Citizens' Rights and Duties

Sanskriti Pratishthan has established the coveted Sanskriti awards and fellowships for young talent in different fields.

The Prabha Dutt Fellowship in Journalism encourages young women who wish to investigate and research on any topic of contemporary relevance. This fellowship will be given every year. The fellow may work on a book or monograph for subsequent publication within the given time frame.

The purpose of the Fellowship is to encourage young mid career women journalists to develop their potential by pursuing meaningful projects without having to work under the pressures of short deadlines. The Fellowship carries a grant of Rs 1,00,000 including travel expenses.The work can be executed in Hindi, English or any regional language.

 Residents of L&T South City and Brigade Millenium in JP Nagar, Bangalore formed a citizen initiative to save the neighbouring Puttenahalli Lake from becoming a dumping ground for construction debris and waste. A team from India Water Portal visited the lake in June 2011 to see the progress and challenges faced by such citizen initiatives.

What are the laws governing acquisition? What is the social impact of a development-at-all-costs policy? Can those who owned and lived off the land have a stake in its development?

  The law pertaining to coastal spaces – the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification, 1991 specifically decides what people can and cannot do on the coastal stretches of the country.

 This would be in addition to the other measures approved by the Cabinet on 19th November, 2009 under the special package for implementing drought mitigation strategies in Bundelkhand.

Besides its own impact, port development is often accompanied by other activities such as the location of industries, power plants, railway lines, highways, hotels, SEZs, residential complexes, etc., that have multiple detrimental impacts – environmental, social and erosion related.

Marine-coastal ecosystems and coastal communities are poorly represented in the public debates on India’s social and environmental problems. Coastal and marine ecosystems are the backbone of a fisheries economy that supports livelihoods of millions directly and several more indirectly.

Community groups such as fishers and other coastal populations enjoyed customary or traditional rights to exploit resources and to fish in adjacent coastal areas. The current state of fisheries finds its genesis in the modernization programme introduced by the Government of India to ‘develop’ the sector with the focus for development through the maximisation of production. In the late 1970s, modern fishing methods threatened the livelihoods of these communities and coastal ecosystems. Mechanised craft and gear, principally trawlers with bottom trawling gear, severely impacted fishing stocks.

Fisherfolk in India have struggled for greater control over the seas and resource management, struggles which have been directed both inward as well as against the State. The conflict over the coastal space is mostly between fishing communities and other new users and interest groups. Access to coastal resources is now being thrown open to all, giving a new meaning to the idea of ‘coastal commons’. There are very clear linkages between the rights to the coast and the right to fish as without the former, the latter will be difficult to operationalise and eventually rendered meaningless.

The Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification, 1991 has been the only legislation with some mention and reference to customary rights of fishing communities on land in the coastal zone. However, it did not contain provisions and details to ascertain or establish these rights. Despite this, fishing communities have seen the CRZ in its 1991 form as an instrument in their favour as it regulates all activities that can potentially impact the coast and community livelihoods. However, the twenty one odd amendments to the CRZ Notification were mostly in favour of development pressures and special interest lobbies.

This backdrop forms the driving force behind this report which seeks to argue a case for according coastal land rights to fishing communities.

Article courtesy: CGNet Swara

Kelo dam hunger strike: 7 more farmers shifted to hospital
Rajesh Tripathi is reporting from continuing hunger strike of farmers from Kelo dam site in Raigarh district of Chhattisgarh. He says 7 more farmers have now been shifted to hospital. 4 were shifted before in last 2 days.

Introduction