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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Activists, Academics Write Open Letter to PM Modi on the Drought

Activists, Academics Write Open Letter to PM Modi on the Drought

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published Published on Apr 27, 2016   modified Modified on Apr 27, 2016
-TheWire.in

According to the central government’s statement to the Supreme Court last week, a third of the India’s districts are currently facing a severe drought. This means that at least 33 crore Indians are affected by ongoing the crisis.

Expressing their deep concern on the issue and the impact it is having on rural populations of the country, and asking that the government take appropriate relief measures immediately, more than 150 academics and activists have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Dear Mr Prime Minister,

We wish to convey our deep collective anxiety about the enormous suffering of the rural poor in large parts of India’s countryside as they are battling drought, often for the second or even third consecutive year. In areas where rains have failed, farmers who depend mainly on rainwater to irrigate their crops have no or very low crop yields. Those who rely on irrigation are also affected, with groundwater sinking and streams and reservoirs drying up. All this adds to chronic agrarian distress reflected in a massive slowdown in agricultural growth during the last few years, with no imminent signs of recovery.

The consequence of this adversity is massive distress movement of populations, causing broken childhoods, interrupted education, life in camps, city pavements or crowded shanties. Add to this the old and the infirm who are left behind, to beg for food or just quietly die. The cattle for whom there is no fodder, sold at distress prices or just abandoned to fend for themselves. And the drying up even of sources of water to drink.

However, the response of central and state administrations to looming drought is sadly listless, lacking in both urgency and compassion. The scale of MGNREGA works is way below what is required and wages often remain unpaid for months. Even more gravely, the central and state governments are doing far too little to implement the National Food Security Act, three years after it came into force. Had the Act been in place, more than 80% of rural households in the poorer states would be able to secure about half of their monthly cereal requirements almost free of cost. In a drought situation food security entitlements should be made universal.

In addition, we find no plans in most of the drought-hit regions for feeding the destitute, especially old persons left behind when families migrate, children without care-givers, the disabled and other vulnerable groups. ICDS centres could have been upgraded to supply emergency feeding to the destitute during the drought, but this has not happened. Under Supreme Court orders, school meals should be served on all days, including holidays, in drought-affected areas, but this is rarely the case. Arrangements to augment drinking water supply, including ensuring that marginalised hamlets have functioning tube-wells and transporting water where necessary, are awfully inadequate. There are also few attempts to create fodder banks and cattle camps. Most of these measures used to be a routine part of state response to drought, and were often undertaken with a great sense of urgency, but they are barely being considered today.

The highest priority of the central government in a drought situation should be to ensure the creation of millions of additional person-days of work in all affected villages. Instead, the government has not even allocated enough funds this year to sustain the level of employment generated last year – 233 crore person-days according to official data. At current levels of expenditure per person-day, this would cost well over 50,000 crore rupees. Yet the central government has allocated just 38,500 crore rupees to MGNREGA this year, of which more than 12,000 crore rupees are required to clear pending liabilities. These liabilities only prove the distress crores of workers have been put through because of wages left unpaid for months at a time. Unemployment allowance and mandatory compensation for delayed wage payments are also not paid, citing “insufficient funds”, resulting in a failure of the Act, and its legal safeguards. Most alarming today, is that instead of expanding, MGNREGA is all set to contract in this critical drought year, unless financial allocations are vastly expanded.

The enormous distress – of food, drinking water, work, fodder for animals, and dignity – of hundred of millions is utterly unacceptable. We demand that the central government under your leadership acknowledges these failures and makes rapid amends, by implementing all the traditional relief measures as well as by ensuring full implementation of the National Food Security Act 2013 and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 in letter and spirit.

