विविध

Is another world possible?
The World Social Forum, held in Montreal last week, gave voice to innovative approaches to creating a world system based on social and economic justice, while highlighting the practical complexities of making such a vision a reality.



Bt brinjal Vs. HT mustard: It only gets worse!!
BRINJAL Vs. MUSTARD IN INDIA
BRINJAL
MUSTARD
We are the Centre of Origin & Diversity
We are a Centre of Diversity
Around 5 lakh hectares cultivation area
Around 65 lakh hectares’ cultivation area
Production of around 8 million tonnes
Production of around 65-80 million tonnes
Mostly in West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Gujarat etc.
Mostly in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Bihar, Haryana, Gujarat, Assam etc.
Consumption mainly of fruit
Consumption of seed, leaves and oil; seed cake fed to animals and as soil amendment

Has Honey Production associated with the crop
Used in Ayurveda
Used in Ayurveda
Deep cultural significance in most parts of India
Deep cultural significance in most parts, including those that don’t grow the crop in large quantum

TESTS DONE FOR BT BRINJAL & GM HT MUSTARD
Bt Brinjal
GM HT mustard
Source: AFES Document (Page 8, Table 1.2)


Water brings two villages alive
It had been a chaotic morning. With so many people bustling around the small house, Avani was looking forward to celebrating her only son's second birthday. Graciously, her husband agreed to have the celebration at Avani’s mother’s place this time. Her mother made all the arrangements for the pooja and prasadam while Avani was to take care of the guests. Just one day at her mother's place lifted her spirits for months.
Picking up the water pots emptied by the guests, Avani headed for the standpost water tap that was shared by three households of her caste. The mason from the neighbourhood was filling his vessels. It was not always the duty of women to fetch water in their village. The mason stepped aside and gestured to her to fill her pots first. While she respectfully declined, Avani was now slowly getting used to the extra respect she had earned in the last one year. From Dangsari, a small village up the valley, she had to move to Suryatilak after marriage, a village on the hill ridge. Before marriage, she had to climb up the hill to fetch water from the spring mouth as the valley stream was far away. After marriage, she had to go all the way down to the valley pond from the ridge as their hillside had no springs.
II
Throughout her childhood, Avani would climb the hillside every day with her mother to fetch water from the spring. After a certain age, most children would be included in this daily chore. Carrying heavy pots of water downhill to their village was a Herculean effort, but the villagers were accustomed to it. The gash marks on Avani's knees and elbows were a testimony to that. The pain was shared by all 27 families of the village. While the timings for fetching water were different for Brahmin families in this community and Avani’s scheduled caste community, the hardships of fetching water and coping with seasonal variations in discharge from the spring (and hence erratic water supply) were the same.
It was the year she dropped out of high school. The village leader announced that construction of a road has been sanctioned for their village. The road would connect several small villages like Dangsari to the nearest town, Chamba. The assembly elections of 2007 ensured that the road construction was completed the same year. Avani’s elder brother was one of many in the nearby villages who was able to make a living after the road was built. When not migrating to parts of Uttar Pradesh or Himachal Pradesh in the times of harvest, Avani’s brother would transport eggs from their village to Chamba market and would also bring back produce from the market to sell in the village. Many benefitted from additional sources of income, all thanks to a road. It became a lot easier to transport material to these remote villages. People started building better homes utilising the material and money supplied under Indira Awaas Yojana. Things slowly began to change in the village.
Unfortunately, the road did not bring only development. Avani, her mother and many others noticed that it was taking more time to fill their pitchers from the spring. By the time summer came, things became unmanageable. The spring which had been giving water to the village for several generations, took more than an hour to fill a pitcher of water. Villagers were dismayed as they had no other source of water. Village leaders were clueless as well and they started approaching government officers in Chamba and Tehri. Two years passed but nothing happened. The lack of water began to affect the health and hygiene of these communities that depended on the spring. Avani’s father migrated permanently to work as a construction labourer in the Tehri Dam area. Her mother took care of whatever was left of their pastures, while her brother had to migrate more often in search of work. With less disposable income in the village, there was no point in transporting produce to and from Chamba. Some families shifted entirely out of the village and with just 16 households remaining, Dangsari was on the verge of becoming another ghost village of Uttarakhand.
