Thursday, December 31, 2015

Happy New Year 2016!


Thursday, December 10, 2015

CoP 21 Update: Leading Scientists call for 1.5 Degree Pathway!

23 IPCC and Leading Scientists Call for Greater Ambition and 1.5 Degree Pathway

A group of 23 leading scientists has called for greater reductions to avoid crossing dangerous thresholds in “cryosphere” – snow and ice – regions, stressing the need for a 1.5 degree pathway to constrain risk.  The statement is based on the findings of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Fifth Assessment, but takes into account important research published since that sharpens concerns about dynamics that might be triggered within the next few decades, especially in West Antarctica.  This includes the risk of 4-5 meters committed or “irreversible” sea-level rise that would unfold over many centuries, but could be impossible to halt once begun.

The scientists, 13 of them IPCC authors, others senior and cutting-edge researchers, note, "... This can set into motion very long-term changes that cannot be stopped or reversed, even if temperatures later decrease. Some changes, such as committed sea-level rise from the great polar ice sheets, cannot be reversed short of a new Ice Age.”

These potentially irreversible risks include mountain glaciers, 80% of which can be expected to disappear at current pledges or INDCs; sea-level rise from the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica; permafrost thaw and related carbon release, which may eat one-third to one-half of current carbon budgets at existing INDCs; Arctic summer sea ice loss; and serious polar ocean acidification, which is occurring even faster in these waters than in oceans at lower latitudes.


As a result of these risk-filled dynamics, as negotiations move into their final stages the scientists urge a focus on actions that will lead to temperatures preferably under 1.5 degrees over pre-industrial, for the best chance of limiting these risks.

Source: email from Pam Pearson, Director, International Cryosphere Climate Initiative (ICCI)

Saturday, December 5, 2015

See how Climate Change, Dams and Disastrous Urban Planning caused Chennai Floods!

Climate change; dams; disastrous urban planning that has killed water bodies, rivers and chocked water ways & flood plains are the main causes of Chennai Flood devastation....


Save Rivers, Water Bodies and Ecology to save civilizations!

https://www.facebook.com/indianexpress/videos/10153761844038826/

Friday, December 4, 2015

SC says fair compensation for land is human right of farmers! Some issues to ponder...

Dear Friends/Co-sailors,

The Supreme Court of India has now said it in clear terms that fair compensation for land acquired by government is farmer’s human right. Pasting below (at bottom) a news published in Times of India with further details. My pick from this would be the following:

Right to property is now recognized as a constitutional right by Article 300A, which provides that "no person shall be deprived of his property save by authority of law".

The bench pulled up Rajasthan government for not fulfilling its promise of fair compensation to landowners whose properties were acquired by the state in 2001. The state government had assured landowners allotment of 15% developed land near the acquired land but it resiled from the promise and allotted them undeveloped land in a far off place.

Directing the state to allot developed land with all basic facilities to owners, the bench said, "Right to property, though no longer a fundamental right, is otherwise a zealous possession of which one cannot be divested save by the authority of law as is enjoined by Article 300A of the Constitution. Any callous inaction or apathy of the state and its instrumentalities, in securing just compensation would amount to dereliction of a constitutional duty.

Well, that’s a powerful judgement.  However, we need more teetch to it.  As far as small farmers are concerned, we need to have at least the following, besides what the 2013 LA Act says:

Right not to be evicted forcefully.

Right to property in lieu of property.

Right to own the businesses as legally mandated shareholders in businesses/projects that are build in the lands acquired by them.  This has to come with adequate state guaranteed safeguards.

We can add more and discuss.

Thanks and regards,

Ranjan Panda
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The ToI news as appeared @ http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Fair-compensation-for-land-acquired-by-govt-is-farmers-human-right-SC/articleshow/50050793.cms?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=TOI

Fair compensation for land acquired by govt is farmer’s human right: SC

Amit Anand Choudhary,TNN | Dec 5, 2015, 06.46 AM IST

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday said right to property was part of human rights, and landowners had a right to fair compensation for land acquired by the government.

"The right to property having been elevated to the status of human rights, it is inherent in every individual, and thus has to be venerably acknowledged and can, by no means, be belittled or trivialized by adopting an unconcerned and nonchalant disposition by anyone, far less the State, after compulsorily acquiring his land by invoking an expropriatory legislative mechanism," a bench of Justices V Gopala Gowda and Amitava Roy said.

The ruling in a case arising from the demand by a group of farmers in Rajasthan for fair compensation for the land acquired from them by the government marks a step towards elevation of right to property. Recognized as a fundamental right by the framers of the Constitution, right to property was done away with by the 44th amendment to the Constitution in 1978, in what reflected the ethos which had reigned supreme until the 1980s.

Right to property is now recognized as a constitutional right by Article 300A, which provides that "no person shall be deprived of his property save by authority of law".

The constitutional amendment only completed the process which began in the 1960s and which saw the government seeking to chip away at right to property for the professed objective of creation of an egalitarian society.

On Friday, however, the wheel of jurisprudence appeared to be coming full circle when Justices Gowda and Roy, while stressing the constitutional obligation of the government to compensate landowners, called right to property a "prized privilege".

The court said it was the government's constitutional obligation to ensure that the landowner was adequately compensated. It said other rights became illusory in the absence of right to property and the state must ensure it was protected.

"The judicial mandate of human rights dimension, thus, makes it incumbent on the state to solemnly respond to its constitutional obligation to guarantee that a land loser is adequately compensated. The proposition does not admit of any compromise or laxity," it said.

"Though earlier, human rights existed to the claim of individuals' right to health, livelihood, shelter and employment etc, these have started gaining a multifaceted approach, so much so that property rights have become integrated within the definition of human rights," the bench said while referring to its previous verdict.

