Dear Kavita ,
I agree with your comments . Theoretically we all
support Industrialization and development The main issue is
development and industrialization how and for who ??????
How is it to be worked out on the ground . What about the
issues of livelihood , public revenues and the environment of
preservation of water tables with water poised to be a scarce
resource in several regions .
POSCO is not an issue of a Korean Company , the
prominent stakeholders in this project whose names
are concealed , are a part of a global alliance of rapacious
and predatory investment, NOT FOR DEVELOPMENT
OF THE PEOPLE OR THE COUNTRY . LARGE PARTS
OF THE COUNTRY WILL BE LEFT LIKE BELLARY
WITH HUGE DUG OUTS IN HILLS AND VALLEYS EVEN
AS THOSE WHO LIVE OFF THIS ACTIVITY LIVE IN
GATED COMMUNITIES WITH MANICURED GARDENS
AND A LAWN PATCH .
The Neoliberal and Neofascist protagonists of the present
paradigm of development which is resulting in uprising all
over the world ( Israel has joined the Arab and European
Unrest ) and spreading westward across the Atlantic and
Eastwards to South Asia , desire that development and
industrialization should translate into immediate profits;
therefore targeted are energy and mineral resources, real
estate, privatized telecom spectrum, OR PRIVATIZATION
of existing industry and even water resources are sought
to be taken over etc etc ............
The earlier argument that Industrialization meant jobs has
now been abandoned as even Azim Premji admitted in
a panel discussion on BBC some months ago that major
hitech Private Sector industries were incapable of providing
the requisiteemployment.
In the recent cabinet committee meeting on the issue
of Food Security one of the Cabinet Ministers stated ( this
was revealed to the press later ) that increasing food production
was also vital . You have emphasized this correctly . How do
we improve food security with indiscriminate shrinkage of
agricultural land holdings and a denuded forest environment .
Even the issue of increased storage capacity for food grains
is not being addressed .
Apart from the fact that what is at stake are livelihoods,
homesteads , basic security of the peasantry and agricultural
livelihood meager yet guaranteed in the season and grazing
rights. The compensation is wholly inadequate a complete
farce .None of the political parties debating this measure
represent the interests of the tribal people , the small peasantry
or the Dalits or those in traditional occupations such as those
with forest rights and those in the fishing industry.
You have seen the violence even breaking out in the Punjab .
What is happening is that the small peasantry and the tribal people,
those with traditional livelihood and forest rights including
fisherfok are fast joining the ranks of the pauperized daily
wage labourers , as the concept of permanent livelihood
in the Industrial Sector has all been destroyed including
with the concept of contract labourers who remain on
contract for years on end in the same Industry .
>From one State to the other power plants are established
with existing Electricity Boards privatized , there is no
White Paper on power , or industrialization or agriculture,
or irrigation or livelihood . Except for the excellent report on the
unorganized sector by Arjun Sengupta and the report
of the Ministry of Rural Development and the Special
Committee report on the unrest in the Tribal regions ,
which exposed the trajectory of development .......WHERE
IS THE PERSPECTIVE ON THE GENERATION OF
EMPLOYMENT ??????????
The state of the US economy has exposed the much
touted myth than any economy can survive by
providing the bulk of its employment opportunities
in the Service Sector .Every major sector in which
the heavy weights have recently made investments
have received huge subsidies whether Civil Aviation
or Telecom or Oil and Gas etc etc with existing resources
of the country handed over for a pittance all in the name
of development .
What exactly are the revenues received from privatized
mineral , oil , gas and spectrum resources to take a few areas alone.
Those in the know who have worked in the State Sector
in similar fields have all the figures . It is revenues from
profitable sectors and taxes imposed which gives us the resources
for a just share of development of the working people as a whole .
It is a scandal !!!!!!!!
By the way private schools are declining to have
even 25% children from the disinherited of society.
Even on energy resources what did Dr. Ambedkar
conceive of a Minister for Power the report is
worth reading and what have they done .
If our Banks had not been nationalized the situation
in the financial sector would have been even worse,
except that mere State control without the policies
leaves even this sector at the mercy of the oligarchy .
The criticism used to be made that ideology should
not dictate economic policy , I'm glad that I can
see from country to country how ideology of
the so called " Free Market " has devasted
economies !!!!!! What has happened to the runaway
financialization of economies it is a narrative of
epic proportions still unfolding .
It was ironical the response of the Left Front government
who viewed the small peasantry not as allies but with
hostility, that in a country where the peasantry and rural
proletariat of agricultural workers still constitute a major
section of the population. They forgot that in the
years of a major world war unleashed in Europe in one
country the policy urgently articulated was :
LAND , PEACE AND BREAD .
The real issue remains what kind of Industry and
development how and for whom ??????
By the way Dr. Binayak Sen should set up
a Commission on Public Health For Rural
& Urban India .Just like the government appointed
Commissions /Missions there must be such Commissions
/Missions for working people with the best in the field
those committed to a Civilized 21st Century India
WITH JUSTICE FOR ALL ,to work as expert groups
and these recommendations should form the basis for
an alternative Manifesto for production , development,
distribution and all areas of human development ,
not for regress but for all roundprogress so that we can
really EMERGE from this criminal , feudal and medieval
mindset of plundering public resources to enrich ourselves .
