Two friends’ brief encounter with poverty taught them why food security is so essential for all

February 26, 2019

Late last year, two young men decided to live a month of their lives on the income of an average poor Indian. One of them, Tushar, the son of a police officer in Haryana, studied at the University of Pennsylvania and worked for three years as an investment banker in the US and Singapore. The other, Matt, migrated as a teenager to the United States with his parents, and studied in MIT. Both decided at different points to return to India, joined the UID Project in Bengaluru, came to share a flat, and became close friends.

The idea suddenly struck them one day. Both had returned to India in the vague hope that they could be of use to their country. But they knew the people of this land so little. Tushar suggested one evening — “Let us try to understand an ‘average Indian’, by living on an ‘average income’.” His friend Matt was immediately captured by the idea. They began a journey which would change them forever.

To begin with, what was the average income of an Indian? They calculated that India’s Mean National Income was Rs. 4,500 a month, or Rs. 150 a day. Globally people spend about a third of their incomes on rent. Excluding rent, they decided to spend Rs. 100 each a day. They realised that this did not make them poor, only average. Seventy-five per cent Indians live on less than this average.

The young men moved into the tiny apartment of their domestic help, much to her bemusement. What changed for them was that they spent a large part of their day planning and organising their food. Eating out was out of the question; even dhabas were too expensive. Milk and yoghurt were expensive and therefore used sparingly, meat was out of bounds, as were processed food like bread. No ghee or butter, only a little refined oil. Both are passionate cooks with healthy appetites. They found soy nuggets a wonder food — affordable and high on proteins, and worked on many recipes. Parle G biscuits again were cheap: 25 paise for 27 calories! They innovated a dessert of fried banana on biscuits. It was their treat each day.

Living on Rs 100 made the circle of their life much smaller. They found that they could not afford to travel by bus more than five km in a day. If they needed to go further, they could only walk. They could afford electricity only five or six hours a day, therefore sparingly used lights and fans. They needed also to charge their mobiles and computers. One Lifebuoy soap cut into two. They passed by shops, gazing at things they could not buy. They could not afford the movies, and hoped they would not fall ill.

However, the bigger challenge remained. Could they live on Rs. 32, the official poverty line, which had become controversial after India’s Planning Commission informed the Supreme Court that this was the poverty line for cities (for villages it was even lower, at Rs. 26 per person per day)?

Harrowing experience

For this, they decided to go to Matt’s ancestral village Karucachal in Kerala, and live on Rs. 26. They ate parboiled rice, a tuber and banana and drank black tea: a balanced diet was impossible on the Rs. 18 a day which their briefly adopted ‘poverty’ permitted. They found themselves thinking of food the whole day. They walked long distances, and saved money even on soap to wash their clothes. They could not afford communication, by mobile and internet. It would have been a disaster if they fell ill. For the two 26-year-olds, the experience of ‘official poverty’ was harrowing.

Yet, when their experiment ended with Deepavali, they wrote to their friends:

“Wish we could tell you that we are happy to have our ‘normal’ lives back. Wish we could say that our sumptuous celebratory feast two nights ago was as satisfying as we had been hoping for throughout our experiment. It probably was one of the best meals we’ve ever had, packed with massive amounts of love from our hosts. However, each bite was a sad reminder of the harsh reality that there are 400 million people in our country for whom such a meal will remain a dream for quite some time. That we can move on to our comfortable life, but they remain in the battlefield of survival — a life of tough choices and tall constraints. A life where freedom means little and hunger is plenty…

It disturbs us to spend money on most of the things that we now consider excesses. Do we really need that hair product or that branded cologne? Is dining out at expensive restaurants necessary for a happy weekend? At a larger level, do we deserve all the riches we have around us? Is it just plain luck that we were born into circumstances that allowed us to build a life of comfort? What makes the other half any less deserving of many of these material possessions, (which many of us consider essential) or, more importantly, tools for self-development (education) or self-preservation (healthcare)?

