While embracing technological advancements, it is imperative not to compromise offline systems that have traditionally served as a lifeline for those with limited digital access.

https://thewire.in/government/navigating-pm-kisan-a-deep-dive-into-digital-challenges-faced-by-farmers 

 We discuss the obstacles encountered by those using the scheme within its digital framework. We trace changes in two specific aspects of the digital framework: access to information, and changing compliances. The changes in both aspects since 2019 impact not just ‘entitlement holders’ experience of the scheme, but also potentially hamper the seamless flow of benefits. Using case studies gathered in Andhra Pradesh (AP), Gujarat, Odisha, Rajasthan and Telangana, we illustrate the struggles of farmers and local officials in navigating PMKISAN’s digital landscape. This journey underscores the necessity for streamlined and accessible information systems to ensure any welfare programme’s success.

by Chakradhar Buddha and B.D.S. Kishore

30/11/2023

No rethink at the end of the tunnel November 22, 2023 https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/voices/no-rethink-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel/ , It is in this decade that the Himalayas have been tunnelled, blasted, cut, gouged, turned to rubble and concretised as never before in the range’s 50 million years of existence. Hydel projects, rail tracks at heights of 1,000 mtrs in narrow valleys, and road construction, all require tunnels. Rampant construction of hotels and torrents of unregulated tourism require tunnels for car parks. The railway tunnel from Karnaprayag to Rishikesh is 110 mtrs long. The total might exceed 400 km by the time all the dhams are connected. https://i.redd.it/no-rethink-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel-v0-nslc0pppxt1c1.png?s=890ba7828baf3cde6812070f4b8f8681d1b566bc

Response: by a Chandrasekar Punekar Typical selective outcry from activists lobby . Equipped with modern technologies , the world is accomplishing hitherto unsurmounatble tasks of creating great engineering marvel in construction. Be it tunnel under the sea , or reclaiming sea to build a city or making rail bridges and laying rail lines at high altitudes , modern engineering has accomplished daunting tasks. The Guanjiao tunnel in Tibet has been done much earlier without any accompanying disasters in Tibetans mountains , Eisenover tunnel in rocky mountains too was completed quite long ago . The problem with this world is that there are one too many Medha patkar kind to decry all projects concerned with development and progress to mankind .

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.

Who’s Afraid of Jawaharlal Nehru? https://youtu.be/ N9bVs4VvQvM?t=233      Democracy Dialogue Series. 
Professor Mridula Mukherjee, Professor of Modern Indian History ( Retd), Centre for Historical Studies, JNU . A foremost leader of the freedom struggle, who gave it a decided socialist orientation, he remained unrivalled as Prime Minister after independence and built the solid foundations of a sovereign, secular, democratic, and egalitarian republic. He evolved the concept of non-alignment which enabled many ex-colonial countries to avoid becoming a part of the two power blocs engaged in the Cold War.
However, he is today the favourite whipping boy of the establishment. We are told he was responsible for the partition, for the mess in Kashmir, for the death of Subhas Bose, for delaying the integration of Hyderabad, and of Goa, for the defeat at the hands of China in 1962, for neglecting agriculture, and primary education, and much else. The reason for the defamation is of course that he stood for the exact opposite of what is valued today. His life and work present a continuous question mark to the regressive trends in fashion.
This will become evident as we focus in the talk especially on two areas of great relevance today in which we are facing a grave crisis: Democracy and Civil liberties, and Communalism/Secularism. We will also focus attention on Nehru’s evolving understanding of Mahatma Gandhi’s vision and method of non-violent struggle, of which he became the most ardent advocate after his death.

Who’s afraid of Nehru’s India?
 https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/88763-Whos-afraid-of-Nehrus-India  By Aijaz Zaka Syed January 08, 2016Today, 50 years after his death, he still stands tall, towering above everyone else, including the inflated pygmies of Hindutva, thanks to his immense contribution and the indelible imprint he has left on the country and its institutions. More important, Nehru and his powerful legacy, seen in the strong political and democratic institutions of the country, remain a challenge and stumbling block in the way of the Parivar’s ambitions to paint India saffron.

If the Parivar’s idea of Hindu Rashtra is to take shape, Nehru’s idea of an inclusive, tolerant India must die. But, as Dilip Cherian notes in Tehelka, in pulling Nehru down, without understanding his achievements, his detractors reveal their own smallness. In trying to obliterate Nehru’s legacy, the Hindutva clan could end up destroying India.