Avani turned 18 as Uttarakhand turned 10. A government team came to their village to assess the water situation. They seemed to be experts on water distribution and claimed that for the first time ever, water would come to the village. They started building a box around the mouth of the spring and laid pipes from the box to the village. They were told the slow but steady water discharge from the spring would get collected in the box and the pipes would carry the water to a common point in the village. By the winters of 2011, Dangsari started getting water again and that too in the village itself. People now just went to the access point in the village to fetch water and followed a schedule similar to the one followed for going to the spring. Due to the storage, the issue of slow water discharge was reduced to a certain extent but it didn’t help much as the summers approached. It again started to take long hours to fill the vessels but at least the drudgery of carrying water was removed. With slightly better access to water, the out-migration started reducing. Avani too was delighted to see her father and brother more often.
This joy was also short lived. Avani got married.
III
"When others can do it in less than three hours, why can’t you? Our village doesn’t have piped water supply like your mother’s place."
Avani had no idea on how to respond to her mother-in-law. Those pipes in her village had rusted away in less than three years and things were worse than before. Here in Suryatilak, walking all the way down from the ridge to the pond in valley and then coming back took at least three hours. The path to water wasn’t as rough as it was in Dangsari but it was much steeper and longer. She was sure that her mother-in-law was just subjecting her to this hatred for a different reason altogether. It has been more than a year she had been married and there were no signs of pregnancy yet. The Primary Health Centre was farther down the hill after the pond in another village. She acted brave while carrying water all the way, but she was scared at the prospect of being carried on that treacherous path to the PHC for delivery. Everyone knew what had happened to the sarpanch’s daughter-in-law.
An NGO, Himmothhan has been working for rural development in the central Himalayan region since 2002 in collaboration with the Uttarakhand government. In 2014, they came to work in Suryatilak village. The villagers were used to the existing practice of fetching water, and weren't very optimistic about Himmothhan. The elders of the village knew the government officials. They also knew that the village was so remote that it was difficult to get any help. The NGO was clueless how to go about it as there was no alternate source of water other than the pond in the valley.
Solar panels and storage tank installed in Chureddhar village (Suryatilak village).
They didn't want to give up and decided to do an experiment in the village. Raising funds from corporates, Himmothhan tried installing solar panels in the village to pump the water up to Suryatilak. The electric wires went all the way downhill up to the pond in the valley where they powered a submersible pump. The water was pumped up the hill in narrow pipes for more than 700 metres into a storage tank. It worked. People were surprised to see water in the village coming through taps connected to the storage tank. The drudgery of fetching water had ended in Suryatilak village. While the drudgery of traversing the steep path for medical emergencies was not resolved yet, there was good news. Avani was expecting.
IV
While Avani ensured good nutrition for her son, she also ensured that Himmothhan's team took up work in Dangsari as well. When some village elders from Dangsari came to bless her son along with her parents, she asked them to go and see the solar panels and the storage tank. People were impressed with the work Himmothhan had done and they requested them to come to Dangsari. Avani led the initiative and followed up on applications sent to Himmothhan for work in Dangsari. It took no time for Himmothhan’s team to design a plan for the village. The road construction at Dangsari had disturbed the ground water channels for the village spring. The team demarcated the area that recharged groundwater for the spring. The work required measures that would allow more water to percolate. The recharge area belonged to farmers from an adjacent village. Himmothhan’s team mobilised and trained some people from Dangsari village and facilitated cooperation between the two villages. A social protocol was established where people from Dangsari village would work in the recharge area but the outputs from the land would belong to the owners of the land. However, Dangsari would benefit from the groundwater recharge, which would increase the flow of the spring.
Bunds and pits were created, crops were planted and edge troughs were created to reduce rainwater runoff in the recharge zone. Social fencing was done so that people wouldn't 
Bunds and pits created and plantation done in recharge area of the spring near Dangsari village.
defecate in the recharge area. Results started showing as the monsoon ended in 2015. The spring discharge had substantially improved and a storage tank was built near the mouth of the spring. In the few months leading up to the summer, Himmothhan's team facilitated shramdaan and laid new pipes to bring the water from the storage tank to the village. Standposts with taps were constructed in Dangsari which were shared between three to four households. A village-level committee and the resource persons trained by Himmothhan took care of the maintenance of the entire system.  
That summer, the seasonal variation in spring discharge did not affect Dangsari at all. Avani was not a resource person for Dangsari, nor was she part of the village-level committee. But she earned the respect of her friends, family and neighbours by helping to bring water to her village. Her efforts brought everyone in the village together, to celebrate her son's second birthday.