We don’t know the answers to these questions. But we do know the feeling of guilt that is with us now. Guilt that is compounded by the love and generosity we got from people who live on the other side, despite their tough lives. We may have treated them as strangers all our lives, but they surely didn’t treat us as that way…”

So what did these two friends learn from their brief encounter with poverty? That hunger can make you angry. That a food law which guarantees adequate nutrition to all is essential. That poverty does not allow you to realise even modest dreams. And above all — in Matt’s words — that empathy is essential for democracy.

Courtesy: Counter View

Karnataka High Court quashes Enforcement Directorate’s order of freezing Greenpeace India’s bank accounts

February 26, 2019

Bangalore Feb 22: The Karnataka High Court has quashed the freezing of accounts of Greenpeace India by the Enforcement Directorate, holding the order of freezing to be null and void. Funding to the environmental watchdog from thousands of Indian citizens had been blocked following an unlawful raid by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) at their Bangalore office in October 2018, but the same has now been permitted by the order of the High Court which has directed immediate defreezing of Greenpeace India’s account.

Diya Deb, Campaign Director at Greenpeace India, said:

“We welcome the Karnataka High Court’s decision to unfreeze the bank accounts of Greenpeace India. The decision not only strengthens our belief in democractic values and constitutional propriety but also attests our stand that the organisation functions in accordance with Indian laws and for the benefit of society at large. We hope that the attempts to shut us down will continue to be thwarted by the Courts which recognize our Constitutional right to work for the benefit of environment and ecology”

On 14th February, 2019, Karnataka High Court made an observation that, “the impugned notice dated 05.10.2018 has lost its efficacy on account of efflux of time as the period of 60 days has expired.” Thus, “the impugned order dated 05.10.2018 is hereby quashed and the writ petition is disposed of.”

“Every month Greenpeace India receives donations from thousands of environmentally conscious Indian donors who want a safe, secure and a sustainable future for India and planet Earth. The freezing of bank accounts led to a financial crisis – it forced us to reduce our workforce substantially, leading to livelihood problems for former staff., many of whom continue to work as volunteers.

“The Court’s decision to quash the Enforcement Directorate’s arbitrary order emboldens our spirit to continue our critical campaign to mitigate climate change, reduce carbon emissions and create a sustainable future. India is not only an environmentally vulnerable country, but also has the potential to be a climate leader if it can hold itself and the rest of the world accountable in addressing climate change. Greenpeace India will continue to represent the voices of millions of supporters, volunteers and donors who want to protect the environment.”

Deb added: “Most importantly we thank all our supporters, donors, civil society allies, volunteers, activists, individual citizens and others for standing in solidarity with us in tough times. We also continue to stand in solidarity with the civil society organizations and activists who face harassment for having the courage to voice dissent.”

Notes:

Courtesy: Counter Currents

Fighting Hidden Hunger: ‘Our Mission Is 90% Of Crops Must Be Biofortified’

February 26, 2019

Bangkok: Two billion people, or nearly one in four individuals, suffer from ‘hidden hunger’ or vitamin and nutrient deficiencies, resulting in mental impairment, poor health, low productivity and even death, according to the World Health Organization.

Children are especially vulnerable to micronutrient deficiencies. Lack of zinc in childhood leads to poor growth and stunting, vitamin A deficiency can cause night blindness and poor immunity, while iron deficiency leads to poor mental and physical development.

Nutritional supplements are one solution, but these are expensive. It would cost ‘US$5.9 billion (Rs 41,764 lakh crore) a year to deliver 14 essential nutrition interventions at full coverage across India’, says this 2016 study in the Maternal Child & Nutrition journal. Compliance is another challenge. Despite a National Nutritional Anaemia Prophylaxis Programme addressing anaemia through supplementation over the past 50 years, more than half of India’s children under five (58.6%) and women (53.1%) were anaemic in 2016, according to the ministry of health and family welfare’s National Family Health Survey, 2015-16.

