Post By Shuklq Sen

#BharatJodoYatra NDTV Offers An Insightful Glimpse into Its Innards https://www.ndtv.com/video/shows/truth-vs-hype/truth-vs-hype-anatomy-of-rahul-gandhi-s-bharat-jodo-yatra-665587 the video report presented by Sreenivasan Jain, one of the rare figures in the mainstream electronic media who is strikingly competent, remarkably balanced and not known to be compromised: Incidentally, his father was a very well-known and respected Gandhian economist: LC Jain. His mother, Devaki Jain, is an eminent Gandhian-feminist economist.While he's, quite justifiably, known as a TV journalist who has done a number of (courageous) investigative report, I, for one, remember him for his 'The Myth of Big Retail' (at < http://www.sacw.net/article2859.html >) penned by him when the issue of the FDI in retail was being passionately and acrimoniously debated.

This video report must be the first by any mainstream media outlet -- more than two months since the launch.

Here are a few more insightful glimpses, of course put out, more recently, by the Yatra organisers themselves:
 https://twitter.com/Rahul_ForPM/status/1591441562726465536
https://twitter.com/ActivistSandeep/status/1591322901822976000
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10229420264316206&id=1387786704
https://youtu.be/zqsF-k7j_B>.
https://twitter.com/sushant_says/status/1591447523348336640
https://twitter.com/SupriyaShrinate/status/1591122060537126914
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IBabntUwSZI

The numbers joining the Yatra or cheering it on are, no doubt, quite impressive. From the very beginning. And, appearing to be swelling even further as the Yatra progresses. But, more than the numbers, it's the spirit that's most heartening. The extent of both has, reportedly, surprised even the organisers of the Yatra.
It's probably during a chitchat with Dilip D'Souza -- a journalist-activist from Mumbai -- Rahul Gandhi had, very rightly, observed that the element of spontaneity is even more important than organised mobilisation. In the event, there appears to be no dearth of spontaneity either. People are joining in from all corners -- physically and metaphorically.

Apart from all these, the Yatra is offering and trying to evolve a new idiom for mass mobilisation. What's essentially a protest march is shot with a carnivalesque mood.
That, for so many, must be quite baffling. Even Rahul Gandhi is presenting a very radically different model of a public "leader" -- warm, intimate and humane -- so starkly different from the gross, distant and macho 56".

But, to be sure, the fight on hand is too difficult. "India" is virtually racing towards the abyss. The Yatra is, as yet, only a (growing) ray of hope.

Entrenching Impunity, Peddling Justice for Rape: A Case for Feminist Civil Liberties | Vrinda Grover   https://youtu.be/7Oc2XROMa7o?t=224
On the police and extrajudicial action in cases of rape and other forms of sexual violence against women. Manthan on 26 June 2022.

The Narmada Andolan in the Words of Adivasi Leaders | The India Forum https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/narmada-andolan-words-adivasi-leaders Kalpana Sharma  Main points... The Narmada Bachao Andolan is important not just because it mobilised people, including Adivasis, across the three states affected by the dam, but also because it successfully articulated the link between development projects and their social and environmental costs. This was at a time when gigantism was virtually unquestioned. Big was beautiful, not just in India but around the world.

It was in the 1980s that the movement against the dam began to build up. Before the Narmada Bachao Andolan came into existence, several resistance groups had emerged. For instance, in Maharashtra, the Narmada Dharangrast Samiti (NDS) represented 33 villages facing submergence, while in Madhya Pradesh, the Narmada Ghati Navnirman Samiti (NGNS) stood with the victims. It was only in September 1989, at a massive rally held in Harsud, Madhya Pradesh that all these groups came together with a call to halt “destructive development” and named themselves the Narmada Bachao Andolan.

Another dramatic and significant landmark of the movement was the Sangharsh Yatra of December 1990–January 1991, where more than 5,000 people walked for 22 days to reach the Gujarat border at Ferkuva.