 An erased Nehru looms large over this regime’s Azadi Mahotsav Sushant Singh 13 August 2022 https://caravanmagazine.in/politics/nehru-erased-from-modis-azadi-amrit-mahotsav-independence-event Nehru stood for everything that is an anathema to the current ideology ruling India. He opposed the Hindu Rashtra and warned of majority communalism being mistaken for nationalism. A staunch believer in a plural, modern India, he was proud of India’s numerous diversities—religious, ethnic, regional, linguistic and cultural—which were rooted in its ancient and medieval history. He promoted science and modern education and was opposed to obscurantism. Proficient in Sanskrit and an avid practitioner of Yoga, he was not enamoured of religion or religious practices. His personal beliefs and political convictions were progressive, liberal and humane—rooted in rights and freedoms. The country that he shaped and created, from the days of the freedom movement, is the India the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh wanted, and is working hard, to dismantle.

Jawahar Sarkar tweet

RBI Data shows how Modi systematically looted the nation
— wiped off ₹14.5 LAKH CRORE in 9 years
— 7 times more than previous regime’s 10 years.
Max 1.5% bad loan loan is internationally acceptable.
In Modi’s tenure it was around 7% to 11%
— anything above 1.5% is just LOOT

 https://twitter.com/jawharsircar/status/1719247833537405094

किसान आ रहे हैं | The Farmers are here Nov 28, 2023 While withdrawing the agricultural laws, Prime Minister Modi had said that his penance would be lacking. Two years after withdrawing the law, he did penance for the farmers. You might also be thinking that the movement is over, the talk of farmers is over, but it does not mean that farmers are not talking about their movement. Everyone had assumed that the Kisan movement was over, but the gathering of farmers in large numbers in Chandigarh on the third anniversary of the movement shows that they have not forgotten their demands nor their passion. Three years ago, more than 700 farmers lost their lives, but they stood on their front lines. At last the government had to retreat. Of course the public can forget the government but the farmers remember everything that happened then.

राफेल की गुप्त रिपोर्ट लीक , कोर्ट में सच छिपाए मोदी ? Rafale's secret report leaked  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd7oCRnVrLs

The Gupta Papers https://caravanmagazine.in/reportage/gupta-papers-rafale-deal-agusta-westland-sushen-gupta How the Modi government is covering up two decades of defence corruption to save the Rafale deal Nileena MS 02 November 2023 The Italian police had been zeroing in on them in its investigation of bribery allegations in the Indian government’s 2010 purchase of 12 helicopters—worth Rs 3,727 crore—from AgustaWestland, a subsidiary of the state-controlled defence company Finmeccanica, now called Leonardo... a conversation, which was secretly recorded by the Italian police, indicated that Haschke and Gerosa had helped route payments from AgustaWestland, through a string of bogus consultancy contracts, to senior members of the Indian government and armed forces in order to influence the procurement of the helicopters.

The hidden story of how Ajit Doval and the Modi cabinet undermined Indian interests in the Rafale deal  https://caravanmagazine.in/government/hidden-story-doval-modi-cabinet-undermined-india-interests-rafale 16 December 2018

Why electricity tariff is going up? Who is the beneficiary?   https://www.cenfa.org/why-electricity-tariff-is-going-up-who-is-the-beneficiary/   The Centre, in its over-exuberance to privatise coal mining, put many greenfield coal blocks for auction to private companies, which in turn, apart from not having enough ability to develop coal, already stand heavily indebted to PSU financial institutions and are driven once again to borrow from them.

Peoples Commission on Public Sector and Public Services (PCPS) in its Statement dated June 2nd 2022, attributed the coal shortage entirely on account of mismanagement of coal supplies on the part of the Central government. “Having created such a situation, instead of owning responsibility for it and offering to share the cost burden, it is unfortunate that the Centre should wash its hands off and transfer the resulting liability to the States”

The Union Ministry of Power issued several directives to the State power utilities to mandatorily import coal, 4 % by weight failing which the state would also lose entitlement to coal supplied by Coal India and other Indian sources. At the same time, there was no notice given to the states to prepare for the import of coal.

Writes Thomas Franco in #RandomReflections this week!

COP28: UAE planned to use climate talks to make oil deals  https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-67508331

Leaked briefing documents reveal plans to discuss fossil fuel deals with 15 nations. They included proposed "talking points", such as one for China which says Adnoc, the UAE's state oil company, is "willing to jointly evaluate international LNG [liquefied natural gas] opportunities" in Mozambique, Canada and Australia.

The documents suggest telling a Colombian minister that Adnoc "stands ready" to support Colombia to develop its fossil fuel resources.

There are talking points for 13 other countries, including Germany and Egypt, which suggest telling them Adnoc wants to work with their governments to develop fossil fuel projects.