A district in Rajasthan got water by train in April. Now it faces floods

After months of drought, North India now faces a deluge.
Parts of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh are reeling under floods, but the worst-hit is Bihar. More than 10 lakh people are coping with flood waters in the state. Twelve teams of the National Disaster Response Force’s 9 Battalion in Patna and five teams from Chennai have been working to evacuate people living along the banks of the Ganga.
Part of the reason for the floods in Bihar is heavy rain in the catchment areas of dams in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. Bansagar dam in Madhya Pradesh, for instance, released 1.5 lakh cusec of water over two days. Rihand dam, on the border of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, released 70,000 cusec of water.
Over the coming week, Indrapuri Barrage across the Son River in Bihar's Rohtas district is scheduled to release 10 lakh cusecs of water. Rohtas has had 37% more rain than normal this year.
But many other districts in Bihar have received rainfall far below the average. This includes eight of the 13 districts that are flooded now by the inexorable rise of the Ganga’s waters – on Sunday, they rose at the rate of two centimetres per hour.
Munger and Khagaria, both on the banks of the Ganga, have had 54% and 50% less rain than normal in this monsoon season so far. Both are flooded.
 




Rainfall as of August 22 recorded by district in Bihar. Image credit: India Meteorological Department.

Drought to flood
Bihar might be in distress now largely because of dams overflowing. But other states that have been flooded have had unusually concentrated bursts of rainfall. Many of these had suffered droughts just weeks before the monsoon hit. A key feature of climate change is extreme weather events sharply juxtaposed against each other.
Take Rajasthan. Trains were carrying water to Bhilwara in the southeast part of the state in April. In August, large parts of that district have been cut off by excess rain. A school bus even sank in a flooded river and villagers rescued 50 children from it. Baran, Pratapgarh and Chittorgarh, badly affected by flooding now, were all reeling from a water crisis this summer.
The list of drought-hit districts flipping abruptly into flood-affected ones goes on.
In Madhya Pradesh, chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan was recently mocked for a photo of him being carried across a river by policemen while inspecting the flood-hit region of Panna. That was one of several drought-hit districts in the state until a few months ago. Others that were affected include Rewa, Satna, Damoh and Chhatarpur.
In Uttar Pradesh, Ballia, Banda, Hamirpur, Mahoba and Lalitpur were declared drought-hit by the state. All have flooded this monsoon.
There are other consequences to this. Farmers in the Bundelkhand region, noted The Indian Express, had in recent years shifted to crops that were more resilient to drought. Excess rain has now caused crop losses estimated at more than Rs 1,216 lakh so far in eight districts. These are preliminary, incomplete surveys. The ground reality might be worse.

Hot peace: Why the Centre must rethink its cross-border strikes on Naga militant camps in Myanmar

Did the Indian army cross the border into Myanmar last week to take out camps set up by the Naga insurgent group, the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland (Khaplang faction)? The NSCN(K) and home ministry sources claim it did. The army and the Assam Rifles say it did not. The reports have emerged just days before External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj landed in Myanmar on August 22.
If such an operation did take place, it would be the first known cross-border “surgical strike” launched by the army since it stormed into NSCN(K) camps in Myanmar in June last year. The Indian army has reportedly engaged in similar strikes for decades but the Myanmar government is reluctant to make them public. Apart from the diplomatic unease such an incident is bound to cause, it suggests that the Centre repeats its mistakes in dealing with the militant movements of self-determination spread across the North East, talking to a few groups while cracking down on others.
While the government follows a policy of hot pursuit when it comes to the NSCN(K), declaring the group a terrorist organisation, it is trying to reach a peace accord with the NSCN (Isak-Muivah faction), believed to be the largest Naga separatist group at the moment. In the past, the accords that came out of such selective negotiation brought an incomplete peace. By leaving some groups out in the cold, they created new constituencies of discontent. In some cases, by handing over autonomy to the most powerful militant faction, they only institutionalised old systems of violence and domination.


