-TheWire.in 'When I made this house myself brick by brick, where were they then?' New Delhi: A few weeks after the Supreme Court ordered the demolition of the residential properties in Khori Gaon, bulldozers began to destroy the settlement under police and Army presence. Referred to by the Court as an encroachment, the settlement contains over 10,000 homes, with over 1 lakh residents (for scale, this is little under the population of the...
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Will Modi Be Able to Provide Housing For All? -Bilal Khan and Ane Gupta
-TheWire.in A number of internal loopholes within the Housing for All scheme seems to be denying housing to those who need it most. “We have a dream for 2022. The poorest of poor should have a house of his own. And that house must be equipped with electricity, water and other facilities. There should be hospitals and schools in the neighborhood”. This is what Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on the occasion...
More »Singur farmers wonder: What next? -Shiv Sahay Singh
-The Hindu The Singur project was considered, at the time of inception, as the revival of industry in West Bengal. Singur (West Bengal): Bhaskar Kanrar and Bubai Kanrar were no more than children when their parents and uncles began the movement against forcible land acquisition for the setting up of Tata Motors’ Nano factory in Singur. Ten years later, with the Supreme Court verdict that went in favour of the protesting farmers, the...
More »Lethal gases from Jharia's coalfields fire continue to wreck havoc a century later -Valay Singh
-The Economic Times 5:20 am. Twelve-year-old Sandeep rubs his eyes. Prodded by his mother Savitri, he reluctantly steps out of his two-room mud house. Together, they head out in the darkness. Savitri walks purposefully, Sandeep trudges along. They are going to the opencast coal mine that is a 10-minute walk from their village Ghansaddi. On the way, they are joined by scores of people. In a curving file, they descend the...
More »Making a hollow in the Forest Rights Act -Chitrangada Choudhury
-The Hindu Forging gram sabha resolutions clears the path to lucrative mining... Such fictions manufacture on file the legal requirement of villagers’ participation and consent. Over 12,000 villages across Odisha conserve their community forests, says a 2013 Odisha Jungle Manch study. In a visit last October to seven villages in Keonjhar district’s Gandhamardan range, Munda communities showed me their forest protection rosters. Each roster listed four villagers for every weekday to roam...
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