Consumerism/Lifestyle
The digital economy is a design for atomisation, for separation… Imposing the digital economy through a “cash ban” is a form of technological dictatorship, in the hands of the world’s billionaires. Economic diversity and technological pluralism are India’s strength and it is the “hard cash” that insulated India from the global market’s crash of 2008….
Read More about Vandana Shiva: Beware of digital dictatorshipConsumerism/Lifestyle
Rahul Chandran writes: A resident, who did not wish to be identified, talks about certain benches where the maids and drivers were not allowed to sit. “We had one more rule earlier— now its scrapped— the maids are not supposed to travel in the passenger lift, they were supposed to travel in the service lift.”…
Read More about This gated community in Bangalore epitomises urban India’s class divide
Health/Safety
Gary Haq writes: The health impacts of air pollution are well documented; but now, new evidence suggests a link between air pollution and dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, with exposure to poor air quality equivalent to passively smoking six cigarettes a day. Toxic air has been blamed for more road traffic crashes from pollutants distracting drivers….
Read More about Take a deep breath – here’s what 2016 revealed about the deadly dangers of air pollutionConflict/Dispossession
When seven deaths have not stirred the government’s conscience, Rai is convinced that the resistance is futile. “The worst pain in the world is the pain of being displaced,” said Rai. “But the fact is neither political protests nor public demand can stop displacement. We’ll have to leave this village, our fields and our history.”…
Read More about The Jharkhand Model of Development: Resources for investors, bullets for villagers
Conserve/Resist
The Forest Rights Act of 2006 was widely hailed as a landmark legislation, one that sought to empower some of India’s most disenfranchised communities– the Adivasis. Ten years later, only 3 percent of forest dwellers have their rights recognised, and the Act itself is increasingly being undermined by the present government. Here’s a closer look….
Read More about Special: Ten years of the Forest Rights Act
Representative pic
Development/Growth
Catch News reports: Chhattisgarh’s Janjgir-Champa region, once famous for paddy cultivation, is now emerging as the state’s power hub with several power plants coming up in the area during the recent years. While fuelling the state’s economic growth, dust and ash emitted from these power plants are turning thousands of local people blind from cataract….
Read More about Power plants are making thousands go blind in Chhattisgarh
CLIMATE CRISIS
More fish species on the east coast, especially in the waters off Odisha and West Bengal, are highly vulnerable to climate change, according to a first of its kind assessment by the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI). That vulnerability stems not only from changes in climate but also from fishing pressure and lower productivity….
Read More about Study: 47 of 68 fish species in India under threatEconomy
Devinder Sharma writes: After a month of demonetisation, the picture in the rural areas remains too bleak. I know of villages where the farmers had to return empty handed even after seven days of queuing up. As a TISS study points out, nearly 81 per cent of the villages do not have access to banking….
Read More about Demonetisation, not drought, behind farmers’ woes
CLIMATE CRISIS
The National Geographic reports: Arunabha Ghosh, chief executive officer of India’s Council on Energy, Environment and Water, an environmental group, estimated that natural disasters exacerbated by climate change cost the Indian government roughly $30 billion (US dollars) between 2010 and 2015. That number will likely rise along with the global temperature, according to his research….
Read More about How climate change is hitting India
Economy
Shankar Gopalakrishnan writes: Demonetisation’s biggest impact will be on the distribution of resources within the economy, whatever happens to the economy as a whole. Demonetisation’s a giant vacuum, sucking up the resources of the weak and delivering them to the powerful, while acting like it’s doing the opposite. More importantly, this transfer will be permanent….
Read More about Demonetisation is a permanent transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich
ALTERNATIVES
In ‘Tending Our Land’, authors M.G. Jackson and Nyla Coelho present a vivid, historical account of the great human enterprise of food production, an entirely new story– one that reinstates an ancient but eminently relevant imperative for our times. It makes essential reading for policy makers, academia and the budding bold generation of land tenders….
Read More about Bookshelf: Tending Our Land – A New Story
ALTERNATIVES
In ‘Tending Our Land’, authors M.G. Jackson and Nyla Coelho present a vivid, historical account of the great human enterprise of food production, an entirely new story– one that reinstates an ancient but eminently relevant imperative for our times. It makes essential reading for policy makers, academia and the budding bold generation of land tenders….
Read More about Bookshelf: Tending Our Land – A New Story
Economy
Live Mint reports: The richest 1% of Indians now own 58.4% of the country’s wealth, according to the latest data on global wealth from Switzerland based Credit Suisse Group AG. In the last two years, the share of the top 1% has increased at a cracking pace, from 49% in 2014 to 58.4% in 2016….
Read More about The richest 1% of Indians now own 58.4% of the country’s wealth
ALTERNATIVES
Can there be a collective search for paradigms and pathways towards a world that is sustainable, equitable and just? How can such frameworks and visions build on an existing heritage of ideas and worldviews and cultures, and on past or new grassroots practice? This note attempts to layout a few thoughts towards such a process….
Read More about Ashish Kothari: The search for radical alternatives – key elements and principles
ENERGY
Former nuclear reactor operator Arnie Gundersen writes: Building nuclear reactors in a trade-off for CO2 reduction creates a toxic legacy of atomic waste. Nuclear power’s proponents claim that we’re smart enough to store nuclear waste for a quarter of a million years, but are too ignorant to figure out how to store solar electricity overnight….
Read More about Nuclear power is not “green energy”: It is a fount of atomic waste
Representative pic
Economy
Acclaimed journalist P. Sainath reports from rural Maharashtra: The “Modi masterstroke”, a term contrived by assorted anchors and other clowns on television to hail an unbelievably stupid action, is spreading agony and misery in its wake across the countryside. If there’s been any stroke, it’s the one the heart of the rural economy has suffered….
Read More about Heart of rural India has suffered a stroke: P. Sainath on the note ban
Bookshelf
In her new book, The Burning Forest: India’s War In Bastar, anthropologist Nandini Sundar provides a harrowing narrative of the toll this ongoing conflict has taken on the lives of Bastar’s Adivasis. Sundar demonstrates how the institutions of democracy have failed to address the human tragedy in what has become one of India’s most militarized regions….
Read More about Nandini Sundar: Militarization of the imagination
Archival photo of a boat rally in protest against the Sardar Sarovar dam
Conflict/Dispossession
The Modi government had come with the promise of a better future for India’s rivers. Unfortunately, the promise remains unfulfilled, and there seems to be no roadmap in sight for our rivers. There’s nothing in the policies, plans or projects of the current government that would provide any ray of hope, now or in future….
Read More about Himanshu Thakkar on India’s river battles
Image from an IISc study showing sharp (88%) decline in Bangalore's vegetation
Bookshelf
Samar Halarnkar writes: In Nature in the City, her evocative exploration of Bangalore’s natural history, Harini Nagendra, says, “… residents engaged in practices such as placing a plate of warm rice (often with ghee added) outside to feed crows, leaving water baths for birds in the summer, and sugar and milk for ants and reptiles.”…
Read More about The end of nature: Why India is becoming a drier, hotter and angrier country
CLIMATE CRISIS
Pranav Prakash quotes a journalist from The Hindu: “What passes for environmental journalism in India is often bourgeoisie environmentalism, unfortunately. Air pollution in cities matter, while 300 million Indians who cook in crammed, dark, smoke-filled kitchens don’t matter. Ultimately, it’s a question of representation. Whose concerns are addressed or aired depends on who is speaking.”…
Read More about The hidden casteism of climate change reporting in India