The project was eventually completed even though adequate rehabilitation of the displaced has still not been done to this day. In the case of the Narmada Bachao Andolan, although there are “activists” today who continue to work amongst the displaced, much has changed. Perhaps some of this is inevitable as movements turn into non-governmental organisations.

As Kevalsingh reflects with some sadness, “A mobile is never going to build a movement. If we have to build the Andolan once again, we have to go amongst the people. We have to understand their issues; we have to find tasks at the local level that people can take up.”

*NDMA team inspects Kaiga Atomic Power Station* https://www.deccanherald.com/state/uttara-kannada-belagavi-city/ndma-team-inspects-kaiga-atomic-power-station-1144229.html

The recent approval for the addition of 2*700 MWe nuclear power reactors at
Kaiga APP has led to a lot of concern to the local population, and to those
in the state who have a modest understanding of nuclear power reactor
accidents, as reported from Chernobyl and Fukushima. My representation
dated 23rd Dec. 2018 to Atomic Energy Commission, as forwarded below,
should emphasise multiple concerns to our people on safety issues, which
can be associated with the uncontrolled radiation leakage, along with many
other issues of importance to the entire country.

Having gone through that EIA report (Environmental Impact Assessment
report) of the proposal on Kaiga APP extension (Units 5 & 6), and having
made both the written as well as oral submission at the associated public
hearing, I notice that there are many serious concerns to the local
stakeholders, as well as for the state and the country as a whole from the
proposed project.

My principal concern has been that; whereas 4 nuclear reactors at Kaiga APP
have been operating since the last few years, the addition of about 1.6
times the earlier capacity (an increase from about 840 MWe to 2,240 MWe
capacity) in the proposed expansion plan will basically mean an exponential
increase in "risk" associated with a nuclear reactor accident, the quantum
of nuclear radiation leakage even in a normal operating condition, and the
quantum of nuclear waste, including the spent nuclear fuels, which will be
stored on the site.

Whereas, there have been a number of concerns with the statements made in
the EIA report, as prepared for the Project proponent (NPCIL in the present
case), the same is found to be seriously deficient in not considering: (i)
adequate details of disaster management plan to safely evacuate more than
32,000 people of the region and rehabilitate them satisfactorily in the
case of any unfortunate nuclear accident of the type noticed at Chernobyl
and Fukushima; (ii) policy and details associated with the safe disposal
and long term storage of spent nuclear fuel and nuclear waste materials.

A serious issue noticed during the associated public hearing was the
number of unanswered questions over the adequate preparedness on part of
the concerned local authorities during a credible scenario of uncontrolled
radiation emission beyond the exclusion zone, as can be expected in a large
size nuclear reactor site such as in Kaiga NPP, and in a scenario similar
to what happened in Chernobyl (USSR) and Fukushima (Japan). It has to
be emphasised here that none of the concerned authorities, including the
local district authorities and AERC, have cared to respond to the
associated concerns so far.

Hence, I am appealing to NDMA to consider every one of these concerns with
all the seriousness they deserve, and to provide effective assurance to all
the stakeholders about the adequacy/ efficacy of the safety precautions
taken in this regard.

I notice with a lot of concerns that: whereas, the project proponent,
through EIA, seem to have shifted the actual responsibility of off-site
emergency measures to the Deputy Commissioner (DC), it should be emphasised
that as the district administrator and also as the district magistrate, the
DC has enormous and varieties of responsibilities even during normal times.
It will be seen as the abdication of responsibility on part of the nuclear
industry authorities in the country to expect a busy official, such as DC
of a district in Karnataka, to appropriately react to a nuclear emergency
unless he is ably assisted by a group of competent people, who are well
trained and well equipped. EIA has no explanations in this regard.

