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EIA Policy 2020
From Janes Arputharaj: A signatory to the Stockholm Declaration (1972) on Environment, India enacted laws to control water (1974) and air (1981) pollution soon after. But it was only after the Bhopal gas leak disaster in 1984 that the country legislated an umbrella Act for environmental protection in 1986.
Under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, India notified its first EIA norms in 1994, setting in place a legal framework for regulating activities that access, utilise, and affect (pollute) natural resources. Every development project has been required to go through the EIA process for obtaining prior environmental clearance ever since.
The 1994 EIA notification was replaced with a modified draft in 2006 and now the draft EIA 2020.
Hundreds of projects - coal mining in the Dehing Patkai rainforest, Assam, doubling of railway line in the largest protected area in Goa, and the diversion of 778 acres of biodiversity rich Rajaji National Park, Uttarakhand, to create facilities for the Kumbh Mela festival 2021at Haridwar - which threaten the environment and our precious natural resources were cleared in unseemly haste, after shoddy and superficial scrutiny, disregarding comprehensive long term impact analysis. Sixty-three former civil servants have urged the withdrawal of EIA and replace it with a more sensitive policy, which is people and habitat friendly. #withdraweia To make the Government listen, please write to
Joe Regis: EIA2020 is a regressive departure from its 2006 version. It is clearly an attempt to weaken environmental regulation and silence the affected communities. It is industries-friendly and seems to subvert the balance between sustainable development and environment protection. The post-facto clearance and negligible public participation with primary stakeholders are very contentious. We don’t need more man-made disasters. The present EIA draft of 2020 must be challenged tooth and nail.
The Perception that reality fits into standard ideological narratives, seems to be undermining appreciation of layered approach to change - that of transition,
Further it tends to limit debates and divides into extremes and inimicalness of binaries.
Rajni recently wrote https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/anti-caa-protest-nrc-the-right-to-differ-6474776/
Cancel Culture: The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away. We refuse any false choice between justice and freedom, which cannot exist without each other. As writers we need a culture that leaves us room for experimentation, risk taking, and even mistakes. We need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement without dire professional consequences. If we won’t defend the very thing on which our work depends, we shouldn’t expect the public or the state to defend it for us.: https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/
When appeals to academic freedom and due process are raised in all these cases, the response from the...right has echoed the “no platform” rhetoric from the Left, arguing that criticism of the .. government is hate speech and thus should not be protected . They also copy the liberal-left’s demand for “stay in your lane” identitarian deference (in which only the oppressed group concerned may speak to an issue), asserting that.. non-oppressed (ed) cannot comprehend oppressed (ed) suffering and so must shut up and listen...
There are those who deny that the current chilly climate amounts to censorship, as censorship is only something that can be imposed by the state. Some concede that it is also something that elites can impose. But both positions deny that censorship is something that the crowd can impose...
One might expect the liberal-left to be among the strongest defenders of free speech at work, and of the right of workers to say what they wish, but too many have enthusiastically called upon employers to fire workers for alleged reactionary speech outside of the workplace, in effect cheering on at-will termination of employment, and embraced the multibillion-dollar human resources department–organized and employer-supervised “sensitivity training” industry, imposing top-down workshops, where workers are petrified they might say the wrong thing...
Of course, intragroup illiberalism is something common to all humans rather than unique to the Left. We also see similar group dynamics when we explore historical events not directed by our political camp.
-https://jacobinmag.com/2020/07/cancel-culture-harpers-letter-free-speech
Posts 10/5/20 remedies?
Given establishment and right wing tactics, what we need is an entire campaign and solidarity system to get over 'fear' and intimidation. For this we need to learn from the womens' and peace movement, where we start a trend of linked up solidarity groups, which dont restrict themselves to politics, and also the personal, the financial and more importantly the educational. Most of the students fear for their academic career. I think between us we have the resources to help people who are victimised get better options. I remember in the 70s there was so much peer pressure to get to the streets, and those who clung to their courses were derided in the political circles. I dont wish that for our young braves! Many of the people who joined in at the gateway, perhaps feel abandoned. Some of them feel that if they join, they will be labeled, that many of our organisations seem very narrow minded and cannot accommodate differing views etc.
If we belief in civil liberties, dont we own some obligation to the young generation to feel free to join in, and stay at the periphery, have different views.?
Please see my above posts. I was wondering if some of you young people, and movements, could not start a draft open letter in the form of a wiki, to talk about what issues they have with traditional organisations.. at different levels.. Some of them could be just the nature of activities which are privileged in these cricles...
Binary
Bureaucrat: Expert
Post by Rajni: ‘Govt relying on bureaucrats, not epidemiologists’: Top health experts slam Covid handling
Politician: Bureacrat
Encounters
Many of us tend to glorify encounter killings, mainly because due process is lengthy, and sometimes porous, but this interview with a ex-cop shows how it perhaps make the problem deeper and "covers-up" the bigger malaise ..
Bala - 14 july 2020 -We have been witness to these encounter killing in Maharashtra. Policemen who committed these murders were treated as local heroes, with a running tally on how many they killed. Don't remember too much of a hue and cry from civil society re rights of these alleged criminals. And due process! As long as these victims came from an underclass, it was largely deemed to be ok. Or what they deserved. Or, nothing to do with us!
Now, with PLU facing the trauma of jail, prolonged trials, trumped up charges, lack of affordable legal representation, etc., things may change. I am sure Chidambaram et all have a slightly more realistic view of our criminal justice system. The reluctance of British and other courts to repatriate Indians for trials in India, largely because of our prison conditions, tells its own story.
My own wish is to first start with egging the system follows its own rules - all vacancies of all judges at every level to be filled up immediately, and to follow the Prison Act / Jail Manual strictly.
A major but easy change I would like, is to allow plea bargaining - a procedure by which I understand about two-thirds of the cases in the US are resolved. Not perfect, but seriously better than what we have. And of course an acceptance that bail is the rule, and jail the exception. And we have the technology to track people on bail.
https://m.thewire.in/article/rights/chained-muse-notes-from-prison-varavara-rao-bhima-koregaon
https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/varavara-rao-politics-jail-coronavirus-6510434/
https://youtu.be/7Dn2oenugAc brief profile of five rights activists arrested in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence case:
PRAKASH SINGH — former DG of UP police and the man who won a landmark judgement — talks about Encounters, CustodialDeaths, corruption & communalisation in the police. and on Yogi Adityanath, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati to pressures he personally faced. Youtube Channel : Enquiry
Way back in the late 70s, we had a report by Justice V M Tarkunde, titled "Encounter are Murders" - today we have left wing activists incarcerated under UAPA, and kept in conditions which are likely to result in their death. Take the case of poet Vara Vara Rao: . According to his family he is hallucinating, unable to walk, go to the toilet and even brush his teeth on his own. Repeated applications for bail and for external medical assistance have been denied to him by the courts over the two years based on objections of the public prosecutor and assurances of provision of adequate care at the jail. Poet Varavara Rao shifted to JJ hospital in Mumbai. Rao family along with several writers and activists had asked the Maharashtra government to immediately shift the ailing revolutionary.
The last time round when he was at JJ, he was prematurely sent back to jail, only because his bail petition was to come up for hearing.. So it seems more like a system response, when the system is not able to get its way.
Just see the vicousness with which there is a targetting of "Urban Naxals" . The Bhima Koregain case. It is not just to send a chilling message. It is to undermine rule of law..