Another set of trees are eliminated in Eastern Metropolitan Bypass, Kolkata last week to make a space for overhead Metro Railway. Hundreds of trees, most of them had been planted by Government of West Bengal some years back to make this increasingly polluting city greener, have been cut down for several months now to pave the way for Metro Rail projects. Environmentalists have expressed concern for this several times before.
Photo and news by Shamik Sarkar
The idea of building Lokavidya Ashrams has been in debate for quite some time now among the close associates of Vidya Ashram. Preliminary explorations have been done in Varanasi, Singrauli, Indore, Darbhanga and Hyderabad. These ashrams mainly located in the rural areas are expected to become places that symbolize the emergence of lokavidya philosophy as a social force and also develop into some kind of models of processes that are entirely inclusive in the knowledge domain. In a broad sense the objective of these ashrams could be ‘contribution to the development of a knowledge based society in place of the present capital based society’.
The following is proposed for discussion on the question of thought and activity of the Ashram.
Vidya Ashram, Sarnath
Sent by Lokavidya Jan Andolan
A rebuttal by a French-Indian, to the Manmohan Singh’s claim about Germany takes electricity from Nuclear powered France.
To the Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh
Dear Prime Minister,
As per some press reports (The Hindu May 16, 2012) you told the Parliament on Wednesday 16/05 that, “Germany, which had announced that it would close down all its all nuclear plants by 2022, bought electricity from France, a country that relied heavily on atomic energy.”
But this is just the opposite of the truth!
Since 2004, France has always been a net importer of electricity from Germany. The quantity of electricity purchased by France from Germany every year has been between the equivalent production of one or two nuclear reactors.
2004 : 8,7 TWh, 2005 : 9,6 TWh, 2006 : 5,6 TWh, 2007 : 8,2 TWh, 2008 : 12,6 TWh, 2009 : 11,9 TWh, 2010 : 6,7 Twh
You can find this information here (and use internet translation from French to English if required):
http://observ.nucleaire.free.
And you can further verify the information from the original source (RTE, the French government-owned power distribution company) in the links quoted in the article.
Please note that, although some sources in the previous French government had predicted that Germany would start becoming a net importer of electricity from France after they decided in 2011 to shut down in a planned manner their oldest nuclear plants, this prediction did not happen, and during the last winter, Germany was not only self-sufficient after closing 8 nuclear reactors, but was even capable to help “Atomic France”.
The information is in the same website as above, and the original data can be also verified.
Dear Prime Minister, I don’t know from where you get information on nuclear energy, but from now on, please connect yourself to the internet and check personnaly the facts about nuclear energy. You may object that as Prime Minister you are too busy to get educated on nuclear energy, but in the present situation it is possible that there may be no other way for taking wise decisions on this issue which so crucial, not only for the economy but for the future of all of us on this earth.
It took me 10 minutes of internet search to find the details above!
There are plenty of serious websites, in all languages, from where the information can be cross-checked and verified. Like this one:
http://www.dianuke.org/
Respectfully Yours,
Laurent Fournier
1/22-E Chittaranjan Colony
Jadavpur, Kolkata-32
For the record, this is the press report from where I read your statement in Parliament:
http://www.thehindu.com/news/
Forwarded to by Bharat Mansata
The community kitchen in Nonadanga is on run as bulldozed shanties have been re-erected there once again. Activists and well wishers are helping there to run the kitchen.
Meanwhile, KMDA appointed contractors are rounding the ground in Nonadanga by erecting a brick-wall. A couple of weeks back, slum people protested the sealing of the gateway to market-place. Police arrested 14, including several women and a child. Later they took 11 people in custody, including Bapi Mandal. The rest of the arrested slum dwellers are Pratima Baidya, Minati Sardar, Saraswati Dasi, Ranjita Baidya, Pratima Baij, Manindra Mandal, Purna Mandal, Ujjwal Saha, Sona Bar and Rabin Haldar. The got bail after spending 3 nights in Police Custody. Judge in Alipore court slammed police lawyer for alleging the bustee people as Maoist, saying that, pelting stones at police does not make one Maoist.