Shortchanged in Shillong
The long-running insurgencies of the North East have constantly mutated over the decades, splitting into different factions and sometimes merging again. The Naga movement for self-determination, which predates Independence, is no different.
Naga nationalism crystallised around the demand for Nagalim, an imagined homeland that sprawled across both sides of the border between present-day India and Myanmar. Until the mid-1970s, the battle for sovereignty was fought under the aegis of the Naga National Council. Over the last four decades, the movement has grown fragmented, riven with conflicts between warring factions.
Each group points to the fractious legacy of the Shillong Accord of 1975, a 16-point agreement signed with a small section of the NNC leadership, which stipulated that all underground groups give up arms and did away with the option of complete sovereignty.
It split the NNC into the Accordist and Non-Accordist factions. In 1980, a section of the younger NNC leadership, led by Isak Chishi Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah, broke away to form the NSCN. Clan rivalries and power struggles later fragmented the group further, giving rise to the Khaplang and Isak-Muivah factions in 1988, the Unification faction in 2007, the Kitovi-Konyak faction in 2011, and the Reformation faction in 2015.
The Shillong Accord would become the first of the divisive pacts signed between government and insurgent group.


A two-pronged approach
Over the years, the government managed to bring all factions under ceasefire agreements. But each group ran its own rebel government, collected money as “taxes” and retained armies poised to strike, should the ceasefire be broken. The Centre played into the rivalries between the different groups, holding talks only with the Isak-Muivah faction and appearing to ignore the others, giving rise to festering resentments. This uneasy was limbo was broken in 2015, when the NSCN(K), under a ceasefire since 2001, stormed out of the agreement and proceeded to launch sporadic attacks on security forces from across the border.
Since then, the Centre has sharpened its two pronged strategy. It sped up the peace process with NSCN(IM), signing a framework agreement for a final settlement last year and holding frequent meetings. The leadership of the NSCN(U) and NSCN(KK), as well as a large section of the Reformation cadre, have swelled the ranks of the NSCN(IM), strengthening the constituency for talks and making them more representative of Naga interests. But the Khaplang faction remains an outlier, threatening the shape of any peace to come.
Nagaland is not the only place where the Centre’s two-pronged approach to insurgencies have taken a toll on local inhabitants. In Assam, for instance, the United Liberation Front of Asom split up over the question of holding talks with government. The anti-talks faction has continued with its old agenda of abductions and attacks, setting off low intensity blasts on Independence Day, kidnapping the son of a Bharatiya Janata Party leader and releasing a video demanding a ransom.
The Bodo example
The pitfalls of signing a pact with one powerful group have become painfully evident in the continuing tragedies of Bodoland.
The Bodo agitation in Assam grew militarised in the 1980s, with the formation of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland, which targeted other ethnic groups living in the territory that it staked out for its own. After 1996, the Christian-dominated NDFB had to deal with a rival outfit, the Bodo Liberation Tiger Force, predominantly Hindu and demanding autonomy rather than secession.
In 2003, the Centre signed a peace accord with Liberation Tigers, giving rise to the formation of the Bodoland Autonomous Territorial District. The BLTF shape-shifted into a political party, the Bodoland People’s Front, and has kept a firm grip on the BTAD ever since. It was a flawed pact, critics say, which did not give rise to a genuinely democratic system. The Liberation Tigers were legitimised but not much else changed. The region remains flush with arms and underdeveloped, rife with corruption as funds go into the pockets of the freshly minted political elite.
On the edges of this arrangement, the NDFB still lurks. While two of its factions have come to the talks table, the group led by IK Songjibit bursts into sporadic violence even now In the last few years, attacks on Adivasi and Muslim populations in Bodoland have continued, killing hundreds. Most recently, a shooting in a Bodo marketplace, which killed 14 people, was attributed to the NDFB(S).
As it press on with Naga talks, the Bodo example should be a warning to government. Talking to chosen constituencies and rewarding the most powerful group with autonomy can only be a partial solution. A peace accord with the NSCN(IM) and its allies will only

