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call for a rethink on River Front Development

Environment body calls for a rethink on River Front Development https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/pune/environment-body-calls-for-a-rethink-on-river-front-development-9044988/lite/
 November 28, 2023

The India Rivers Forum, is calling for a suspension of the River Front Development (RFD) project and a proper review with the participation of everybody. “RFDs have been promoted in a big way by the central and state governments across the country in the name of rejuvenating and beautifying the rivers. Some of the prominent sites for RFD projects across India are Varanasi, Bhagalpur, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Hyderabad, Jammu, Kota, Bilaspur, Patna, Guwahati and Pune. Though RFD aims to revitalise the riverfront areas, in reality these projects are less about river restoration and more about the encroachment of floodplains and riverbeds characterised by heavily concretised embankments and other structures like barrages and also reclaiming floodplains and riverbeds for real estate development. The Pune RFD project follows the same trajectory”.

“With more than 20 per cent of the floodplains already encroached, breaching both the 25-year and 100-year flood lines across the city, construction of embankments and barrages on the prohibitive zone under the RFD project would further constrict the rivers, reducing their carrying capacity leading to an increase in the flood risk. There is no room for the rivers to absorb floods under this project, especially considering that the Pune region is going to experience an increase in rainfall due to climate change and existing encroachments”.

“We are not saying that the river should be left as it is. The river, seriously, needs rejuvenation but the way it is being done is killing the river.

Decolonize to Decarbonize: Our Call to Action for Climate Justice at COP28

Decolonize to Decarbonize: Our Call to Action for Climate Justice at COP28  https://www.climatejusticehub.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/D2D-Campaign-Briefer-for-COP28.pdf   imperialist countries in the global North and their corporations are using the climate crisis to co-opt peoples’ demands to transition away from fossil fuels to further colonise global South frontiers for resource grabbing and exploitation.... Apart from being unscientific or too resource-intensive to deploy at the scale and pace required, these ‘solutions’ are mere ploys to continue burning fossil fuels and profit off of the climate crisis. Worse, these result in what some would refer to as “green grabbing” or “green colonialism” since they historically led to restrictions on people's access to rights, services, and natural resources, including labour rights, healthcare, education, and the Indigenous Peoples' rights to free, prior, and informed consent.

https://www.climatejusticehub.org/2023/11/21/decolonize-to-decarbonize-our-call-to-action-for-climate-justice-at-cop28/ What are our demands at COP28?

Phase out all forms of fossil fuels

No to false ‘solutions’ to climate change. Market-based mechanisms cannot be presented as solutions

Uphold a people-led energy transition: it should be publicly-owned, wherein the people are allowed to exercise democratic control over the overhauling of existing energy systems

Global North countries must fulfil their financial obligations.Funding mechanisms and facilities must channel finance in the form of grants as compensatory funding and not as loans or for-profit investments

Polluters out  People in. deconstructing the existing power structures that favour global North countries and corporations. In practical terms, this amounts to institutionalising measures that will withhold the ability of corporations to access and influence climate policymaking and governance.

What Killed Gandhi!

By insisting on non-violence, Bapu extinguished the raging fire of communal violence in many parts of India but he himself fell victim to the bullets of an assassin. But how did it affect India for the next fifty years? 

बापू के आख़री कुछ साल | Mahatma Gandhi’s last years | तुषार गांधी https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJGcXsochYQ  Citizens for Justice and Peace Oct 1, 2023  

The last four years of his life proved to be the toughest test of Mahatma Gandhi's principle of non-violence. From Direct Action Day to Partition, when the whole of India was burning in the fire of national hatred and violence, and the leaders of Congress and Muslim League were baking their bread, Bapu alone, risking his life, traveled from Delhi to Noakhali, Bihar. From Calcutta to Calcutta, he kept fighting for the unity of India, taking support of the stick of non-violence. History is witness to the fact that through this effort he was successful in maintaining peace in the eastern parts of the country, but he had to fall victim to Nathuram Godse's bullet. In his books and also in this interview, Bapu's great-grandson Tushar Gandhi says about his last years that because of this valiant effort, especially as a result of his martyrdom, the wind of national hatred blew in this country for about fifty years, if at all it did not last. Didn't get it.

Because times are changing now, and a new era of violence seems to be beginning, it has become necessary to remember those last few years of Bapu.

Citizens for Justice and Peace has been working for national unity in India for the last thirty years. We are Gandhiji's followers in this fight. This special video series with Tushar Gandhi is just an attempt to convey Gandhiji's thoughts to the public in the era of fake news and violence.

https://youtu.be/tXFQ0fx6PL0 On the Investigation- Discussion on Screening of Who killed Gandhi -

https://youtu.be/0uUwmjdxMcc On the Historical Context-

https://youtu.be/4NI5flM76Xc Why no public Screening of the Film Who killed Gandhi in India

https://youtu.be/A35gQbrGhf8  On the Hindutva Narrative

 

Q & A after a recent screening of the film..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GB4i1G6OgYE