NAPM - YATRA REACHES AURANGABAD

By Dilip -
National Alliance of People’s Movements

 The DMIC Sangharsh Yatra arrived in Aurnagabad, Marathwada after visiting Khandesh and were welcomed by the Farmers Rights Committee and SEZ DMIC Virdodhi Sangharsh Samiti. Vijay Diwan, organizer of the Marathwada leg of the Yatra, said that "People of Aurangabad were suffering from cancer and other incurable diseases and many have lost their lives." Apparently the state government hasn't or rather refuses to take note of this.

In 2000 the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) had already acquired 902 hectares of land. Those affected by the 'Paithan/Jaikawadi' dam have neither been allotted land in the Command area nor have they received employment in spite of repeated assurances. Only 50% of the factories in the MIDC phase are operational and the wait is for the right time to sell them off as residential flats.

However, the government is keen on acquiring 10,000 hectares of land belonging to 24 villages to develop the Shendra - Bidkin Industrial Zone. City and Industrial Development Corporation or CIDCO has already made plans to acquire 15,000 hectares of land belonging to 28 villages. Meanwhile the DMIC envisages Aurangabad as a megacity for which it would require 2,09,000 hectares belonging to 310 villages. If things go as planned 362 villages owning 234000 hectares will definitely fall prey to these development plans in the next few years even if the projects don't materialize.

Subhash Patil said that the Marathwada region is experiencing severe drought conditions and the Jaikwadi dam is unable to fulfil the water needs of the region as its water levels have lowered due to the dam built in the upper region. Even at a crore per acre, compensation wouldn't be enough to buy a 2000 meter flat in Aurangabad and the affected people are well aware of this fact. All the MLAs and MPs of the region are engaged in this conspiracy. Their lands are left untouched while people of the same village are forcible evicted and dispossessed.

Nasreen B. of Mumbai's Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan and Pemabhai from the Narmada Bachao Andolan together stressed on the fact that the fight, whether in cities or in villages, is the same - to protect land rights. "We will continue our decades old struggle to ensure a dignified life and to protect our rights from Capitalist and State forces bent at taking that away from us."

Medha Patkar addressed the audience saying that the fight isn't against development but against the current status of fundamental rights in this supposedly free country. "Is it constitutionally or legally right to negate the gram sabhas, basti sabhas, labour rights and environmental laws guaranteed by the constitution to acquire land for development projects like the DMIC? Development should be planned keeping in mind prevailing conditions and the livelihoods of the people and not as a tool to further international capitalist aspirations. This project, funded by the Japanese government and international institutions, poses a serious threat to food security and will further escalate the agrarian crisis.

After meeting people from different regions over the last 3 days Lingaraj Azad of the Niyamgiri Suraksha Parishad (Orissa) feels that all the land acquired so far for various development projects haven't been fully utilized. What then is the need for further acquisitions? He said that the situation in Orissa was no different from Maharashtra and that the people have no other option than to fight this injustice.

NAPM is of the opinion that the very definition of 'development' needs to be revised. Why doesn't the Government work towards developing the agricultural sector and small scale industries which even today, employs the largest number of people instead of mega industrial projects that push people towards unemployment and poverty. It is a sad thing that even after 65 years of independence only a minority of the population enjoys freedom while the majority unprivileged classes continue living in shackles.

The NAPM's Sangharsh Yatra was flagged off on 8th March from Mumbai's iconic Azad Maidan. Over the last 4 days the Yatra has been participating in different movements in various districts of Maharashtra. Tomorrow the Yatra moves to Gujarat. 

The schedule for the Gujarat leg of the Yatra is given below:-
12th March - Umargam, Tapi river jod pariyojna shetra
13th March - Surat investment region, Hazeera, Garudkeshwar, Rajpipla
14th March - Kheda, Ahemdabad

Raj Singh, Vedvati, Prasad Waghwe, Suhas Kolhekar, Yuvraj, Pratap Gaekwad,
Suniti S.R., Madhuresh
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
please log on to www.napm-india.org for more information and Yatra contact Madhuresh 09818905316

Popular posts from this blog

Third degree torture used on Maruti workers: Rights body

By Dilip -
The People’s Union for Democratic Rights on Tuesday alleged that third degree torture methods were used by the Gurgaon Criminal Investigation Agency while interrogating workers of Maruti Suzuki India Limited’s Manesar plant who are accused of involvement in the killing of an HR manager and the violent attack at the plant on July 18. The PUDR alleged that the Gurgaon CIA investigation “did not seem” to be directed at solving the crime or probing the involvement of the arrested workers in the incidents and crimes recorded in the FIR but instead was based on their involvement in trade union activities. Grave doubts  “The use of third degree torture in police custody, and the securing of arrestees’ signatures on blank papers by the police, gives rise to grave doubts regarding the ability of such an investigation in effectively identifying or arresting those guilty. The police and the State seem keener to reassure Maruti Suzuki Ltd. and ensure that production continues,” the ...
Read more