In Rajasthan, thousands of mine workers face a losing battle with silicosis






Paras Rawat first worked in the sandstone mines when he was 10. He helped his father Dev Karan drill and turn the grey-brown sandstone into slabs of 2x10 square feet.
Slowly, he became part of an annual migration from his village Sheopura in Rajasthan’s Ajmer district. Every November, entire families headed to the sandstone mines in the districts of Bhilwara and Bundi, about 200 kilometres away, and returned home nine months later when work stopped in the quarries during the monsoon.
Ten years ago, Rawat’s father, uncle Polu Rawat and his wife Hagaami Devi, who worked in the same quarries, grew weaker and developed trouble breathing.
Their condition steadily deteriorated.
“My aunt was the first to die,” recalled Rawat. “After that, it was my father, then my uncle. Aur ab main bhi shaant ho gaya. Now it is my turn to die.”
Rawat looks frail for his 30 years, and breathes slowly, with difficulty. Last December, he was diagnosed with silicosis, a fatal respiratory illness caused by inhaling fine silica dust through prolonged exposure in sandstone mines and quarries. While working at the mines, Rawat had unknowingly endangered himself, in the same way that the elders in his family had.
In Rajasthan, in the last four years, 5,307 workers have been identified as suffering from silicosis by government medical boards. Activists say that the actual numbers are higher since many workers are not able to access the boards.
Silicosis is among the list of occupational diseases recognised by the Employees Compensation law which dates back to 1923. The law mandates that employers pay compensation to workers who suffer injury or disease that may result in a worker's death or disability.
On August 9, Lok Sabha passed an amended law which makes it compulsory for employers to inform workers of their right to compensation in case of illness or injuries at the workplace and lists the penalties for employers who fail to do so.
But the experience of mine workers in Rajasthan's villages shows they have had to struggle to first get a diagnosis and then prove they suffer from an occupational disease.
In a few cases where workers such as Rawat have managed to get a diagnosis and compensation, it is in the form of relief paid by the state government on orders of the State Human Rights Commission for infringement of their right to life. Mine owners have managed to get away without paying workers compensation.

Paras Rawat who worked in Bhilwara's sandstone mines as a child labourer has silicosis. He has watched his father, uncle and aunt die from the same disease.


Families wiped out
In July, a few metres from Rawat's house, Ranni Devi, who is in her mid-30s, lay struggling for breath while her three-year-old infant daughter lay ill on the floor.
Ranni Devi's husband Mewa Singh who worked in the sandstone mines in Dhabhi in Bundi district was diagnosed with silicosis and died four months ago. She was too ill to be taken to the government hospital in Ajmer for diagnosis.
On August 2, she died.
A similar pattern of illness and death can be found in many villages in Ajmer, where entire families belonging to Dalit and backward castes migrate every year to work in sandstone mines across Bhilwara, Bundi and Kota districts.
Most own no land or very small holdings. Some had taken advances of up to Rs 5,000 from local labour contractors that forces them to return to the mines. Others said they found it difficult to find alternate livelihood that guaranteed work for 8-9 months at a stretch.
In Devipura village in Masuda taluka, 47 Meghwanshi Dalit families had at least a member each working in the mines in Bijoyliya and Dhabhi. The village has witnessed three deaths from silicosis in the past year, including two men in their early 20s.
“My oldest son Prakash went to the mines first, and younger son Tara Chand followed him to work when he was 15,” recounted Jamna Meghwanshi. “Prakash was ill for a couple of years, with breathing difficulties. Then Tara fell ill suddenly, coughing and wheezing. Both died within weeks of each other.”
Meghwanshi said both her sons worked in Swalka Mine in Bijoyliya. But without any written contracts or pay slips, she had no way of proving this.
Twenty kilometres away, in Devaji Kheda village, older workers who have now been diagnosed with silicosis say they have witnessed 72 others from the village die from similar symptoms. But no one was able to claim any compensation from their employers.
“We were seven brothers, all of us worked at the mines, breaking and drilling sandstone,” recounted Poonam Singh, who fell ill ten years back, when he was 40. On many days, Singh is not able to get up from bed and coughs blood. “My brother Prabhu, Kalu, Ghisa, Kallo and my nephew Teju too died this way,” he said.
At first, Singh was wrongly diagnosed with tuberculosis. He borrowed Rs 3 lakh to travel to hospitals in Udaipur and Gujarat for treatment. Last year, on December 4, Singh was diagnosed with silicosis by a board of experts at the JLN Medical College, Ajmer. “The doctors told me there is no treatment for this,” said Singh. “After that, I have asked my son Om to not go to the mines but look for other work, even if he is not able to get a job immediately.”
Ranni Devi's husband Mewa Singh died of silicosis four months back. She was bed-ridden with a respiratory illness but died on August 2 before she could be diagnosed.


