governancenow.comGovt continues to violate law
April 04 2011
At first look, the attempt by both the planning commission and the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) to press for fixing the minimum support price (MSP) for “minor forest produce” seems a timely and appropriate step to empower the tribals.
But both seem to have missed the simple fact that they have been violating the law of the land for 15 long years.
The Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act bestowed “the ownership of the minor forest produce” to the tribals way back in 1996.
Even while preparing and releasing its Integrated Action Plan (IAP) for 60 Maoist-affected districts in 2010 (a little less than Rs 15,000 crore), the planning commission conveniently forgot to deal with the minor forest produce.
The irony is that the planning commission itself had calculated at the time that the ownership of the minor forest produce to the tribals mean Rs 50,000 crore a year for them.
If the government were to follow the law and hand over the minor forest produce the tribals would be richer by Rs 50,000 crore.
There is little hope that even the present exercise of fixing the MSP will come to fruition anytime soon.
Recall environment minister Jairam Ramesh’s letter to the chief ministers on March 21, 2011. He said: “I am now writing to you on a related issue of declaring and treating bamboo as Minor Forest Produce.”
Ramesh hasn’t read the law. The Forest Rights Act of 2006 defines “minor forest produce” as: ““minor forest produce includes all non-timber forest produce of plant origin including bamboo, brush wood, stumps, cane, tussar, cocoons, honey, wax, lac, tendu or kendu leaves, medicinal plants and herbs, roots, tubers, and the like”.
Bamboo, at least since 2006, is a minor forest produce. But Ramesh went on to say in his letter that the state government and forest departments would now ensure, among other things: a) Gram Sabha will issue transit passes for bamboo b)Gram Sabha will decide extraction level of bamboo and c) All revenue generated from bamboo (where FRA has not been implemented) will be shared with the local communities.
Had Ramesh read FRA of 2006 and PESA of 1996, his language would have been different. He would have passed the “ownership” of bamboo to the tribals. He didn’t even mention “ownership”.
And that is because his ministry has been denying this right to the tribals for the past 15 years. Forget bamboo, ownership of none of the other items as FRA listed out - brush wood, stumps, cane, tussar, cocoons, honey, wax, lac, tendu or kendu leaves, medicinal plants and herbs, roots, tubers – have been passed on.
For the record, bamboo remained defined as a “tree” and not falling in the list of minor forest produce in the books of Ramesh and his predecessors for ages.
Of course, the state governments are equally to be blamed.
But this public display of activism by the planning commission and Jairam Ramesh is more for publicity purpose.
There is another crucial resource from which the tribals should be benefitting but have denied. It relates to “minor minerals”.
PESA of 1996 provided that “the recommendations of the Gram Sabha or the Panchayats at the appropriate level shall be made mandatory prior to grant of prospecting licence or mining lease for minor minerals in the Scheduled Areas”.
The obvious objective is that the tribals should benefit. The planning commission hasn’t calculated the annual trade in minor minerals but safely assume it to be more than that of minor forest produce, which would mean at least another Rs 50,000 crore a year.
How exactly the tribals benefit from extraction of minor minerals (like mining of sand and pebbles, stones, chips, even limestone etc) should have been worked out by now. Should there be a 50-50 share of revenue between the tribal communities and the government? Or should it be some other formula? Fifteen years is a long time.
It only goes to establish that the government continues to be the biggest exploiter of the tribals (don’t forget, the government has displaced and destitute thousands of tribals by handing over their land to private companies through out the country). The Maoists, in turn, are exploiting the situation to achieve their goal – an armed overthrow of the government.
***
Did the Narasimha Rao government sanction Purulia arms drop?
The union government must come clean after Times Now expose
April 29 2011
Sixteen years after the mysterious Purulia arms-drop case of 1995, which the successive union governments have kept under wraps, an investigation by Times Now television channel has made a sensational disclosure, which is yet to be verified, that it was an official operation sanctioned by the then Narasimha Rao government.