Haruki Murakami: On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning

By Dilip -
According to Murakami, “1Q84” is just an amplification of one of his most popular short stories,   which (in its English version) is five pages long. “Basically, it’s the same,” he told me. “A boy meets a girl. They have separated and are looking for each other. It’s a simple story. I just made it long.” One beautiful April morning, on a narrow side street in Tokyo's fashionable Harujuku neighborhood, I walked past the 100% perfect girl. Tell you the truth, she's not that good-looking. She doesn't stand out in any way. Her clothes are nothing special. The back of her hair is still bent out of shape from sleep. She isn't young, either - must be near thirty, not even close to a "girl," properly speaking. But still, I know from fifty yards away: She's the 100% perfect girl for me. The moment I see her, there's a rumbling in my chest, and my mouth is as dry as a desert..." read the story: http://www.youmightfindyourself.com/post/22131227...
Read more

Albert Camus's lecture 'The Human Crisis', New York, March 1946. 'No cause justifies the murder of innocents'

By Dilip -
The morning after a great historical crisis, you feel as sad and sick as after a heavy night. But there is no aspirin for historical hangovers .. The world is no longer divided into the just or unjust, but into masters and slaves. He who is right is he who enslaves.  Albert Camus     La crise de l'homme : THE HUMAN CRISIS   (Text read by Viggo Mortensen on March 28 2016)   Ladies and Gentlemen: when I was invited to give a series of lectures in the United States of America, I felt some doubt and hesitation. I am really not old enough to give lectures, and I am more at ease with the process of thinking than I am making categorical statements... since I don't feel I have any claim on what is generally called the truth. I shared this reservation and was very politely told that my personal opinion didn't matter. What mattered was that I'd be able to offer some facts about France so that my listeners could form their own opinions. It was then suggested...
Read more

The Almond Trees by Albert Camus (1940)

By Dilip -
Image
'Do you know', Napoleon once said to Fontanes, 'what astounds me most about the world?  The impotence of force to establish anything.  There are only two powers in the world: the sword and the mind.  In the end, the sword is always conquered by the mind' Conquerors, you see, are sometimes melancholy.  They have to pay some price for so much vainglory. But what a hundred years ago was true of the sword is no longer true today of the tank. Conquerors have made progress, and the dismal silence of places without intelligence has been established for years at a time in a lacerated Europe. At the time of the hideous wars of Flanders, Dutch painters could still perhaps paint the cockerels in their farmyards. The Hundred Years War has likewise been forgotten, and yet the prayers of Silesian mystics still linger in some hearts. But today, things have changed; the painter and the monk have been drafted - we are one with the world.  The mind has lost that regal certai...
Read more

Etel Adnan - To Be In A Time Of War

By Dilip -
NB: Etel Adnan, writer, poet, artist and musician was born in 1925 and raised in Beirut, Lebanon. Her mother was a Greek from Smyrna, her father, a high ranking Ottoman officer born in Damascus. This prose poem is the final chapter of her book  In the Heart of the Heart of Another Country .  Read more about her here  - DS To Be In A Time Of War To say nothing, do nothing, mark time, to bend, to straighten up, to blame oneself, to stand, to go toward the window, to change one’s mind in the process, to return to one’s chair, to stand again, to go to the bathroom, to close the door, to then open the door, to go to the kitchen, to not eat nor drink, to return to the table, to be bored, to take a few steps on the rug, to come close to the chimney, to look at it, to find it dull, to turn left until the main door, to come back to the room, to hesitate, to go on, just a bit, a trifle, to stop, to pull the right side of the curtain, then the other side, ...
Read more

After the Truth Shower

By Dilip -
Dear Readers Thank you for reading my blog for the past eleven years. (This is a link to the new one) During this time it has had nearly 1.7 million hits; and I have posted over 9500 posts covering a variety of themes. From July 11 to 19, 2022, my blog was withdrawn by the Blogger administration on account of what its machinery suspected to be 'Impersonation'. It took over a week and the efforts of several well-wishers to get it back online I thank them all for their kindness and goodwill  My blog has always been - and remains - non-commercial. I have used it for academic purposes; and to foster a culture of debate and informed commentary in civil society. Because it contains a large amount of material gathered and collated for over a decade, I cannot afford to lose its contents. I hope it will remain undisturbed now and function as an archive. However, I have decided to use a new blog on WordPress as a platform for my newest comments and posts The new blog is titled After the...
Read more

James Gilligan on Shame, Guilt and Violence

By Dilip -
Shame, Guilt, and Violence / James Gilligan During the past 35 years I have used prisons and prison mental hospitals as "laboratories" in which to investigate the causes and prevention of the various forms of violence and the relationships between these forms and to what I will call (with a nod to William James) "the varieties of moral experience." In the course of that work, I have been struck by the frequency with which I received the same answer when I asked prisoners, or mental patients, why they assaulted or even killed someone. Time after time, they would reply "because he disrespected me" or "he disrespected my visitor [or wife, mother, sister, girl-friend, daughter, etc.]." In fact, they used that phrase so often that they abbreviated it into the slang phrase, "He dis'ed me." Whenever people use a word so often that they abbreviate it, it is clearly central to their moral and emotional vocabulary. But even when they did n...
Read more