No protection
Dr Neeraj Gupta, the head of respiratory medicine at the Ajmer hospital, is a member of the medical board that meets monthly to diagnose silicosis patients from three districts. He said that since January 2015, the board had examined 899 workers, of whom 482 were suffering from silicosis.
“Those who work in mines and stone quarries inhale dust powder which deposits in their lungs,” explained Dr Gupta. “A fibrosis sets in which makes the lungs stiff. Slowly the workers' breathing capacity reduces, till one day they cannot breathe at all.” In most instances, workers are not aware of the risks of fine mineral and sand dust, he said.
He added that while silicosis had no cure, it could easily be prevented if mine and quarry owners adopted wet drilling which reduced the amount of dust in the air.

This would cost Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000. But mine owners are reluctant to spend even this small amount.
The mining department requires mine owners to provide protective gear to workers and adopt wet drilling, but has little resources or staff to implement this. For instance, in Bijoyliya, three department officials – two foremen and one engineer – monitor 1,556 sandstone mines, of which 140 are large mines spread over 4 to 5 hectares.
An official of the mines department said, “Recently, the state government permitted panchayat officials, gram sewak to also monitor and ensure that mines use wet drilling methods to prevent silicosis.”


No fair compensation
The Employee Compensation law gives a “factor” for working out the compensation to be paid to mine workers. It is based on the worker's age and monthly wage.
For instance, in the case of a mine worker who contracted silicosis when he was 30 years old, a “factor” of 207 will be multiplied by half the monthly wage. For the mine workers in Bhilwara, this comes to Rs 3,000, making a worker eligible for Rs 6.2 lakh as compensation in case of death or disability. It would be higher for the workers who got the disease at an even younger age.
But activists say the state government has done little to enforce these compensation norms on employers. After the Rajasthan State Human Rights Commission took suo moto cognisance of widespread silicosis among workers in 2012, the state government announced payments of Rs 1 lakh to patients certified by the hospital boards, and Rs 3 lakh to families of those who died after being diagnosed with the disease. The money was paid by the Rajasthan Environment Health and Administrative Board of the mines department.
“Under the Employee Compensation law, the workers would be entitled to more,” said Vikas Singh, a project officer with Gram Samajik Vikas Sanstha, an NGO that works with migrant workers. He estimated the amounts would be anywhere between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 10 lakh.
“Mine owners make profits in crores,” he said. “Instead of penalising them for negligence and the failure to maintain employee records and attendance, the state government has merely fixed the relief amount on the court's directions.”
RK Mishra, the secretary and labour commissioner of the state, said workers are entitled to compensation under the Employees Compensation Act but the onus was on them to establish they had worked for a particular employer. “This does not have to be formal documents, we would accept any other proof too,” he said.
Jagdish Patel who heads the People’s Training and Research Center that researches occupational diseases said that the payments being made by the Rajasthan government did not amount to compensation, but only to some immediate relief.
Poonam Singh has lost five family members to silicosis. In December 2015, Singh got certified as having silicosis by a medical board, that makes him eligible for Rs 1 lakh from government. But he has got no compensation from his employers.



5th International Degrowth Conference in Budapest are available at:
video recordings of all the keynote presentations and plenary discussions of the just concluded 5th International Degrowth Conference in Budapest are available at: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6pIaFRoXNGNEeVfSmknemamNlHzBAz2K.