The disclosures are based on public declaration of the two prime accused, Kim Davy and Peter Bleach, both of whom were on the Latavian aircraft Antonov An-26 that dropped more than 300 AK 47 assault rifles and a million rounds of ammunition close to an Anandmarg ashram in Purulia district of West Bengal. They have also produced documents, named some top bureaucrats involved in its planning and execution to back up their claims
According to them, Indian intelligence agency RAW joined hands with the British intelligence agency MI5 at behest of the Indian government to organise the arms dropping. The purpose was to help the Anandmargis start an anti-communist insurgency in West Bengal and destabilise the Left Front government.
Bleach is a former British special force officer involved in legal arms supply. Davy claimed to have worked with the Anandmargis and moved by the atrocities of the West Bengal government on innocent people of the state and joined the operation.
Some of the other key revelations they make are as follows:
· A member of parliament from Bihar, Pappu Yadav, was in touch with the conspirators. It was he who arranged for Davy’s escape in his official car to Nepal from where Davy flew to Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital, where he has been living ever since. Yadav is in the Tihar, serving life imprisonment in a murder case.
· A senior CBI officer, J K Dutt, was also part of the conspiracy. He was at Pappu Yadav’s residence in New Delhi when Davy reached there on his way out to Nepal. Dutt subsequently investigated the case and did his best to cover up the tracks. Dutt denied the charge.
· Former CBI director Joginder Singh claimed that when he tried to probe the case he was discouraged by the political establishment.
· Davy claimed to have been living openly in Copenhagen, giving interviews freely and that these were part of the court proceedings in India but the CBI all along maintained that it had no idea about his whereabouts. He claimed the Indian government never wanted to bring him back to India until very recently. Denmark has now agreed to his deportation, which he doesn’t want and hence the disclosures on Times Now.
· The Air Force cooperated in the case by allowing the aircraft, flying in from Pakistan and belonging to a front organisation of the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI, by shutting off its radars at Kalaikunda airbase close to the arms drop zone and elsewhere. It was on record before the court that the radars had been switched off for the night.
· MI5 had sent three communications to RAW warning about the arms drop, after Bleach said he informed MI5 about it, as it was required by the established procedure in the UK. It is not fully clear why Bleach informed MI5 as he alleged the agency was in the know (was it because the alleged involvement was at the level of an individual official rather than the entire agency?). The warning was forwarded by the union government to West Bengal on “registered post” close to the event. The communication reached after the incident, as it was intended. The communication was sent by joint secretary in MHA Shanti Prakash, who later retired as Tripura’s chief secretary.
· Bleach claimed he wanted to give the full story to the Indian court but he was prevented from it. He was later given a presidential pardon during the NDA regime, along with other Latavian crew in Indian jails.
· Both claimed that details of the case never came to public domain because the Indian government and its intelligence agencies have much to hide.
· Pappu Yadav’s father is associated with the Anandmargis. He, however, denied any knowledge of the conspiracy or involvement of the Anandmargis.
· The union government has blocked all information on the subject through the RTI, claiming it to be a matter of national security.
Precisely because it involves grave security issues, the union government must come out clean.
We have similar instances of complicity of the state in letting criminals off. Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson was escorted out of the country at the behest of the union and Madhya Pradesh governments after the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy.
Much later, Ottavio Quattrocchi, an Italian businessman close to the Gandhi families and an accused in the Bofors case, was allowed to go out of India and during the last UPA regime, his accounts abroad, in which he had received Bofors payoff, were de-freezed.
Intelligence failures led to not only the Kargil war but also the 26/11 Mumbai attack.
The Purulia case is even more serious because it points to complicity and collusion of the Indian government and its various agencies. It also points to the machinations of the union government in destabilising a state government by trying to engineer internal strife and armed conflict.
These are very serious charges and unverified yet. Since these charges are made by two prime accused in the case, it requires an official inquiry to establish the truth and the findings of this inquiry should be shared with the people.