Why can’t people get required nutrients from food itself, asked American economist Howarth ‘Howdy’ Bouis in the 1990s. Bouis came up with the idea of breeding seed varieties naturally high in micronutrients with high-yielding seed varieties, a concept later termed ‘biofortification’.

Bouis founded the agricultural research non-profit HarvestPlus at the International Food and Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington D.C. in 2003, which developed high-yielding seed varieties of staple crops including maize, rice, millets and wheat biofortified with vitamin A, zinc and iron.
In face of initial skepticism from public health experts and scientists, Bouis worked tirelessly over decades to develop and then popularise biofortification as a solution for hidden hunger–raising funds, working with breeders to develop seed varieties, conducting research to prove efficacy and convincing governments to invest in the technology.

Each $1 invested in biofortification gives a country a return of $17, showed a 2017 review of HarvestPlus evidence from 2003 through 2016, co-authored by Bouis. Today, biofortified foods are being used by over 30 million farmers across the world, especially in Africa and Asia.

The Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR), run by the ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare, has also developed over a dozen biofortified varieties of cereals, pulses, oilseeds, vegetables and fruit, said this 2017 bulletin.

ICAR also established minimum levels of iron and zinc to be bred into varieties of pearl millet (bajra, kambu), making India the first country to have such standards for millet varieties. Biofortified pearl millet, introduced into the diet of Indian adolescents, led to reduced iron deficiency and improved learning skills and mental ability, IndiaSpend reported in September 2018.

Bouis was awarded the World Food Prize in 2016 for his work in reducing hidden hunger.

“You have to persevere and keep repeating yourself,” Bouis told IndiaSpend in an interview at the ‘Accelerating the End of Hunger and Malnutrition’ conference in Bangkok, Thailand in November, 2018, jointly organised by IFPRI and the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Edited excerpts.

What gave you the idea to develop biofortified crops?

I was attending nutrition meetings where nutritionists were saying supplements and fortified foods were needed to address vitamin A deficiency. They said taking one vitamin A capsule daily for six months would reduce child mortality by 23%. A vitamin A capsule costs a dollar. To provide 500 million tablets each year over a decade would cost $5 trillion. But people were already getting vitamin A through food, so I thought why not breed these vitamins into crops so that diet will provide enough nutrition?

I then spoke to scientists and asked if it was possible to develop both high nutrient and high yield crops. But they said no, it would be a trade-off between high yields and high nutrients.

Then I met another group of scientists who said there needn’t be such a trade-off, that it was good for plants to contain more minerals because it would be good for the plants’ own nutrition. So it [developing both high nutrition, high yield varieties] wasn’t a trade-off but was actually complementary.

If we had done that in the 1960s, we would not have all these [micronutrient] deficiencies. Back then knowledge of these deficiencies was poor.

Do you see biofortification as a support to supplementation efforts, such as India’s iron and folic acid tablet distribution programme to address anaemia? Or can biofortification replace supplementation?

It really depends on the situation. About 40% of the daily requirement of iron is being added through biofortification. If 60% of iron requirement is met through diet, then [biofortification] can take this to 100%. But if only 20% of iron requirement is met through diet, [biofortification] will take this up to 60%, in which case supplements will still be needed.

A key difference [between biofortification and supplementation] is cost. You need to invest once in breeding [to get biofortified crops]. Subsequently, you don’t have any cost. With biofortification, the cost would be the same year after year. But supplements are very expensive.

Are nutrients like iron better absorbed through food?

A lot of things determine how much iron gets absorbed by the body. The main factor is an individual’s nutrition levels. If very deficient in iron, they would absorb a lot more iron compared to an individual with adequate iron levels.

How much do you work with the Indian government and how open are they to biofortification?

We focused on trying to get three governments–China, India and Brazil–to invest in biofortification independent of HarvestPlus, and we have managed to do that now. All three governments now independently fund research on biofortified crops. It didn’t happen right away, it took many interactions, but now the Indian government has its own independently-funded biofortified research on crops. So they are enthusiastic about the potential.

