People and Organisations

From:
Himanshu Thakkar
South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers & People,
c/o 86-D, AD block, Shalimar Bagh,
Delhi,

To: Shri Jairam Ramesh
Union Minister of State for Env and Forests (IC), New Delhi

Respected Sir,

I have just seen your letter dated Aug 18, 2010 to Orissa Chief Minister on the aboves subject, uploaded yesterday on MEF website.

1. Your letter says that the Forest Clearance has been given to the Polavaram Project on July 28, 2010 is subject to the condition, "... no submergence and displacement of people including STs take place in Orissa and Chhattisgarh...". However, this condition is in complete contradiction with the environment clearance given by your ministry on Oct 25, 2005, which says in para 2, "Total 1,93,35 persons are likely to be affected by this project, out of that 1,75,275 persons in Andhra Pradesh and 6,316 persons from Orissa and 11,766 are from Chattisgarh." It is clear the condition of no submergence and displacement on Orissa and Chhattisgarh, stated in your letter, in the Tribal Development Ministry's condition, and in the forest clearance letter is in complete contradiction with the environment clearance given by you. One of them have to be cancelled due to this contradiction, we would like to know, which one would be cancelled.

The legislation is likely to be in the form of an upgrade to the AP Water Land and Trees Act (WALTA).

Click here for the current Act 

Attached are two working documents that are being used to frame the discussion for the new regulations.

PLEASE NOTE: These in no way represent final or official positions of the AP Government or other organisations and are not to be taken as such.

Midnight, August 6, 2010: "Link, wake up!  Water is coming in from the roof!"  My mother and I were in Leh, Ladakh, staying at "Eco-Homestay," the house of Mr. Sonam Gyatso and family, in Lower Sankar.  The house was made in a hybrid of traditional and modern construction techniques: the main hall in the house was concrete, while rooms surrounding it were made of sun-dried mud bricks, and roofed with Poplar beams, a mesh of willow branches, and a thick pad of fine clay-like mud.  The house incorporated passive solar building techniques, such as a direct-gain room, and a Trombe wall, and had solar-powered lighting.  It had been raining since evening, and by midnight the clay roof was saturated and began to leak.  

We were in Leh for the express purpose of meeting with Helena Norberg-Hodge, the founder of the International Society for Ecology and Culture, co-founder of the International Forum on Globalization, founder of the Ladakh Ecological Development Group, and founder of the Women's Alliance, Ladakh.  We had learned of her online, seeing an article of hers in CounterCurrents.org, and watching her video "Ancient Futures."  She is the only person who has critically witnessed the "development" of Ladakh, from complete self-sufficiency in an exceedingly fragile eco-system, to the disaster under which it writhes today.  She has seen how "development" pulls people into a money economy, increases the distance between production and consumption,  brings reliance on fossil fuels (especially apparent in Leh where fuel and commodities are trucked in over a hazardous two-day journey from lower altitudes), results in urbanization and rural-urban migration, and brings psychological impoverishment to the people it is inflicted upon.  For 35 years, she has been working to bring safe, stable, and ecologically sound development to the region through her organizations.  Her work today, no longer limited to Ladakh, is focussed on spreading economic literacy among people throughout the planet, educating about the deeper impacts of globalization and today's consumer mono-culture.  Garnered from her years of observation and research, she has an important message for humanity today, which is what prompted us to go and meet her.

The recent UN General Assembly Resolution on declaring water and sanitation as human right is or can be a powerful impetus to securing universal access to water and sanitation for people everywhere. This is the most recent in a string of initiatives to advance the provision of these essential services. Beginning with the UN Decade of Water in the eighties, then the declaration of the Millennium Development Goals, and later the adoption of General Statement 15 by the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations in 2002 the recognition of the fundamental importance of water (and more recently sanitation) to life, health and well being has been accepted at the international level. In India, while there is no specific mention of the right to water in the Constitution, the Supreme Court in its judgement(s)has upheld this as part of the right to life. Some organizations are working to make this a fundamental right, to remove any ambiguity.

Boy drinking water from handpump in Guna, Madhya Pradesh - Handpumps and wells are still one of the major source of drinking water in India.

Photo credits: Anil Gulati