Sponge iron’s dirty growth

Sometime in June 2009, the West Bengal chief minister’s office forwarded a complaint to the state pollution control board (SPCB) about three sponge iron factories in West Medinipur district.

Chhattisgarh's Industrial Jungle

The rich green fields of Darramuda village in Raigarh district of Chhattisgarh were almost peaceful. A JCB backhoe loader whirred on as it dug in and pulled out lumps of wet brown earth.

Poll posturing

The stage is set for the December 1 assembly elections in Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Coming after a healthy monsoon that was preceded by a severe dry spell, the polls offer parties the perfect platform for articulating their stand on matters concerning development. A Down To Earth (dte) team fanned out to the four states to assess first-hand whether there was indeed a shift in political mindset in this direction.

Binayak Sen gets life term

A Chhattisgarh court held Dr Binayak Sen, a human right activist, and two others guilty on Decmber 24. He was charged with treason, helping Maoists and waging war against India. The other two held guilty are Naxal ideologue Narayan Sanyal and Kolkata businessman Piyush Guha.

Let forests be mined: coal ministry

CHOOSING economic growth over protection of rich forests, the ministry of coal has written to the Cabinet secretary against demarcation of coal-bearing mines as “go” and “no-go” zones. In June, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF) had set rich forests as out of bounds for mining. As a preliminary exercise, the environment and coal ministries identified 35 per cent area of nine coalfields as no-go zones.

Crisis of governance

URBAN local bodies in India’s scheduled areas have been functioning illegally for the past 15 years because of Parliament’s oversight. The Constitution mandates a law separate from the Panchayati Raj Act for rural and urban local bodies in scheduled areas—tribal dominated areas specified in the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution. Parliament enacted the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act in 1996 for rural areas, but a similar legislation for urban scheduled areas was never debated.

Caught in crossfire

Twenty six-year-old Soyam Hunga has stayed in the Errabore Salwa Judum camp in Chhattisgarh for six years. He is from village Morguda in Dantewada district and moved to the camp, 30 kilometres away, to escape Naxalites.

Chhattisgarh unsure of disease outbreak

Already marred by violence, tribals from the interior villages of Dantewada are facing a new challenge. A number of people last month died of or fell a victim to a water-borne disease. Though the state government maintains it is DVD (diarrhoea-vomiting-dysentry), experts suspect it to be as severe as cholera.

In court

GMR bypasses clearance: A district court of Raipur in Chhattisgarh issued summons to three top officials of gmr Energy for starting construction activities for a 1,200 MW power plant near Raipur without environmental clearance. They are to appear in court on November 22. During a site visit, the Chhattisgarh Environment Conservation Board officials witnessed digging in progress, and issued notice. GMR ignored it. The board moved court.

Stalk soup

One of the great acumen of those living close to nature is that they know exactly when nature offers a gift.