Can only one nutrient per crop be fortified at a time? In future, could more than one nutrient be fortified per crop?

We didn’t want to do two nutrients at a time because it is a complicated process and it takes up to 10 years of breeding to fortify seeds with one nutrient. We had to do it one nutrient at a time.

A good example is maize. We chose vitamin A to begin with and fortified maize in 10 years. Now we have 10 years to add zinc. Latin America eats a lot of maize, but while Vitamin A deficiency is not a big problem there, zinc deficiency is. So we are developing maize varieties for Latin America that are high in zinc. What we accomplished with vitamin A biofortification for maize in Africa, we are starting to develop for Latin America.

How many farmers are growing biofortified crops?

There are 170,000 wheat farmers growing biofortified crops in India. It is a drop in an ocean [India has 127 million cultivators], but you have to start somewhere. The mission is that 20 years from now, most wheat varieties currently being grown are biofortified and capture 75% of the market.

Are biofortified crops high in minerals yield after yield, or do farmers have to purchase biofortified seeds after every harvest?

[Biofortified seeds] are not hybrids, so can be planted from previous crops each year. This, however, can’t be done for too many years. They should be purchased every three years, as is the case with regular varieties.

In Africa, you have chosen maize for biofortification because that’s their staple crop, while in India it is rice and wheat. As diets change, will we change which foods are biofortified?

It is not so much the food staple which changes with changing dietary habits, it is other things added to the diet, if you look at what poor and rich people eat. In South India, poor and rich people alike eat rice, but they could add other things [like fruits, nuts or meat].

There is an Indian company Nirmal Seeds which is a biofortification success story. The pearl millet market differs from rice and wheat because of two things–it is not part of the food subsidy programme [Karnataka included millets in its public distribution system in 2012] and most of it is grown from hybrid seeds sold by private seed companies.

Nirmal had a particular variety which was biofortified with iron and also had a 10% higher yield. They told all of their 100,000 customers to buy this variety as it had a higher yield, and placed a logo on it showing it was high in iron. Within one or two years, 100,000 farmers were growing a high yield variety of biofortified pearl millet.

What can the Indian government do to accelerate biofortification?

Our discussions with Indian government started in 2004-05. At that time, there wasn’t much enthusiasm among scientists but we kept going year after year.

India now has a new policy that all varieties of millet have to meet a certain level of nutrition before being released in India. In many countries, you can’t release a seed variety unless it is first tested by the government for disease resistance, drought resistance and iron density above a certain level. So even a high-yielding variety with low iron levels can’t be released. India is the first country to have such standards for millets.

We want them to give highest priority to biofortification. Government needs to give an incentive [to farmers] in public interest, and they can attract the market by including biofortified produce in the food subsidy programme.

Are you satisfied with the progress that biofortification has made?

No, not at all. The mission is to capture 90% of crops grown in a country. There are now 10 million farmers using biofortified crops across the world and we want this to be 200 million farmers by 2030.

But releasing biofortified varieties in the market takes time. It takes 10 years to breed a high nutrient seed variety and 20 years to get it into the market. You have to create a pipeline of varieties year after year till it becomes the norm.

The modern seed varieties developed in the 1970s made a huge difference to yield, so farmers switched to them. But if any new seed [including biofortified varieties] offers just a 3% higher yield, it may not lead to a farmer switching. So it takes time.

It is a matter of sticking it out. You have to do that for a long time. I began raising funds in 1993 and HarvestPlus began operations in 2003. It took 10 years to get a little bit of funding for the first 10 years, but it was only enough to do experiments, not for breeding programmes. There were no private programmes. Now of course you have the hybrids in the private sector. So we work with the private seed companies. You have to have some money to get centres to try new ideas. Now we are at the point when they want to do it and donors are interested [in biofortification].