A fair and reasonable share of profit in sectors , but not
loot and plunder which is presently the name of the game!!!!
Niloufer Bhagwat
----- Original Message -----
From: Kavita Krishnan
To: ANN
Sent: Tuesday, August 02, 2011 9:05 PM
Subject: [ANN:4487] CPI(ML) on the new LARR Bill
Scrap LARR Bill 2011 –
Protect Agricultural Land By All Means
Jairam Ramesh, the UPA government’s Minister of Rural Development, has come
up with a draft Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill that
will replace the notorious Land Acquisition Act, 1894. The draft bill clearly
seeks to legalise and intensify the ongoing corporate land-grab campaign in the
country even as it talks about addressing “the concerns of farmers and those
whose livelihoods are dependent on the land being acquired”.
Before being brought to the rural development ministry, Jairam Ramesh was in
charge of the forest ministry where his greatest role was to give a green
signal to the POSCO project in Odisha which seeks to acquire 4,000 acres of
land in flagrant violation of the Forest Rights Act, 2006. And now as the
Minister of Rural Development he has declared a veritable war on agricultural
land and rural livelihood in the name of urbanization, industrialization and
infrastructure development.
The new bill gives complete freedom to all kinds of private companies to
purchase land without even bothering about seeking any consent of concerned
land-owners. The provision of seeking and obtaining the consent of “at least 80
per cent of the affected families” applies only when land is acquired by the
government either for “immediate and declared use by private companies” or
“with the ultimate intent of transferring it for the use of private companies”.
And the government too is free from the consent clause when it acquires land
for its own use whether for erecting dams, setting up nuclear plants, building
military bases or constructing any project whatsoever.
The bill talks of carrying out social impact assessments (where acquired land
exceeds 100 acres) and keeping irrigated, multi-crop land outside the purview
of land acquisition, but only when land is acquired by the government. Who will
determine whether some land is multi-crop or not? We have seen in the case of
Singur how multi-cropped land was declared as mono-crop by the government. The
bill promises compliance with existing land-related laws like PESA Act, 1996 or
Forest Rights Act, 2006, or the land transfer acts in Schedule V
(tribal-majority) areas. But the record of implementation of these two acts is
marked by extensive violation as can be seen on the ground in states like
Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat or Maharashtra. In
Odisha, the central and state governments are bent upon evicting as many as
twelve villages to hand over 4,000 acres of land to the South Korean steel
giant POSCO even as villagers are insisting on their land rights under the
Forest Rights Act, 2006.
As for the Rehabilitation and Resettlement provisions of the bill, the
corporate buyers will have to abide by them only when the size of the land
acquired equals or exceeds 100 acres. The R&R provisions are also a big sham.
It is common knowledge that sale deeds always hugely understate the market
value of land and the new bill promises compensation to land-losers as
multiples of average sale deed rate in the area. Apart from one-time
compensation, the bill does promise annuity payment for twenty years, but an
annuity of Rs. 2000 per month per affected family can hardly provide any
meaningful assured income to a family that loses its all. There is talk of
providing ‘mandatory employment’ for one person in every affected family, but
if employment cannot be provided, a compensation of only Rs 200,000 will do! In
other words, the UPA government’s ‘generous’ rehabilitation and resettlement
package assesses agricultural income at Rs 2,000 per month and the value of
employment at Rs. 200,000!
Global capitalism today is passing through bouts of severe recession. Many
manufacturing sectors the world over are in deep crisis. Real estate and
construction, mining and commercial agriculture (dedicated more to bio-fuel and
horticulture than food production) remain the few most lucrative sectors in
these recessionary times. No wonder then that capital is going all out to grab
more and more land – the gateway to assured windfall gains in times of acute
uncertainty and prolonged recession. This is the twenty-first century version
of the predatory colonial occupation and brutal primitive accumulation of early
capitalism.
In the name of repealing the land acquisition act of the colonial era, the
Indian state has now taken upon itself the task of spearheading and serving
global capitalism’s war on Indian land and Indian agriculture. The proposed
LARR Bill 2011 is nothing but a manifesto of this war couched in deceptive
phrases like ‘informed consent’, ‘rehabilitation and resettlement’, and
‘partnership in development’. Even where the state will not be directly
involved in acquisition, the peasantry and landless labourers will be left at
the mercy of unmitigated corporate coercion, unleashed by a whole network of
intermediaries and facilitated by a pro-corporate state and its administration.
Food security was a key promise of the Congress and the UPA in the last Lok
Sabha elections. Today the notion of food security has been reduced to monthly
supply of 35 kg foodgrains to families earning less than Rs. 15 per day in
rural areas and less than Rs. 20 in urban areas. This is a complete mockery of
any meaningful notion of food security for a country like India. If food
security has to guarantee the nutritional requirements of 1.2 billion Indians,
India needs to produce much more food, and this in turn needs more land for
agriculture. There can be no public purpose which is bigger than this.
Defending agricultural land from the clutches of capital and its state is
therefore the greatest task today of every patriotic and democratic Indian.
Not acquisition, but protection of agricultural and forest land by all means is
the cry of democracy.
(Editorial of the CPI(ML) Liberation's weekly publication, ML Update, dated 2
August- 8 August 2011).
--
Kavita Krishnan
9560756628
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