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Showing posts from April, 2015

Land acquisition Act, eco-clearance not chief reasons for stalling projects

By Venkatesh Nayak* A big question that is begging a credible answer today is – why is the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government hell-bent on road rolling amendments on to the land acquisition law without even implementing it despite vociferous opposition from several quarters? Several spokespersons for the government and the political parties which support it have repeatedly said that the amendments to the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act (LARR Act), enacted by Parliament in 2013, first promulgated as an Ordinance, and repromulgated because they could not get the approval of Parliament last month, are necessary to arrest the slowing down of the economy and breathing life into the stalled development projects. The mainstay of this argument has been that the process of acquiring privately owned land for developmental projects laid down in the LARR Act is too cumbersome and requires simplification. The state of t

Statue of Unity project to adversely impact livelihood, downstream biodiversity

Fence around proposed Shreshtha Bhawan  By Trupti Shah, Rohit Prajapati, Krishnakant* The National Green Tribunal (Western Zone), Pune bench, issued a notice on April 9, 2015 in the Application No. 32 of 2015 (Trupti Shah & Ors V/s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel RET & Ors) filed against the Statue of Unity project. The second hearing took place on April 16, 2015, and now the next date of hearing has been fixed for May 8, 2015. Since March 2015 authorities constructed fencing around the homes of six tribal families comprising of 70 people for the construction of the proposed Shreshtha (Bhrashta) Bharat Bhavan. Police force stands guard 24X7 outside the newly raised gate which the people have to pass through to access their homes and land – they feel as if they live in a veritable “open air prison”. Since October 31, 2013 at the time of the laying of the foundational stone of the Statue of Unity project, activists have been writing to respondent authorities raising several important qu

Scientific tempter and explorations with water diviner: Debate around anecdotal reports

By Gagan Sethi*  In 1990s, Janvikas built partnership with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) to involve women in watershed development in Kutch. Janvikas set up an ecology cell, now known as Sahjeevan, in order to tackle the problem of drinking water. The aim was to build a reserve in village water bodies, such that they could withstand at least one drought year. This required that women should plan and supervise, through a committee, the earthwork that was needed to be done, so that all rainwater within the village boundary could be nudged to common recharge wells and ponds. While this meant that part of the private land would also be used for earthwork, it also required negotiations at every level. To implement the programme, women talk over with men. In some villages they succeeded, in others there was an impasse! Watershed-based development has become a national programme, which has found support from many NGOs, many of whom are doing painstaking work of buildi

Extra-judicial killings: Andhra police manual requires reasonable restraint

By Venkatesh Nayak* April 7, 2015 turned out to be a bloody Tuesday in the newly-formed states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Broadly, this is what the media reports on the two incidents of extra-judicial killings said: (a) The first incident was in Warangal district of Telengana where the police escorting five under-trial prisoners shot them dead on the pretext that one of them tried to snatch a firearm from one of the escorts in a bid to flee police custody; and (b) In the second incident, 20 men alleged to be smugglers of red sandalwood were shot dead in the Seshachalam forest of Chittoor district in a joint operation conducted by the Andhra Police and Forest Officials. The purpose of this article is not to make a assessment about whether the use of lethal force by the police was justified or not in either incident. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and the High Court in Hyderabad have sought reports about the Chittoor incident from the Government. The district administr

Disclosing RTI statistics does not jeopardise national security

By Venkatesh Nayak* The Times of India carries a news report about the non-compliance of well known security and intelligence organisations with their obligation of reporting RTI applications statistics to the Central Information Commission (CIC) in India. As on date, the Government of India has notified 25 security and intelligence organisations as exempt from the ordinary obligations of transparency under the right to information (RTI) Act like their parent departments and ministries and other public authorities. However, they are required to provide access to information if it relates to allegations of corruption and human rights violation. Such information must not be withheld under the RTI Act. So, it goes without saying that such exempt organisations must also appoint public information officers and first appellate authorities under Sections 5(1) and 19(1) respectively. By logical extension of this statutory requirement, they must also submit their reports to the CIC under Secti

Average rejection rate of RTI pleas: 7% in Govt of India, 21% in PM Office

By Venkatesh Nayak* The preliminary findings are based on a quick study of the Annual Report of the Central Information Commission (CIC) for the year 2013-14 (click HERE to download) suggest that, overall, there is a drop in the percentage of public authorities reporting to the CIC on their right to information (RTI) stats. More than a quarter of the public authorities have not reported their RTI stats to the CIC. The reporting compliance rose in 2012-13 but fell again in 2013-14. The highest rate was in 2005-06 followed by 2007-08 when the reporting was more than 85%. CIC is not able to compel a large number of public authorities to submit data. This is cause for concern. RTI activists should demand that departmental action be initiated against the senior officers of these errant ministries and departments for violating the civil service conduct rules. Last year the Conduct Rules for all All-India Services Officers (IAS, IPS and IFoS) were amended to make transparency and accountabil