Signed –

    Aruna Roy, senior activist, Rajasthan
    Jean Dreze, Economist
    Jayati Ghosh, Economist
    Harsh Mander, Activist, Writer
    Satish Deshpande, Academic, Sociologist
    Deep Joshi, senior environmentalist and water activist
    Prabhat Patnaik, Professor Emeritus, Economist, Senior academician
    Amit Bhaduri, Professor Emeritus, Senior Economist
    Vijay Vyas, Professor Emeritus, Senior Economist
    Utsa Patnaik, Professor and Senior Economist
    Arundhati Roy, Writer
    Admiral Ramdas, former Chief of Naval Staff
    Lalita Ramdas, activist, Maharashtra
    Naseeruddin Shah, Actor
    Brinda Karat, Women’s leader, Politician
    Medha Patkar, Activist, politician, women’s leader
    Shabana Azmi, Actor
    Kavitha Kuruganti, Activist, leader of farmer’s groups
    Nivedita Menon, Academic
    Nandita Das, actor
    Mukul Kesavan, writer
    Leela Samson, dancer
    Ashok Vajpeyi, writer
    Justice Rajinder Sachar, senior jurist
    Syeda Hameed, women’s leader, former member Planning Commission
    Shyam Benegal, filmmaker
    Himanshu Thakkar, environmentalist
    Wajahat Habibullah, former Chief Information Commissioner
    Deepak Sandhu, former Chief Information Commissioner
    Shailesh Gandhi, former Central Information Commissioner
    Uma Chakravarty, historian
    Ritwick Dutta, environmental legal activist
    Trilochan Shastry, academic
    Jagdeep Chhokar, academic
    Advocate Vrinda Grover
    Nandini Sundar, Sociologist
    Shekhar Singh, RTI activist
    Amar Kanwar, filmmaker
    Prof C.P.Chandrasekhar, labour economist
    Dilip Simeon, academic
    Prithvi Sharma, activist, also on behalf of ICAN
    Maja Daruwala, senior human rights activist
    Mathew Cherian, Helpage
    M. Krishna, Musician, Writer
    Anand Patwardhan, filmmaker
    Lalit Mathur, former civil servant
    Kavita Srivastava, PUCL, Rajasthan
    Anjali Bhardwaj, RTI activist
    Achin Vinayak, academic and activist, Delhi
    Ram Rehman, photographer
    Pamela Philipose, journalist
    A.Gandhi , academic
    Rita Anand, senior journalist
    Nirmala Lakshman, senior journalist
    Tripurari Sharma, Drama and Theater, playright
    Harsh Sethi, writer
    Madhu Bhaduri, former diplomat
    Sharmila Tagore, Actor
    Amitabh Mukhopadhyay, former auditor, CAG
    Mridula Mukherjee, historian
    Aditya Mukherjee, historian
    Amita Baviskar, academic
    Arundhati Dhuru, activist, UP
    Kavita Krishnan, activist, leader of women’s groups
    Reetika Khera, Economist
    Sanjay Kak, filmmaker
    Baba Adhav, labour leader
    Achyut Das, activist, Odisha
    Ajit Ranade, economist
    Kalpana Kannabiran, sociologist, lawyer
    Vasanth Kannabiran, teacher and activist, Andhra
    Paul Divakar, dalit activist
    Abha Sur, writer, academic
    Rajni Bakshi, writer
    Ravi Chopra, activist, Uttarakhand
    Neelabh Mishra, writer
    Poornima Chikarmane, Pune
    Zoya Hasan , academic, political scientist
    Shabnam Hashmi, activist
    Rebecca John, academic
    Anandalakshmy, academic
    Smita Gupta, Economist, Head of economic cell, AIDWA
    Praveen Jha, Economist
    Gautam Navlakha, senior activist
    Venkatesh Nayak, RTI activist
    Seema Mustafa, journalist, editor, The Citizen
    Bela Bhatia, academic
    Bezwada Wilson, senior activist
    Haragopal, academic
    Sumit Chakravarty, Editor, Mainstream
    Gargi Chakravarty, Women’s activist
    Patricia Uberoi
    Kamal Chenoy, senior academic
    Janaki Nair, academic
    Vipul Mudgal, journalist
    Deepa Sinha, Right to Food activist
    Himanshu, activist
    Uma Pillai, former civil servant
    Nikhil Dey, activist, Rajasthan
    N.Rath, academic
    Abey George,academic
    Mahesh Pandya, ICAN
    Jyothi Krishnan, academic
    Balram, activist, Jharkhand
    AL Rangarajan, ICAN
    Rajaram Singh
    Rameshwar Prasad, ICAN
    Anand Murugesan, academic
    Abha Bhaiya, women’s activist
    Sagar Rabari, activist, Gujarat
    Dhirendhra Singh
    Rammanohar Reddy, former editor EPW, senior writer
    Nandini K Oza, water activist, Maharasthra
    Osama Manzar, Digital Empowerment Foundation
    Rakesh Sharma
    Pankti Jog, RTI activist
    Rakesh Reddy Dubbudu, RTI activist, Telangana
    Subrat Das, economist
    Umesh Anand, editor, Civil Society
    Charul,singer, cultural activist
    Vinay, singer, writer, musician, activist
    Maya Caroli
    Ashwini Kulkarni, activist, Pune
    Vibha Puri Das
    Surjit Das
    Amrita Johri, RTI activist
    Madhuresh Kumar, activist
    Ankur Sarin
    Dipak Dholakia
    Navdeep Mathur
    Harinesh, activist, Gujarat
    Persis Ginwalla
    Shamsul Islam, theatre activist
    Prafulla Samantara, activist, Odisha
    Lingraj Azad, activist, Odisha
    Sunilam, activist, Madhya Pradesh
    Aradhana Bhargava
    Meera Chaudhary, activist
    Suniti SR, activist, Pune
    Suhas Kolhekar, activist Pune
    Prasad Bagwe
    Gabrielle Dietrich, leader of Women’s groups
    Geetha Ramakrishnan, activist Tamil Nadu
    R. Neelkandan
    P Chennaiah, activist Telangana
    Ramakrishnan Raju, activist, Andhra
    Richa Singh, activist, Uttar Pradesh
    Sister Cella
    Vimal Bhai, activist, Himachal Pradesh
    Jabar Singh, activist
    Anand Mazgaonkar
    Krishnakanth
    Kamayani Swami, activist, Bihar
    Ashish Ranjan, activist
    Mahendra Yadav, activist
    Faisal Khan, activist, Haryana
    JS Walla
    Kailash Meena, activist, Rajasthan
    Amitava Mitra
    Aveek Saha
    BS Rawat
    Rajendra Ravi
    Shabnam Shaikh
    Mahesh Pandya
    S. Shylendra
    Iqbalkhan Pulli
    Soumen Ray
    Ramachandra Prasad, ICAN
    Ravi M.
    Dipak Dholakia


TheWire.in, 26 April, 2016, http://thewire.in/2016/04/26/activists-academics-write-open-letter-to-pm-modi-on-the-drought-31573/


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