Can organic farming feed the world?
Bjorn Lomborg, long known as a ‘contrarian’ environmentalist, recently triggered a heated debate on the when he asserted that organic farming can not only provide food security for the world, but is positively bad for the environment. Here we present Lomborg’s original column in USA Today and a selection of voices that counter his view.

CSCs may assemble LED lamps to boost rural economy: Prasad - The Hindu

Does anyone know about how these CSCs are functioning, will they help generate livelihoods, create more productive assets in villages, be accessible to marginalised sections like women and dalits?
http://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/cscs-may-assemble-led-lamps-to-boost-rural-economy-prasad/article9077337.ece?utm_source=email

Pollution kills as many people as cancer does, UN’s new environment chief warns

Pope Francis proposes adding climate action to core Catholic duties

Learning through food

China may allow imports of Indian non-basmati rice

आयात पर अंकुश दूर करेगा खाध तेल संकट


AAP up in arms against genetically-modified mustard, says an attack on Punjab's identity
Govt mulls consequences of not ratifying Paris Agreement this year
PM Narendra Modi has linked Nuclear Supply Group membership to India's ratification of Paris Agreement. This has left the government to mull over the consequences for country's position on climate change. What does it gain or lose now as the climate negotiations heat up. And, at this stage, is US bothered about India's ratification? Did the NDA govt play its cards wrong? Trying to find the answers.
EAEU, India May Start Free Trade Zone Agreement Talks in September

By Staff Report in Eurasia & World on 7 September 2016

A joint research team to study the feasibility of a free trade zone agreement between the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and India was created in June 2015. The prospects for that agreement will be determined in September, said Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) Chairman of the Board Tigran Sargisyan during a meeting with Indian Ambassador to Russia Pankaj Saran, reported the commission press service.

Short documentary on WLS Programme's (ATREE) research on water pollution in Bangalore
In an effort to take research results to a wider audience, the Water, Land and Society Programme at ATREE has made a 10 minutesdocumentary based on the past few years of research on water pollution and wastewater reuse in agriculture in peri-urban Bangalore. The research covered peri-urban livelihoods, water quality, and urban water governance. Please watch it on ATREE Bangalore's YouTube channel at the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhFgpsy4fyU




पत्र सूचना कार्यालय
भारत सरकार
वाणिज्य एवं उद्योग मंत्रालय
07-सितम्बर-2016 18:09 IST

भारत-नामीबिया संयुक्त व्यापार समिति (जेटीसी) का तीसरा सत्र
भारत-नामीबिया संयुक्त व्यापार समिति के तीसरे सत्र का आज (07 सितंबर, 2016) नई दिल्ली में आयोजन किया गया। भारतीय प्रतिनिधिमंडल का नेतृत्व वाणिज्य और उद्योग राज्यमंत्री (स्वतंत्र प्रभार) सुश्री निर्मला सीतारमण ने किया। नामीबिया के प्रतिनिधिमंडल का नेतृत्व वहां के औद्योगीकरण, व्यापार और एसएमई विकास मंत्रालय के माननीय उप मंत्री श्री पीट वान डेर वॉल्ट ने किया।

बैठक के दौरान दोनों देशों में घनिष्ठ और सौहार्दपूर्ण संबंधों के बारे में प्रकाश डाला गया। यह भी उल्लेख किया गया कि भारत के राष्ट्रपति की जून, 2016 में हुई नामीबिया की यात्रा के दौरान भारत और नामीबिया दोनों ही पक्ष संयुक्त व्यापार समिति की अगली बैठक जल्द से जल्द बुलाने पर सहमत हुए थे। नामीबिया के माननीय उप मंत्री ने कहा कि जेटीसी दोनों देशों के बीच व्यापार और आर्थिक विकास के लिए एक आदर्श कार्य ढांचा है। उन्होंने व्यापार संबंधों को और मजबूत करने की इच्छा व्यक्त की।