A KMDA notification (of last months in 2011) has been found in their website asking for “expression of interest” from corporate bodies for constructing a commercial complex in 80 acres of land in Nonadanga. If it is implemented, it would be an end to even bustee rehabilitation schemes in Nonadanga. The residents of Nonadanga rehabilitation flats, who are being the main residents of Nonadanga, have become skeptical about government motive. Earlier, they were in a mood to oppose newly erected slums in Nonadanga. The mood has changed sufficiently.
West Bengal Government has not admitted of the existence of any such commercial complex scheme. It apparently is doing a publicity campaign rubbishing the news of scheme. At least three rapidly made flex banners have been hoisted surrounding the bustee ground in Nonadanga, which announces that a housing for urban poor will be made here in the ground.
News and Photo by Shamik Sarkar
A critique to a petition to Prime Minister of India regarding unconditional release of arrested persons in Nonadanga, and subsequent responses (received by reply e-mails) have been listed here, chronologically.
From: Manthan Samayiki
Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2012 3:34 PM
To: chomsky2@mit.edu; chomsky@mit.edu
Dear Mr. Noam Chomsky
We are writing you in connection with the petition to Prime Minister of India signed by you and other scientists, academicians and activists regarding the arrest of “Dr. Parthosarothy Roy and others”. It is very heartening to hear you again in the matters of India after Binayak Sen incident, and in the matter of West Bengal after Nandigram incident.
Presently the incident of concern is Nonadanga slum eviction. It is not an isolated event. People are being evicted from their land, forest, and dwellings continuously, in Chattishgarh, Odhisa, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Delhi and other states in India. West Bengal is no exception irrespective of whether in left-rule of past or in non-left rule of present.
Apart from the State sponsored evictions, there is a displacement catalyzed by pro-corporate policy decisions by successive governments in States and Centre. And that is massive one. India’s National Commission on Farmers recently reported that 40% of India’s farmers would like to leave farming; so high is their frustration in the face of mounting costs and ecological degradation. This portends a quarter billion ecological and economic refugees streaming into urban slums.
Victims are resisting these ordeals, and there are many sympathetic individuals and organisations. In most cases, parliamentary oppositions extend their limited support to these resistances, irrespective of their policies.
Recently at least one thousand hawker-shops and a slum had been demolished by Kolkata Metropolitan Developement Authority in the eastern part of Kolkata. Shanties were bulldozed, razed, fired upon, and looted. More than thousand people lost their paltry means of survival. More than hundred people including children, pregnant women and aged persons were made shelter-less. In both cases, victims resisted. While the hawkers who lost their shops got assistance from a few individuals and hawkers’ organisations, the shelter-less people got solidarity from many left wing organisations (Majdoor Kranti Parishad, CPIML-Liberation, Matongini Mahila Samity etc.), little magazines and individuals. Police came down heavily on slum victims’ resistance. On 8th April 2012, 69 people have been arrested. Later, police released 62 and detained 7. A couple of rallies against Nonadanga eviction and for release of arrested persons were prevented by police afterwards.
We feel these actions on behalf of the State were pre-planned, and came along with an orchestrated move by big corporate media. They (Ananda Bazar Patrika, The Statesman, Star Ananda and others) started a propaganda that the resistance was a Maoist activity, and claimed these 7 people were Maoists. This was done to alienate people from this resistance. Labeling people’s resistance to corporate aggression as a Maoist activity has long been a strategy for corporate friendly governments in India. As a matter of fact, the government and media knew very well that many of those arrested are indeed left wing activists, but not members/supporters of Maoists.
On 18th April one of the arrested, Parthosarothy Roy has been granted bail by Alipur Court. Government advocate didn’t plead against the bail plea of him, but objected that of other 6 arrested persons. We feel this action on behalf of State as well as Government of West Bengal is again a pre-planned one. And this act came in tandem with big corporate national media outcry about detention of an ‘eminent scientist’ Parthosarothy Roy, isolating him from others and sometimes from the whole saga of eviction. Sometimes the arrest of Parthosarothy Roy and another University teacher (Ambikesh Mahapatra) in connection with another incident uttered in same breath in media and thereby making undemocratic behaviour by Government the issue and putting aside the issue of Nonadanga eviction.