(Yadavar is a principal correspondent with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend

Mr Prime Minister, manual scavenging work is neither spiritual nor glorious

February 26, 2019

Prime Minister Narendra Modi while visiting the Kumbh Mela at Allahabad, washed the feet of five manual scavengers, which included two women workers. He thanked them for their karma yog and their role in keeping the Kumbh clean. Even when he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Modi had called the work of sanitation workers a “spiritual experience,” in his book, Karmyogi. Bezwada Wilson of the Safai Karamchari Andolan has called this an insult to the manual scavengers. In a tweet, Wilson said, “What a pity! As a CM, he spiritualized shit cleaning, now as PM glorifying injustice..this act is against Baba Saheb Ambedkar’s mission – झाडू छोड़ो कलम पकडो.”

According to Wilson, 11 sewer deaths were reported in India in 2019 alone. In 2018, the number went up to 105. Not even a word of condolence has ever been expressed by the Prime Minister or the Prime Ministers Office. No necessary steps to eradicate manual scavenging have been taken by the government, even though mechanised sewer cleaning technologies have been in existence for long now. At a protest at Jantar Mantar, women santiation workers burned their baskets which they use to carry human excreta on their heads, in protest against manual scavenging and demanding alternate livelihood. The Prime Minister doesn’t seem to realise that the sanitation workers don’t want his admiration of the work they do, they want freedom from manual scavenging without exception.

In light of the statement made by the PM, which only adds insult to injury, the Indian Cultural Forum takes a look at the injustice that is manual scavenging and brings to you, from the archives, the numerous struggles to eradicate manual scavenging.

Basket Burning by safai karmacharis at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi – a symbolic act of defiance to push the demand for elimination of manual scavenging. Photo Credit:
Safai Karmachari Andolan

12 Crore New Toilets, but Who Will Clean Them?
Bezwada Wilson talks about manual scavenging, the inhumane practice that it is and how it is forced upon the lower castes. With the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’s new aims of building more toilets across the country, the already burdened scavengers will be made to take on the additional job of cleaning the new toilets. Wilson remarks on the failure of the government to tackle this problem and the lack of technology advancements in this area, and how it continues to normalise the oppression of this particular class of people.

“On how many fronts can I fight?”
“If these machines had been brought in before, my children’s papa would not have left them. Now they are not of any use to me, but they will at least be useful for other women. Their men will not die in the sewers. No one should have to suffer the way I do.” So saying, a visibly distressed Rani Kumari became silent.

We must understand that ‘Caste’ is linked with ‘Scavenging’:

“I have been going into this hell for decades”
Mani is a Dalit, from the Chakkliar caste. He left school because his teachers and fellow students would call him thoti, a derogatory term for the scavenging caste in south India, and ask him to sit separately. “They would abuse me because I used to clean dead bodies and shit. Teachers would ask me to sit outside the classroom,” says Mani.

Bezwada Wilson on Eradicating Manual Scavenging
Bezwada Wilson talks about the lack of political will when it comes to eradicating untouchability and manual scavenging.

Women break the walls of toilets in protest of Manual Scavenging:

The Long March to Eliminate Manual Scavenging
Why are the Indian government and even the media and civil society quiet about the death of more than a thousand of its citizens (Thomas, 2016)? People are being killed in sewer and septic tanks every day and yet, so far there has been no relevant discussion by policymakers, in state assemblies or the Parliament. By the time you are reading this essay, this number would have increased multifold. What could be the reason for this apathy and indifference? Is this because all who die in sewers and septic tanks are Dalits? Why is it that even amidst the rhetoric of development and progress in 2017, 1.3 million (FirstPost, 2016) Dalits in India, and mostly women, are forced to manually clean human excreta? Why does the country allocate a budget of INR 16,248 crore 1 for the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan while it has only INR 5 crore to spare for rehabilitation of manual scavengers, as per the Union Budget for the fiscal year 2017–18? Why is India unable to invest in finding a technology to clean sewer septic tanks without endangering human life? These are serious questions that Indian democracy must answer.

