State to acquire 4,188 sq km land for industries over 3 years - Express India

State to acquire 4,188 sq km land for industries over 3 years - Express India

To make situation worse state inches towards monster growth..if this news is correct. Why not ask for Social and Environmental Impact Assessment? We know 'ALL IZ NOT WELL'.

For all those who kept sleeping on the idea of economic growth, with distribution, your time has come now to react or else face the consequences of your professional compromises.

From Dwarpal to Lokpal

Imagine the role of law keepers when they are made to stand on the doors of politicians to save them from intruders who can overhear or eves-drop on the discussion of the public representatives. The closed door meetings of the ministries and sachivalayas do not allow common citizen to hear what has been conversed on deciding about their fate. The political masters along with the service class discuss the manner of program or development intervention, it more cases they try to maximise the economic and political returns of their investment in public. The agencies intended to protect the masses from financial fraud are informed or entertained as and when the group decide about things required, to make sure things are settled in advance.

The mere formality of approaches like PAC (parliamentary accounts committee) who is supposed to investigate major expenses has never been heard till the 2G scam happened, and this is supposed to be regular committee. High profile cases makes these committee stand in front and account, but sadly this also goes political way of addressing their party agenda.

The idea of 'lokpal' would allow the 'dwarpal' to enter into conversation with such decision makers and question their working. Thats the reason the bill had been waiting and revised nth time since 1968 under various political and government heads. Now, where is urgency? Lets be sure before 15th August (unofficial deadline set by Mr. Anna Hazare) arrives, half of the team members would go on leave and even if draft is prepared no one would agree to place it on the table of house of parliaments.

The law makers and other stakeholders (civil society) would not either their break their heads or bones to bring consensus to their agenda, never mind the main opposition parties too would be waiting to heard on their draft on 'Lokpal'. Till then let the agencies like CBI, PAC or CAG act like dwarpal and not to allow anyone to hear the conversation, so as to redefine the democratic setup of the country.

Industrial Regions and Rehabilitation for Project Affected People in Gujarat

Gujarat is aggressive in industrilsation of the state with development of the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridors along Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFC) by setting mega industrial regions or Special Investment Regions (SIR). These industrial regions notified under the Regional Development Authorities (RDA) which would acquire the land in the proposed zones to be used for development of infrastructure, industrial areas and related townships. It is estimated in one of our studies that the Gujarat state is planning to develop 13 SIR and which is expected to affect more than 360 villages in various districts.

From the land utilization data for the SIR and SEZ in th

e Gujarat state it is evident that about 4.5 lakh h

a land is expected to be utilized for industrial activities and townships. As per the available information the investment regions and SEZ proposals are going to affect about 400 villages in the state affect livelihoods of 1.0 million persons of the state. These project affected villages comprises of 78000 cultivators and 74,000 agricultural labourers who would be directly affected by massive acquisition of their lands by the RDAs. These project affected people would be required to be rehabilitated since their livelihood deprival from these projects would cause extreme hardship.

The agricultural labourers, casual labourers and marginal farmers belonging to poor, dalit and tribal communities would be hardest hit in absence of active state intervention for their rehabilitation. Gujarat State needs to take urgent look at the resettlement and rehabilitation policy for the project affected people in line with the provisions made in National R&R policy and Draft R&R Bill (2007) pending before the central government. The states like Haryana has already formulated effective compensation and rehabilitation package with a view to large scale alienation of farmers.

Solar Storm: Disaster Predicted in 2012-2013

A lot of news item recently concentrated on the 'End of World' theory of the various prophets, spiritual leaders and media groups. A bit of suspesion emerges whether these are all true or spam? Its better to have a serious look once. Yes! scientists at NASA, USA has been warning the governments for the serious implication of the Solar Storm predicted to be cyclic event to immensely affect the earth.

NASA recently warned of a collision between modern society and the upcoming solar maximum.
Approximately every 11 years the sun peaks in activity while dotted with sunspots that often eject solar flares with damaging radiation and particles into space. If hurled in the direction of the Earth, the planet endures or suffers consequences ranging from beautiful displays of the aurora as they shimmer in the night sky, to very severe Electromagnetic radiation to the point of knocking out electrical power grids. The later is of most great concern to NASA as they meet to discuss the potential devastation and to recommend new tools to forecast such events as we approach the new solar maximum in 2012.

From the NASA Science News
“The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity. At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms.”

What would be impact?
(a) Outer Space: Solar storm can damage the electronic equipments and satellites including the communication, navigation and exploratary objects in the outer space. This would be difficult to save incase of severe storm. This would have very negative impact on the transport and communication sector on the earth.
(b) Earth Surface: Severe heat and sudden surge of storm would damage on the electricity supply infrastructure on a large scale. Most the effect till coming few months would not be unknown. On going researches are focussing on for preparing the mitigation plan.

In India, we are yet to see any serious activity concerning this event predicted and varified from scientists in US and Europe. We need to have tie up with international space weather prediction program to have clear assessment of the situation. We need to assess the impact this can have on the human life and health.