An Urgent Appeal to the Conscience of Nation on Koodankula
Dear Fellow Citizens of India,
On the occasion of our Parliament, the pinnacle of democratic governance, celebrating its 60th anniversary, our hard earned democracy is being ruthlessly repressed and violently suppressed by the State. Within the accelerated race towards ‘destructive development’ and the generation of nuclear power to fuel such ‘development,’ entirely peaceful mass protests voicing people’s legitimate dissent are brutally put down. The common man, woman and child are unheard. In utter desperation, people at large are surrendering their ‘Voter ID cards,’ the ultimate symbol of ‘people’s power,’ which is the essence of any genuine democracy. Can there be a more ominous way to dissent?
Four private security personnel of Mahabir Colliery, Kunastaria Area, ECL are in indefinite hunger strike for 13 days in front of the gate of the Chief General manager of Kunastaria area for the demand of reinstatement. Four private security personnel of Mahabir colliery have been retrenched from their job on 1th April, 2012. One, Dipak Chakrabarty is working for 5 yrars, one, Sirajul MD and Upendar Sow are working for one and half years, Mansur Ansari is working for three years as contractual security persons. The security persons are fixed for this work and the private security agencies are changing year by year. These four were working at previous private security agency and they have PF account number. They also received payment for the month of Sep, 2011 to Dec. 2011 at Bank from ECL directly when fake private security agency was blacklisted for fake license from DGR. They also were working for three months 12 days at new private security agency, Uttarakhand Purv Sainik Kalyan Nigam Limited from 1st January, 2012. On 13th April manager has restricted to make attendance of the above four without showing any reason.
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Excerpts from a letter to West Bengal Human Rights Commissions by Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR)
Shri Kamalesh Mahato, Hons in History is a well known activist of the democratic students movement and is a leading figure in the movement for students’ democratic rights in college union elections as the Secretary of the Jharkhand Students Federation (JSF). For this he was being continually threatened by the ruling TMC activists and was attacked several times in the past one year.
His house was also attacked and ransacked by the police-TMC sponsored armed militia known as ‘Bhairab Bahini’. Shri Mahato was picked up at Dahijuri by the police from a trekker while he was traveling home on 27 April, 2012. He was produced in the Jhargram Court on 28 April 2012, claiming that he was ‘arrested from the jungles’ with a ‘gun’.
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Idinthakarai, May 9, 2012
Curfew orders have just been promulgated in our area once again right after our planning meetings with the youth, women, community elders and the Idinthakarai village committee on May 8, 2012. Thousands of police personnel are being posted in and around Koodankulam in haste. We get reliable tips that the authorities are planning to clamp down our protest and arrest all of us, possibly tonight. Such a pre-dawn operation that the government usually does could be bloody as thousands of men, women and children from several villages are sleeping around the Church at Idinthakarai.
This action may be planned to cover up a recent accident at the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP). It is said that two young men, Sivakumar and Esakkimuthu, were injured on May 4 in an alleged blast at KKNPP and they were admitted in a private hospital at Anjugramam. Dr. Tamilarasu who treated the men confirmed the accident according to a newspaper report (The Indian Express, May 8, 2012). One of the young men’s fathers talked to the Puthiya Thalaimurai television on May 8, 2012 that he was not even allowed to see his son.
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Idinthakarai
May 7, 2012
“Let’s leave an Earth where our children and grandchildren can all play without worries.”
- Yoko Kataoka, a retired baker from Japan
At 3 PM on May 6, 2012, the Struggle Committee, the community elders, women and youth met at the Committee Room near the St. Lourdes Church at Idinthakarai.
After long deliberations and discussions, we decided to return all of our Voter ID cards on May 8, 2012 protesting against the callous attitude of the Government of India and the Government of Tamil Nadu. When they do not respect the hunger strikers’ lives and our people’s interests, we do not want to vote for these selfish and anti-people mainstream politicians and political parties. We intend to return the cards to the Radhapuram Tahsildar (county administrator).
We request all our supporters in Tamil Nadu and the rest of India to return their Voter IDs to the local Tahsildar and express their opposition to the governments and show their solidarity with our campaign. Indians living abroad can return their Voter IDs to the Indian embassies in their respective countries.
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Great people's resistance by a fishing community in southernmost districts of India, against mighty Nuke menace.