In the overall context that the area around Kaiga APP is of difficult
hilly terrain and is thickly forested, it is important to know at what
stage of any unfortunate nuclear accident will the affected
communities have to be evacuated, and what are the proposed
arrangements for the same? Where are the hospitals to treat the maximum of
30,252 persons (as per section 3.9 in EIA) and how will these people be
evacuated and transported? Have all the families who are likely to be
affected and their habitats accurately identified, and whether adequate
numbers of all-weather roads are available to evacuate them at a short
notice, say in mid-rainy season? What sort of radioactive danger
communication facility to each one of these people is available at present
in the unfortunate scenario of a Fukushima type accident? Where are the
safe nuclear shelters to house these people? Are the local authorities
such as the Deputy Commissioner, Tahsildars, Panchayats, Doctors, nurses,
community leaders etc. trained and provided with necessary equipment to
detect any radiation leakage, and to take the necessary safety measures
immediately? Have a sufficient number of vehicles been identified and
available at short notice to evacuate these people to safety? Are all
these details properly recorded and made known to the concerned group of
officials/people?

If the difficult hilly terrain and thickly forested areas around Kaiga APP,
along with a number of rivers and streams, are diligently considered, it
can be credibly stated that even with the best intentions/ efforts of
SDRF/NDRF, it will not be feasible to safely evacuate even 50% of the
32,000 odd people of the area in the case of a major nuclear accident.
Hence, a major catastrophe for the welfare of the local population cannot
be credibly ruled out.

In this context of a credible and major catastrophe, the words
"pro-active" and "prevention" in NDMA vision should indicate that there is
a critical need to take all the associated issues into proper perspective,
and arrive at rational conclusions.

In the engineering management parlance, the term "risk" can be defined as
the product of "the probability of an incident/ event happening" and "cost/
implications of such an incident/ event". In the case of nuclear power
reactors, whereas the nuclear power industry maintains that the "probability
of an incident/ event happening" is very low, the "cost/ implications of
such an incident/ event" can be humongous, as experienced in nuclear
disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima. Hence, the most innocent question
that can be raised in this context is: whether a nuclear power plant, which
is credibly associated with not inconsiderable "risk" is essential to our
society; certainly in the Indian scenario and even after witnessing
multiple nuclear accidents/ incidents including two nuclear disasters at
Chernobyl and Fukushima.

If certain analysis tools such as 'risk analysis'; 'costs - benefits
analysis'; 'SWOT analysis' etc. are diligently deployed as economic
decision making tools, the true costs to our country from a nuclear power
plant, as opposed to meager benefits will emerge unambiguously. Whereas
the benefit from a nuclear power plant can be a few million units of annual
electrical energy, the overall costs to the local communities and to the
country as a whole can be humongous: huge capital cost, environmental and
health costs, direct & indirect costs associated with any unfortunate
nuclear accident, costs associated with the long term storage of nuclear
wastes, costs associated with nuclear mines and nuclear ore processing
activities etc. As per many credible global estimates, and as per the high
level estimates available in the public domain for the proposed Jaitapur
Nuclear Power plant in Maharastra, the capital cost of a nuclear power
plant can be many times more than the cost of a comparable size power plant
based on alternative technologies such as solar and wind power plants.
Since these technologies are also benign, people friendly,
and environmentally sustainable, there can be no credible reason as to why
these technologies should not be the preferred options to meet the
legitimate electricity demand of our people. Our country also has massive
potential in such renewable energytechnologies, and it is also an official
policy of the govt. to aim to be a global leader in harnessing these
technologies. It is deplorable, henec, that there has been no credible
official policy document so far from our authorities, to clarify why the
nuclear power plants are continued to be built in different parts of the
country despite the associated massive costs and risks to the true welfare
of our people.

It must also be highlighted in this context, that the total nuclear power
capacity in the country is less than 2% of the total power capacity in the
country, and will only become increasingly irrelevant from the operational
perspective of the power sector due to the fact that massive additions are
being planned in other power technology sources, such as solar and wind
power plants, in the next 10-15 years.