***
April 04 2011
At first look, the attempt by both the planning commission and the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) to press for fixing the minimum support price (MSP) for “minor forest produce” seems a timely and appropriate step to empower the tribals.
But both seem to have missed the simple fact that they have been violating the law of the land for 15 long years.
The Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act bestowed “the ownership of the minor forest produce” to the tribals way back in 1996.
Even while preparing and releasing its Integrated Action Plan (IAP) for 60 Maoist-affected districts in 2010 (a little less than Rs 15,000 crore), the planning commission conveniently forgot to deal with the minor forest produce.
The irony is that the planning commission itself had calculated at the time that the ownership of the minor forest produce to the tribals mean Rs 50,000 crore a year for them.
If the government were to follow the law and hand over the minor forest produce the tribals would be richer by Rs 50,000 crore.
There is little hope that even the present exercise of fixing the MSP will come to fruition anytime soon.
Recall environment minister Jairam Ramesh’s letter to the chief ministers on March 21, 2011. He said: “I am now writing to you on a related issue of declaring and treating bamboo as Minor Forest Produce.”
Ramesh hasn’t read the law. The Forest Rights Act of 2006 defines “minor forest produce” as: ““minor forest produce includes all non-timber forest produce of plant origin including bamboo, brush wood, stumps, cane, tussar, cocoons, honey, wax, lac, tendu or kendu leaves, medicinal plants and herbs, roots, tubers, and the like”.
Bamboo, at least since 2006, is a minor forest produce. But Ramesh went on to say in his letter that the state government and forest departments would now ensure, among other things: a) Gram Sabha will issue transit passes for bamboo b)Gram Sabha will decide extraction level of bamboo and c) All revenue generated from bamboo (where FRA has not been implemented) will be shared with the local communities.
Had Ramesh read FRA of 2006 and PESA of 1996, his language would have been different. He would have passed the “ownership” of bamboo to the tribals. He didn’t even mention “ownership”.
And that is because his ministry has been denying this right to the tribals for the past 15 years. Forget bamboo, ownership of none of the other items as FRA listed out - brush wood, stumps, cane, tussar, cocoons, honey, wax, lac, tendu or kendu leaves, medicinal plants and herbs, roots, tubers – have been passed on.
For the record, bamboo remained defined as a “tree” and not falling in the list of minor forest produce in the books of Ramesh and his predecessors for ages.
Of course, the state governments are equally to be blamed.
But this public display of activism by the planning commission and Jairam Ramesh is more for publicity purpose.
There is another crucial resource from which the tribals should be benefitting but have denied. It relates to “minor minerals”.
PESA of 1996 provided that “the recommendations of the Gram Sabha or the Panchayats at the appropriate level shall be made mandatory prior to grant of prospecting licence or mining lease for minor minerals in the Scheduled Areas”.
The obvious objective is that the tribals should benefit. The planning commission hasn’t calculated the annual trade in minor minerals but safely assume it to be more than that of minor forest produce, which would mean at least another Rs 50,000 crore a year.
How exactly the tribals benefit from extraction of minor minerals (like mining of sand and pebbles, stones, chips, even limestone etc) should have been worked out by now. Should there be a 50-50 share of revenue between the tribal communities and the government? Or should it be some other formula? Fifteen years is a long time.
It only goes to establish that the government continues to be the biggest exploiter of the tribals (don’t forget, the government has displaced and destitute thousands of tribals by handing over their land to private companies through out the country). The Maoists, in turn, are exploiting the situation to achieve their goal – an armed overthrow of the government.
***
Did the Narasimha Rao government sanction Purulia arms drop?
The union government must come clean after Times Now expose
April 29 2011
Sixteen years after the mysterious Purulia arms-drop case of 1995, which the successive union governments have kept under wraps, an investigation by Times Now television channel has made a sensational disclosure, which is yet to be verified, that it was an official operation sanctioned by the then Narasimha Rao government.