द्विपक्षीय व्यापार मुद्दों के बारे में यह जानकारी साझा की गई कि 2015 के दौरान भारत ऐसा सातवां सबसे बड़ा देश था जिसे नामीबिया ने अपना आयात स्रोत बनाया था। जेटीसी ने यह पाया कि भारत-दक्षिण अफ्रीका सीमा शुल्क संघ (एसएसीयू) अधिमान्य व्यापार समझौता (पीटीए) की वार्ताओं के अभी तक पांच दौर हुए हैं। वार्ता का पांचवां दौर अक्टूबर, 2010 में दिल्ली में आयोजित किया गया था। पीटीए के निष्कर्ष बढ़ते व्यापार प्रवाह के लिए अवसरों का सृजन करेंगे।

भारतीय पक्ष ने नामीबिया के पक्ष को अवगत कराया कि भारत नामीबिया की आवश्यकताओं को पूरा करने के लिए चमड़ा, रत्न और आभूषण, खाद्य प्रसंस्करण उत्पादों और विद्युत और यांत्रिक उपकरणों जैसे इंजीनियरिंग सामानों के लिए नामीबिया के साथ सहयोग कर सकता है जबकि भारत को नामीबिया से धातु और खनिज की जरूरत है।

नामीबिया पक्ष ने इपानगेलो माइनिंग एंड एक्सप्लोरेशन कंपनी के साथ खनन और खनिज अन्वेषण के क्षेत्र में संयुक्त उपक्रम लगाने को प्रोत्साहित किया। कीमती और अर्द्ध कीमती रत्नों और पत्थरं के व्यापार के बारे में भी विचार-विमर्श किया गया। नामीबिया ने स्थानीय मूल्य संवर्धन को प्रोत्साहित करने और नामीबिया में रोजगार के अवसर जुटाने के लिए रत्न और आभूषण के क्षेत्रों में प्रशिक्षण के माध्यम से कौशल के विकास में दिलचस्पी दिखाई। नामीबिया ने इसके लिए 100 मिलियन डॉलर की लाइन ऑफ क्रेडिट के उपयोग करने की इच्छा व्यक्त की। बैठक में जल प्रबंधन से सबंधित बुनियादी ढांचे के बारे में भी चर्चा की गई। भारत नामीबिया के साथ अपने अनुभव साझा करने की पेशकश की और नामीबिया पक्ष को इस क्षेत्र में अपना पूर्ण सहयोग देने का आश्वासन दिया ।

पनबिजली परियोजनाओं और सौर परियोजनाओं तथा जल संसाधन प्रबंधन के क्षेत्रों में सहयोग करना दोनों देशों के मध्य एजेंडे के महत्वपूर्ण मद थे। सूक्ष्म, लघु और मध्यम उद्यमों के विकास में सहयोग को वार्ता में एक मुख्य स्थान दिया गया। भारतीय पक्ष ने आपसी सहमति के नियम और शर्तों पर नामीबिया में एक व्यावसायिक प्रशिक्षण केंद्र एवं इंगक्यूबैशन केंद्र स्थापित करने के लिए राष्ट्रीय उद्योग निगम लिमिटेड की इच्छा के बारे में जानकारी दी। पर्यटन के क्षेत्र में सहयोग पर भी चर्चा हुई। यह निर्णय लिया गया कि एक समझौता किया जाएगा जिसमें संयुक्त प्रशिक्षण, पर्यटन स्थलों के विकास, लोगों को परस्पर बातचीत आदि को बढ़ावा देने के कार्य को शामिल किया जाएगा।

नामीबिया की ओर से भारत द्वारा बाजरा के उत्पादन की गतिविधियों के विस्तार के मुद्दे पर प्रकाश डाला गया था। नामीबिया ने अपने देश में उर्वरक विनिर्माण और वैक्सीन उत्पादन के लिए हैन्ड्होल्डिंग और प्रौद्योगिकी हस्तांतरण की जरुरत बताई। इसके अलावा अंगूर और खजूर के लिए बाजार के प्रावधान पर भी चर्चा हुई। यह चर्चा बड़े सौहार्दपूर्ण वातावरण में संपन्न हुई जो दोनों देशों के बीच मैत्रीपूर्ण संबंधों को दर्शाती है। यह बैठक परस्पर सहमति वाले दस्तावेज पर हस्ताक्षर करने के साथ संपन्न हुई।

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurates 'NITI Lectures: Transforming India'


 
Journey of Transforming India



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