In this larger context, my detailed representation dated, 12th September
2019 addressed to the PM (as in the PDF file attached) has
detailed discussions on various associated concerns, and on the vrey
relevance of nuclear power to our country. A diligent consideration of all
the associated concerns should be able to convince NDMA to urgenty
undertake a thorough review of the credible "risk" and massive costs
associated with nuclear power reactors for the country in general, and with
the proposed capacity expansion plan at Kaiga APP in particular.

I am of the considered opinion that in a densely populated and resource
constrained country of ours, NDMA has a much larger and critical role to
honestly try to avoid large scale disasters (certainly the avoidable
technology related disasters such as nuclear reactor accidents), and that
NDMA should not restrict itself just to undertake post-disaster relief
operations. Keeping in proper perspective all these risks, costs and
concerns to our people, it can be credibly stated that the best option to
prevent any associated disaster scenario from a nuclear power plant is to
avoid building a nuclear power plant in the first place. Since there are
many benign and attractive technological options to meet the
electricity needs of our people, NDMA should seriously consider
recommending to the Union govt. not to build additional nuclear power
reactors until all the available alternatives are fully harnessed in the
country; and also to safely decommission all the operating nuclear power
reactors in order to prevent the humongous costs and concerns of any
unfortunate nuclear reactor disaster to our people.

May I request that due diligence in this larger context is undertaken by
NDMA at an early date, and the necessary advice is made to the Union govt.
accordingly?

Regards
Shankar Sharma
Power & Climate Policy Analyst
Letter to PM in pdf subdirectory
A

PM Modi yet to acknowledge 'epic failure' of demonetisation move: Kharge https://www.business-standard.com/article/politics/pm-modi-yet-to-acknowledge-epic-failure-of-demonetisation-move-kharge-122110700209_1.html

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge PM is yet to acknowledge this "epic failure" that led to the "fall of the
economy". "Demonetisation was promised to free the country of black money. But it destroyed businesses and ruined jobs. 6 years after the 'masterstroke' the cash available in public is 72% higher than that in 2016

Read more …

The government had promised to help medical students from the Ukraine after they were evacuated from that war-torn country, but that has not happened.

https://www.rediff.com/getahead/report/afsha-khan-medical-student-ukraine-we-have-lost-10-months-of-our-lives/20221031.htm 

Has the Indian government intervened to help? What is the Medical Council of India's response?

Initially, the government told us they will give us admission in India, but the Medical Council of India said if they gave admissions to Foreign Medical Graduates (FMGs), then it would be unfair for those appearing for NEET and other exams.

We have cracked NEET, that is why we got admission at a medical university. We went to Ukraine only because we didn't want to pay capitation fees.

Many students here pay and get a management seat. We have got more marks, but we couldn't get a government seat and we don't pay (a capitation fee) that's why we left to study abroad.

Now they are asking us to appear for NEET again, go through the old stress and trauma.

NEET is of 720 marks. We are from the open category.

So we FMGs wrote to the MCI saying give exams on our MBBS course because the syllabus is the same worldwide.

The human body is the same, we study the same thing. If I've got 90 percent, then we are very much eligible.

For them it is only NEET, else you are good for nothing.

They kept dilly-dallying, saying 15 days more, and now we have lost 10 months of our lives.

Our course is of six years, then we do specialisation. When will we finish studying? When will we start earning? When will we become professional practitioners?

I called MCI, but they don't answer their phones. After 100 e-mails they replied to one.

They told me, I have two options: Either take a transfer (to another university abroad) or stay back in India and give NEET again.

You can't tell a student who is already in a medical course to give the entrance exam all over again. What is wrong with them?

by Neeta Kolhatkar

31/10/2022

The Future of Work | Oct 19, 2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcFMRRilmhQ
 To understand the Future of Work, we interviewed some of the worlds foremost experts in where business is headed. Learning from these global leaders we can understand where the future of work is headed.