The bench pulled up Rajasthan government for not fulfilling its promise of fair compensation to landowners whose properties were acquired by the state in 2001. The state government had assured landowners allotment of 15% developed land near the acquired land but it resiled from the promise and allotted them undeveloped land in a far off place.

Directing the state to allot developed land with all basic facilities to owners, the bench said, "Right to property, though no longer a fundamental right, is otherwise a zealous possession of which one cannot be divested save by the authority of law as is enjoined by Article 300A of the Constitution. Any callous inaction or apathy of the state and its instrumentalities, in securing just compensation would amount to dereliction of a constitutional duty.

"The persistent denial of their right to the developed land in lieu of compensation and that too without any legally acceptable justification, has ensued in manifest injustice to them over the years. Neither have they been paid just compensation for the land acquired nor have they been provided with the developed land in place thereof, as assured."

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When you kill your water bodies you increase flood occurrences in your city!

(Illustration Credit: Anonymous , sourced from a friend's wall in Facebook) 

What happens when you kill your water bodies in the name of so called 'Development'...

Thursday, December 3, 2015

Chennai Floods: How it is a man made calamity!

Man destroyed it's course, but the River found its way!

Disastrous urban planning killing Rivers, Water Bodies and Ecology has made Chennai Floods a man made calamity. Time we respect the Nature and learn living with it...

http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/badi-khabar/is-chennai-crisis-man-made/393340

Chennai Floods: See what happens when you kill your Rivers!

See what happens when you kill your Rivers in the name of so called "Development."


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Please also read the following post I just uploaded in our fb pages:


A lesson to learn?

Oh no, we are so smart actually. We want more coal fired power plants, more unsustainable urban areas, more vehicles; we want to kill all water bodies and construct market complexes and other structures, encroach all flood plains...and everything that finally brings us to this state of affairs where we may have money but no life on earth...

A lesson to learn from Chennai? Or just let the time pass and start destroying the nature again? 

Well, our memory may be short but Nature's isn't!

Ranjan

--
Ranjan K Panda

Convenor, Water Initiatives Odisha (WIO)
Convenor, Combat Climate Change Network, India
Mahanadi River Waterkeeper (Member, Global Waterkeeper Alliance, New York)


Tweet @ranjanpanda
Tweet @MahanadiRiver

Skype: ranjan.climatecrusader

Blog: http://www.climatecrusaders.blogspot.com/

Fighting water woes, combating climate change...25 years now!

CoP21: Odisha farmers join global mobilization movements to demand a Climate Deal that benefits Small Farmers!

Drought Affected Farmers of Odisha demand definitive Climate Deal at Paris


More than three hundred farmers in Nuapada and Bargarh districts organised a “March To the Crop Field” on the Global Mobilization Day for CoP 21

Sambalpur, India: 29th November, 2015 -

As the global leaders prepare to strike a new deal to fight climate change during the Conference of Parties 21 (CoP21) meeting at Paris that starts tomorrow, villagers from drought affected districts of Nuapada and Bargarh organized a “March to the Crop Field” asking the world leaders to make a definitive climate deal that reduces global warming and greenhouse gases and support small and marginal farmers in adapting to negative impacts of climate change.

This March was organised at two places – Kharamal village in Bargarh district and Kushmal in Nuappada district – where about three hundred villagers – including women and children participated to send out their message to the world governments to save small farmers from vagaries of climate change by signing a strong climate deal in Paris.

                   
                              


The villagers have demanded that:

 1.     Small and marginal farmers are facing the maximum impacts of climate change and as a result are losing on their livelihoods, resorting to distressed migration and even committing suicides due to crop failures and other reasons.  We want the governments at CoP21 to finalize a deal that arrests global warming and helps small farmers to fight the impacts through schemes and programmes suitable for the small farmers.

 2.     We want the governments to support local agro-ecology based farming projects and programmes.

3.     We want the governments to support decentralized water harvesting and management systems.

 4.     We want the governments to end corporate control of the farm sector including their control of our seeds.

 5.     We want the governments to promote organic farming.

 6.     We want the governments to ensure local farm based enterprises owned and operated by small and marginal farmers with all kind of support provided to them.

7.     We want the governments to ensure best remuneration to farmers for their produces and insure all crops and farmers irrespective of land ownership, with adequate and dignified insurance amounts.

8.     We want the governments to provide assured irrigation, cold storage facilities and ensured marketing of farm produces to the farmers.

9.     We want the governments to help the farmers fight with all sorts of disasters such as droughts, floods and cyclones and support farmers in their coping and resilience efforts.

10. To strengthen climate change adaptation programmes like the MGNREGA.



Water Initiatives Odisha (WIO) and Mahanadi River Waterkeeper facilitated this action along with Vikash, Khariar; CANSA and Action2015India as part of a global mobilization day being organized throughout the world by thousands of common people including small farmers, landless labourers, fisherfolks, forest dwellers, concerned citizens, social activists, civil society organisations and others who want the global leaders to take a strong decision to deal with climate change.



For further details, please contact:

Ranjan Panda
Convenor, Water Initiatives Odisha
Mahanadi River Waterkeeper
Convenor, Combat Climate Change Network, India
Mob: +91-9437050103
Email: ranjanpanda@gmail.com

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Water Initiatives Odisha (WIO) is a state level coalition of civil society organisations, farmers, academia, media and other concerned, which has been working on water, environment and climate change issues in the state for more than two and half decades now.

Mahanadi River Waterkeeper, a member of Global Waterkeeper Alliance, works towards conservation of River Mahanadi in India