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Inside Indian Energy and Mining Giant Vedanta's Campaign to Weaken Key Environmental Regulations

Inside Indian Energy and Mining Giant Vedanta's Campaign to Weaken Key Environmental Regulations by Akshay Deshmane 31 August 2023
https://www.occrp.org/en/investigations/inside-indian-energy-and-mining-giant-vedantas-campaign-to-weaken-key-environmental-regulations .

  Report  shows how mining and oil giant Vedanta successfully ran a covert lobbying campaign during the pandemic to weaken India's key environmental regulations. The Narendra Modi-led government approved the changes without public consultation and implemented them using what experts say are illegal methods.

In early 2022, after a series of closed door meetings, India’s environment ministry loosened regulations to allow mining companies to increase production by up to 50 percent without needing to hold public hearings, which many in the industry considered the most onerous requirement of the environmental clearance process.

Though the head of a major industry lobby group and India’s mining secretary also pressed for the rules to be loosened, internal documents and government sources suggest Vedanta’s lobbying was key. The environment ministry then changed the regulations by publishing an office memo — meant to be used for inter-office communication — on its website.

The year before Agarwal wrote to Modi, one of the company’s subsidiaries, Cairn Oil & Gas, also started lobbying to scrap public hearings for oil exploration projects. As with mining, the government quietly amended the law with no public consultation. Since then, at least six of Cairn’s oil projects in the northern deserts of Rajasthan have been greenlit for development...

Indian authorities blocked the websites of activist groups that were campaigning on environmental issues, including one that was fighting against a major new piece of environmental legislation.

In April, the Central Bureau of Investigation filed charges against environmental lawyer Ritwick Dutta, claiming he uses foreign funds to “take down” coal projects. Legal watchdog Article 14 cited experts describing the case as “replete with factual errors and misrepresentations” and saying it would “have a chilling effect on environmental litigation in India.”

This year, the Centre for Policy Research, a think tank, had its license to receive foreign funding suspended and tax authorities started looking into their records for alleged violations, reportedly due to its “involvement” with environmental causes.

Hrut Collage - Urmila Samson Homeschool

Activities, events, articles, links among other things to be used for inspiration and a resource.

We perceive education as a natural process through engaging with and forming relationships with the living and non living, exploring ourselves through the arts and silence, in order to discover the inner self and beyond; our non separateness, the Consciousness Connection that make us One.

 https://hrutcollage.wordpress.com/

Homeschooling or Whole Being Living | Urmila Samson  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCwAz1b6PZ8 TEDx Talks Jul 10, 2018
There is thinking out of the box and then there is learning out of the box. Urmila Samson is a person who is a proponent of the latter. Hailing from Pune, she home schooled or as she calls it "unschooled" her children while being the co-founder of Swashikshan-Association of Indian Homeschoolers. The pedagogy revoles around picking up cues from the child about their inclination and providing them the tools to develop those skills.

It worked out when her daughter got into Eurythmy in London based solely on the merit of her essay, without having to give her A-level exams. With the community of parents choosing to home school their children growing, it is an honour to have Pune's MVP to tackle the orthodoxy of our current education system. Urmila Samson is one of the most distinguished homeshooling mothers in India. She, with her husband John, have radical ideas about learning and have opted to un-school their three children aged 25 years, 21 years and 18 years, who have never been to school. Her favourite definition of education is engaging with everything – living and non-living. Urmila is the co-founder of Swashikshan-Association of Indian Homeschoolers and has always been connected with people to guide them on right information and resources, with a burning desire to change the current scenario of the education system.

All Those Demanding a New Constitution Are Fighting for a Less Equal India

In his recent article, titled
There’s a case for ‘we the people’ to embrace a new Constitution https://www.livemint.com/opinion/online-views/theres-a-case-for-we-the-people-to-embrace-a-new-constitution-11692021963182.html  14 Aug 2023 Bibek Debroy,  highlighted the Hindu right's real problem with the Constitution.. ...the three recent Bills on criminal justice are examples. Partly, one reclaims our forgotten heritage; Sengol is a metaphor for that.

what about the Seventh Schedule and local bodies? If development is correlated with urbanization, why have we set up these rural-urban silos, exemplified in the 73rd and 74th amendments?

what’s the Supreme Court’s role... There are articles in the Constitution that impede executive efficiency, at least for all-India services. What about electoral reform and the Rajya Sabha’s role?

..Should one subject specific geographical areas to special laws, thereby never mainstreaming them? (This isn’t only about Article 370 as there are others.) If reforms are about markets and a refocused and reduced role for government, what sense do we make of the Directive Principles of State Policy?

All Those Demanding a New Constitution Are Fighting for a Less Equal India https://thewire.in/politics/all-those-demanding-a-new-constitution-are-fighting-for-a-less-equal-india  Runyani .. the ideologues and leaders from the Hindu right have been asserting that this constitution is a colonial legacy, based on the Government of India Act of 1935 of the British and does not reflect ‘Indian values’

As the Constitution was implemented, the RSS mouthpiece rejected it and demanded the Manusmriti as the Constitution. An editorial in Organiser on Novemner 30, 1949 read: “But in our Constitution, there is no mention of the unique Constitutional development in Ancient Bharat. Manu’s laws were written long before Lycurgus of Sparata or Solon of Persia.

https://indianexpress.com/article/india/bibek-debroy-article-for-new-constitution-pm-panel-says-not-our-view-8897462/ “The recent article by Dr @bibekdebroy was in his personal capacity. In no way do they reflect the views of EAC-PM or the Government of India,” the EAC-PM posted Thursday evening. The EAC-PM is an independent body constituted to give advice on economic and related issues to the Government of India, specifically to the Prime Minister.