The disclosures are based on public declaration of the two prime accused, Kim Davy and Peter Bleach, both of whom were on the Latavian aircraft Antonov An-26 that dropped more than 300 AK 47 assault rifles and a million rounds of ammunition close to an Anandmarg ashram in Purulia district of West Bengal. They have also produced documents, named some top bureaucrats involved in its planning and execution to back up their claims
According to them, Indian intelligence agency RAW joined hands with the British intelligence agency MI5 at behest of the Indian government to organise the arms dropping. The purpose was to help the Anandmargis start an anti-communist insurgency in West Bengal and destabilise the Left Front government.
Bleach is a former British special force officer involved in legal arms supply. Davy claimed to have worked with the Anandmargis and moved by the atrocities of the West Bengal government on innocent people of the state and joined the operation.
Some of the other key revelations they make are as follows:
· A member of parliament from Bihar, Pappu Yadav, was in touch with the conspirators. It was he who arranged for Davy’s escape in his official car to Nepal from where Davy flew to Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital, where he has been living ever since. Yadav is in the Tihar, serving life imprisonment in a murder case.
· A senior CBI officer, J K Dutt, was also part of the conspiracy. He was at Pappu Yadav’s residence in New Delhi when Davy reached there on his way out to Nepal. Dutt subsequently investigated the case and did his best to cover up the tracks. Dutt denied the charge.
· Former CBI director Joginder Singh claimed that when he tried to probe the case he was discouraged by the political establishment.
· Davy claimed to have been living openly in Copenhagen, giving interviews freely and that these were part of the court proceedings in India but the CBI all along maintained that it had no idea about his whereabouts. He claimed the Indian government never wanted to bring him back to India until very recently. Denmark has now agreed to his deportation, which he doesn’t want and hence the disclosures on Times Now.
· The Air Force cooperated in the case by allowing the aircraft, flying in from Pakistan and belonging to a front organisation of the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI, by shutting off its radars at Kalaikunda airbase close to the arms drop zone and elsewhere. It was on record before the court that the radars had been switched off for the night.
· MI5 had sent three communications to RAW warning about the arms drop, after Bleach said he informed MI5 about it, as it was required by the established procedure in the UK. It is not fully clear why Bleach informed MI5 as he alleged the agency was in the know (was it because the alleged involvement was at the level of an individual official rather than the entire agency?). The warning was forwarded by the union government to West Bengal on “registered post” close to the event. The communication reached after the incident, as it was intended. The communication was sent by joint secretary in MHA Shanti Prakash, who later retired as Tripura’s chief secretary.
· Bleach claimed he wanted to give the full story to the Indian court but he was prevented from it. He was later given a presidential pardon during the NDA regime, along with other Latavian crew in Indian jails.
· Both claimed that details of the case never came to public domain because the Indian government and its intelligence agencies have much to hide.
· Pappu Yadav’s father is associated with the Anandmargis. He, however, denied any knowledge of the conspiracy or involvement of the Anandmargis.
· The union government has blocked all information on the subject through the RTI, claiming it to be a matter of national security.
Precisely because it involves grave security issues, the union government must come out clean.
We have similar instances of complicity of the state in letting criminals off. Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson was escorted out of the country at the behest of the union and Madhya Pradesh governments after the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy.
Much later, Ottavio Quattrocchi, an Italian businessman close to the Gandhi families and an accused in the Bofors case, was allowed to go out of India and during the last UPA regime, his accounts abroad, in which he had received Bofors payoff, were de-freezed.
Intelligence failures led to not only the Kargil war but also the 26/11 Mumbai attack.
The Purulia case is even more serious because it points to complicity and collusion of the Indian government and its various agencies. It also points to the machinations of the union government in destabilising a state government by trying to engineer internal strife and armed conflict.
These are very serious charges and unverified yet. Since these charges are made by two prime accused in the case, it requires an official inquiry to establish the truth and the findings of this inquiry should be shared with the people.
***
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