The Future of Work Debunked documentary captures insights from experts worldwide to help understand the state of the future of work. In a post pandemic world. The entire state of "work has changed" and gone digital. Learn from various perspectives collected, where we are headed and what the global economy could look like.

India’s official audit body slams approval of Adani port expansion at Dahej | Ayaskant Das (Adani Watch, Oct 27, 2022) http://sacw.net/article15044.html 
27 October In a report tabled in the Parliament of India on 8 August 2022, CAG has stated that the Adani Group failed to enunciate any mitigation measures for endangered coastal ecology while it expanded the capacity of the Dahej Port in Gujarat in a joint venture with the government-owned oil and gas company Petronet LNG.

https://www.adaniwatch.org/audit_body_headed_by_modi_confidante_slams_approval_of_adani_port_expansion_at_dahej

https://cag.gov.in/en/audit-report/download/116707  Extract from Annexure :

Name of Project: Gujarat Expansion of Adani Petronet (Dahej) Port, Bharuch District by M/s Adani Petronet (Dahej) Port Pvt Ltd
Risk to marine flora and fauna, ecologically vulnerable areas:  The EIA Report envisaged generation of wastewater during concrete casting, cleaning of construction equipment, vehicle garage workshop, oil spills from the operation of construction equipment and Diesel Generating set and the same was stated to affect the marine water quality near the shoreline.

Mitigation measures not envisaged in the EIA: Despite the identification of the impacts, no mitigation measures were enunciated in the EIA report.

Risk to marine flora and fauna, ecologically vulnerable areas:  The population of the intertidal macro benthos indicated relatively high standing stock of macro benthos with moderate group diversity. The EIA further stated that the reclamation would impact nearly 23 ha. of benthic habitat and no recovery of benthic organisms was possible as the habitat would be permanently lost due to reclamation.

Mitigation measures not envisaged in the EIA: No mitigation measures were envisaged for the protection of benthic organisms in the project area.

India needs legal framework for closing mines and power plants by Kundan Pandey on 25 October 2022 https://india.mongabay.com/2022/10/india-needs-legal-framework-for-closing-mines-and-power-plants/  India is on the way to decommissioning thermal power plants (TPP) and disposing of coal mines at a large scale in the coming few years. However, the country has no legal framework on how this transition will take place. Estimates say that due to these measures, millions of people will lose their livelihood, a large amount of land would need closure or repurposing and several toxic materials need to be taken care of... 

The report underlines that the power plant land area is estimated to be equally split between centre, state and private sector power generation companies (GENCOs), at 33% each. As laws and regulations in India do not firmly establish the clean-up and remediation requirements, there is a risk of plant sites being left abandoned. This is especially true if GENCOs are financially stressed and do not have adequate resources to remediate or repurpose/redevelop, says lead author Mandvi Singh from iForest.

There is another catch with the land issues. Forest land is often diverted for TPP development. (see https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/violation-of-development-control-rules-at-mill-land-to-be-probed-cm-fadnavis/)

a two-part study, done by iForest, a Delhi-based, non-profit environmental research organisation. https://iforest.global/research/just-transition-of-coal-based-power-plants-in-india/  Its first part “Just transition of coal-based power plants in India: A policy and regulatory review”.. the second study “Just Transition of Unprofitable and End-of-life mines: A Legal Assessment”

Current laws scant to deal with decommissioning of power plants:  12 Oct 2022,  Paurush Omar CEO of iFOREST Chandra Bhushan said, “If the Ministry of Power's advisory to retire coal-based generation units of over 25 years of age is implemented, then as much as 50,000-60,000 MW capacity will have to retire by 2030."

A just transition entails the complete remediation of the plant site, wage replacement or compensation for the workforce, compensation for the economic loss suffered by dependent communities, and the creation of new economic opportunities and environmental outcomes that will benefit the communities.

"However, our current laws do not ensure a just transition.