“Minimum protective gear, maximum risk, no holidays, no pay, and ever-lurking disease and death”
Tens of thousands of Dalits still work as manual scavengers in India – unclogging sewers, emptying septic tanks, and more. They work with no protective gear, no holidays, irregular wages, and the constant threat of disease and death. All this along with deep social stigma – while the government speaks of a Swachh Bharat and of ‘open defecation free’ villages.

Bezwada Wilson: “We cannot address manual scavenging without addressing untouchability, without taking on inequality”:

“You do not want us to occupy your space because we smell?”
The sanitation workers are employed by the university on a contractual basis and receive no benefits from their employers. Narrating a personal experience, the spokesperson said that some time ago when he was hurt, he had incurred an expense of four lakh rupees from the hospital where he was being treated. Forget receiving monetary support from the university, “no one,” he remarked “from the university staff or administration had cared to even pay him a visit during his stay at the hospital. In spite of this, I am still here being the good worker that I am and I will be here tomorrow as well.”

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

Thousands of Muslims in Bihar take out a rally to demand 5% reservations

February 26, 2019

On 23rd February, under the Muslim Arakshan Morcha, thousands of Muslims from different districts gathered in Patna to participate in the rally demanding 5% reservations in education and employment. They claimed that Muslims constitute 18% of the total population in Bihar and are entitled to reservations for their development.

The National president of Muslim Arakshan Morcha, Md. Perwez Siddiqui in their press release said, that he had earlier organized several such rallies in various districts and presented this issue to both the government officials and also to leaders from the opposition parties to take up their demand for reservations.

“But unfortunately, no one has taken our demand as a priority as they still treat Muslims as their vote bank.” he said.

In addition to this, state president Naushad Ahmad through the press release has aggressively warned all major parties to stop trying to become consolidators of Muslim community and act as a sympathasiers of the Muslims when they dont really want to do any work for their upliftment. He also gave an ultimatum saying “if the governing party fails to address our demand before the date of General election, we will take our agitation deliberately in next step towards like rail roko and chakka jam all over state.”

There was an attempt to suppress the rally from opposition powers and to dismantle the rally the protestors were attacked and several people have been seriously injured and vehicles set ablaze, the press release stated.

The rally was organized from Patna Kargil Chowk to Governor House.

Courtesy: Two Circle

In ordering Eviction of Millions of Adivasis, the SC contradicts itself

February 25, 2019

Whereas previously SC affirmed indigenous people’s inalienable rights to their land, in 2019, under the Modi Regime, it now orders their unilateral eviction. The SC has turned established constitutional jurisprudence on its head

Image Courtesy: Parivartan Sharma/Reuters

There are three significant SC judgments on the indigenous Adivasi people’s rights over their land and natural resources:

1. In 2011, the SC, hearing a complaint petition by a young Adivasi woman who was raped and paraded naked by upper caste persons in a Maharashtra village, had observed

“The ancestors of the present tribals or Adivasis (Scheduled Tribes), were the original inhabitants… The injustice done to the tribal people of India is a shameful chapter in our country’s history. The tribals were called ‘rakshas’ (demons), ‘asuras’, and what not. They were slaughtered in large numbers, and the survivors and their descendants were degraded, humiliated, and all kinds of atrocities inflicted on them for centuries. They were deprived of their lands, and pushed into forests and hills where they eke out a miserable existence of poverty, illiteracy, disease, etc. And now efforts are being made by some people to deprive them even of their forest and hill land where they are living, and the forest produce on which they survive… Despite this horrible oppression on them, the tribals of India have generally (though not invariably) retained a higher level of ethics than the non-tribals. They normally do not cheat or tell lies, or commit other misdeeds, which many non-tribals do. They are generally superior in character to non-tribals. It is time now to undo the historical injustice to them.” [SC Criminal Appeal 11 of 2011]

