000-tobecategorised

 in a new book https://theprint.in/feature/around-town/atal-bihari-vajpayee-has-just-been-gift-wrapped-returned-to-the-rss-in-a-new-book/1637337/ Rama Lakshmi 22 June, 2023 Vajpayee: The Ascent of the Hindu Right 1924–1977 shatters BJP poet-politician’s reputation as a liberal hero. “I recognise more of Vajpayee in this book," said BJP's Swapan Dasgupta.

The younger Vajpayee, the book says, was a loyal soldier of the RSS, internalised Hindu victimhood and regarded Muslims as inherently disloyal to India — and not the hero of the liberals that he is today. ...

Called Vajpayee: The Ascent of the Hindu Right 1924–1977, the book’s author Abhishek Choudhary spent seven years trying to peel the layers off one of the most enigmatic politicians of the BJP.

...Former BJP general secretary Govindacharya had famously called Vajpayee a ‘mukhota’ or a mask in 1997, referring to him as being the acceptable face of the BJP. His moderate mask was, of course, immensely useful for the party. In

...Other than ‘mukhota’, another label that got stuck to Vajpayee’s image was the much-used media phrase ‘right man in the wrong party’. It was a measure of how much non-BJP voters, politicians and intellectuals wished to appropriate him.

...This dichotomous insider-outsider image of Vajpayee has had many benefits. It attracted non-BJP centrists and liberals and also hoisted Modi as the proto Hindutva icon. Vajpayee is not counted as a Hindutva Hall of Famer today. His iconography was edging alarmingly close to the ideological centrism of Indian politics and farther and farther away from the RSS. It’s a lot like how Sardar Patel is not seen as a Congress leader but has been grafted on to the BJP today.

But now Abhishek Choudhary’s new book has placed Vajpayee right back into the Hindutva history of India.

Whatapp post from LS: The MoEF&CC is at  the edge of the precipice whihch is  dragging the nation to with its comprehensive dilution of FCA all to support Indian and transnational corporations to exploit our forests and take over tribal lands. This needs to be read with the parallel comprehensive dilution of Biodiversity Act which promotes the interests of Indian AYUSH companies (Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali, for instance, which funnels funds…) and which would have disastrous consequences not limited to India losing its biodiversity - democratic polity itself is at risk with hegemonic forces benefiting from perpetual money pipes that such extraction provides.

Amendments to Forest Conservation Act: Activists cry foul over neglect of tribal rights
https://www.news9live.com/india/amendments-to-forest-conservation-act-activists-cry-foul-over-neglect-of-tribal-rights-2229888

So, Tudu reiterated the MoEF&CC’s stand without voicing the Ministry of Tribal Affairs’ position.
Environment Support Group, a Bengaluru-based think tank alleges that the Ministry of Tribal Affairs hasn’t done its due diligence.
“From the reply/replies of the Minister/s, it appears that MOTA has not, in any manner, undertaken its own due diligence with regard to the impact of the Forest Conservation (Amendment) Bill, 2023 on rights of Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers, as it is required to as per the Forest Rights Act, 2006 and the Allocation of Business Rules,” says Leo Saldanha, trustee of the Environment Support Group.
“What is worse is that MOTA appears to not even have formulated its independent opinion in regard to this very serious and critical question regarding implications of various amendments proposed to the FCA by this Bill, especially given statements issued by movements and research organisations that the proposed changes in the forest law will, without any doubt, affect grievously rights of Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers,” points out Nidhi Hanji, ESG’s Legal Research Associate.

Environment ministry violated rules in pushing Forest Conservation Bill, say activists https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/environment-ministry-violated-rules-pushing-forest-conservation-bill-say-activists-180359

"MoTA should have been fundamentally involved, even co-leading, any amendment to any existing laws, or in shaping any new law, or in formulation of a policy or scheme, that are “relating to the rights of the forest-dwelling Schedule Tribes on forest lands”. When what has been stated by MoTA and MoEF&CC in the Rajya Sabha are read together, it is glaring that the Ministries have not worked in conformance with the Doctrine of Harmonious Construction," a statement by ESG said.

https://www.deccanherald.com/state/top-karnataka-stories/ministry-violated-rules-in-pushing-forest-bill-activists-1241726.html
"A review of the JPC report reveals that no person, who is a forest-dwelling schedule tribe or other traditional forest dwellers, was invited to depose before the committee," the ESG said.

Facing the Atom Bomb: Gandhi, Oppenheimer and the quest for Nonviolence  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iTnknFMC1U Indian Academy of Sciences  Jun 11, 2021 IASc-DBT Gandhi Science lecture series
Talk by Rajni Bakshi, Author and Founder of Ahimsa Conversations as part of the IASc-DBT Gandhi Science Lecture Series on Science and the Future of Humanity. Talk was on 12 April 2021