2. In 2013 when the Adivasi people in Niyamgiri, Odisha, resisted their land being taken over by a corporate Vedanta co the SC ordered “The (adivasi) communities’ decisions must be respected, and projects must not be allowed without agreement by the communities in their favour… gram sabha proceedings in Niyamgiri take place independently and completely uninfluenced,.. the FRA protects a wide range of rights of forest dwellers and STs including the customary rights to use forest land as a community forest resource and not restricted merely to property rights or to areas of habitation.” [SC Niyamgiri judgment, 2013]

3. Now, reversing its own established jurisprudence, under the Modi regime, the SC itself perpetuates this historic injustice on Adivasis. The recent SC judgmentpassed a few days ago by a three member bench of Arun Mishra, Navin Sinha and Indira Banerjee does just that. The central government that has been hyper active in other matters before the Supreme Court (be it triple talaq or any other) simply abdicated responsibility to defend the FRA in the Supreme Court.

While hearing a petition by a wild-life protection group, the SC gave directions to the Chief Secretaries of 21 Stateswhich are as follows:
(i) Give a lowdown of how many claims of Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (OTFD) have been adjudicated under the Forest Rights Act, 2006.
(ii) Give the status of eviction of people whose claims have been rejected under the Act.
(iii) Explain in affidavits why even after attaining finality, eviction was not done.
(iv) The Chief Secretaries should ensure that the eviction of rejected claimants is carried out. They have to file the compliance reports on or before July 24, 2019 which is next date of hearing. [The Hindu, 22 February 2019]
Some troubling questions emerge:

The fact is the process of recognising rights has been poorly implemented. Of the 41 lakh claims filed so far, 18 lakh have been approved, 3 lakh are still being processed and the remaining 20 lakh have been rejected.

Even when land-title is given there are layers of deception. The FRA authorises every forest-dwelling family at least two hectares (five acres). But the reality is if a family claims four acres, it is given 40 decimals or even less! There is a huge difference between the claim of four-five acres and where the ‘authorisation’ of 40 decimals?A clear injustice.

Is not the Gram Sabha the most credible body to assess the genuineness of the claims? The members of Gram Sabha know who has been residing and cultivating which pieces of land and for how long.
How are Committees at the Block and District level equipped to know whether the claims are true or false? The members of these committees are mostly outsiders and non-Adivasis who have no sympathy towards the claimants.
Has the judiciary the authority to order eviction of Scheduled Tribes people from Scheduled Areas?
Is it not a plot to clear forests with its sub-soil minerals and hand them over to corporate mining companies?

The FRA was meant to correct a ‘historic injustice’, but the misuse of the law by the bureaucracy and the SC now approving this misuse is nothing short of perpetuating the ‘historic injustice’.

Related Articles:

Opinion: Corporate Conservationists use Judicial Process to Annihilate India’s Indigenous People

Man beheaded in Odisha for converting to Christianity

February 25, 2019

A week before the vicious attack, seven people from the village had given the victim an ultimatum to renounce Christianity or face death. Many locals don’t believe the police’s claim of it being a politically motivated attack by Maoists.

Sukhbati Gand with her children in a photo taken before her husband Anant Ram Gand was found murdered in India’s Odisha state. He had been given an ultimatum to renounce Christianity or face death. (Courtesy: www.ucanews.com)

Odisha: A Christian evangelical man was found virtually beheaded in Orissa, which many believe was a hate crime committed by Hindu fanatics because of his conversion to the faith.

The victim Anant Ram Gand, 40, was the father of five children. Shibu Thomas, the founder of the Persecution Relief network that deals with defending discriminated Christians in India, said that Gand had converted to Christianity nine months ago and had been baptized two months ago. “His conversion has attracted the ire of the villagers, mostly Hindu fanatics. They armed the Naxals who physically committed the murder,” he told Asia News.

The murder took place on February 11 in Bhenas village, Raigarh Tehsil, Nabarangapur district. The news was released yesterday by Persecution Relief, after a meeting with the Christian’s family. The group reported that on the day of the murder, his wife Sukhbati went to the nearby village with her four daughters (aged 13, 11, 3 and 2), while Anant, with their 6-year-old son Purno, were at home. His son was present at the time of his murder and he is the only eyewitness. He saw the men who had taken his father away.

Local pastor Chandan Jani said the victim’s throat was cut and his head had been crushed by a heavy object. “He seemed to have died unmoved from the spot of attack,” said the evangelical pastor, who helped the widow to bury his body, ucanews reported.

He said news of the killing took more than a week to become more widely known because the area where the murder took place is extremely isolated.

Gand and his family had accepted faith in Jesus three years ago but local Hindu villagers pressurized him to renounce his faith. That included forcing the family to live on the outskirts of the village and at times he was manhandled.

“But they continued believing in the faith,” the pastor said.

A week before the vicious attack, seven people from the village had given Gand an ultimatum to renounce Christianity or face death, said the pastor, who has remained in contact with the family.

Pastor Jani said police had registered it as murder carried out by outlawed Maoists active in the hilly area of the state. The Maoists, who clash with authorities in their attempts to establish a parallel administration in outlying areas, kill villagers suspected of aiding the security forces.

Pastor Jani said the Maoists were not involved in this case and it was obvious that fellow villagers murdered Gand.

However, it was easier for police to avoid having to conduct a proper investigation and pursue court proceedings against village Hindus by falsely blaming the Maoist rebels, the pastor said.

The boy is the most vulnerable as he could inform police of what he saw and possibly testify in court, the pastor said. The family has moved out of the village as they face ongoing threats to their lives.

Hostility toward Christians continues in many parts of the state, which witnessed India’s worst anti-Christian violence in August 2008 when frenzied Hindu mobs armed with axes and swords attacked Christian homes, churches and convents in the hilly Kandhamal district.

The violence that continued for seven weeks resulted in an estimated 100 people being killed. About 350 churches and some 6,500 houses were looted and burned, making 56,000 people homeless. Several rapes were reported, including that of a Catholic nun, ucanews reported.

Gand’s village is several hundred kilometres further into the interior from Kandhamal.

Church leaders say that persecution of Christians has been on the rise in India ever since the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party came to power nationally in 2014. The BJP also holds power in 19 of the nation’s 29 states.

Persecution Relief, an ecumenical forum monitoring violence against Christians, in its annual report released recently said Indian Christians suffered 1,059 incidents of violence in 2018, up from 736 in 2017.

1...1,5351,5361,537...2,697 Page 1,536 of 2,697

Two friends’ brief encounter with poverty taught them why food security is so essential for all

Karnataka High Court quashes Enforcement Directorate’s order of freezing Greenpeace India’s bank accounts

Fighting Hidden Hunger: ‘Our Mission Is 90% Of Crops Must Be Biofortified’

Bangkok: Two billion people, or nearly one in four individuals, suffer from ‘hidden hunger’ or vitamin and nutrient deficiencies, resulting in mental impairment, poor health, low productivity and even death, according to the World Health Organization.

Mr Prime Minister, manual scavenging work is neither spiritual nor glorious

Thousands of Muslims in Bihar take out a rally to demand 5% reservations

Not Feet, But Conscience Must Be Cleaned

One should have spoken about the effective ban on manual scavenging, and about how the sewer deaths can be stopped altogether.

In ordering Eviction of Millions of Adivasis, the SC contradicts itself

Whereas previously SC affirmed indigenous people’s inalienable rights to their land, in 2019, under the Modi Regime, it now orders their unilateral eviction. The SC has turned established constitutional jurisprudence on its head

Man beheaded in Odisha for converting to Christianity

A week before the vicious attack, seven people from the village had given the victim an ultimatum to renounce Christianity or face death. Many locals don’t believe the police’s claim of it being a politically motivated attack by Maoists.

JOIN OUR MAILING LIST

JOIN OUR MAILING LIST

Important Links

Other Links

CONNECT