VEDANTA: DEVELOPER OR LAND GRABBER

Despite Vedanta's roaring hoardings of 'Mining Happiness', forceful grabbing of adivasi land by the company in Lanjigarh has always been a burning issue. Adivasis had been knocking all possible doors for justice: from the local administration to various courts. Recently, responding to complaints by four adivasis of the Jagannathpur Mauja in Lanjigarh Tehsil, the National Human Rights Commission investigated the issue and identified 3.66 acres of land within the company's premises that legally belong to adivasis. Following this, the administration has now imposed Section-144 on the land and has registered a criminal case of land-grab against the company. This is for the first time that Vedanta's illegal land-grabbing activities has been 'officially proved'

KBK SAMACHAR
Bhawanipatna, Kalahandi,

NHRC asks Orissa govt to reply on food security in KBK region

Courtesy:- PTI

Expressing 'concern' about the 'food security' of poor people in poverty-stricken KBK (Kalahandi-Balangir-Koraput) region, National Human Rights Commission on Wednesday directed the Orissa government to present status of its recommendation on implementation of welfare schemes in the area.

"The state government has been directed to depute an officer to be present before the commission on March 21, 2011 giving status on the implementation of recommendations of the commission," NHRC Chairperson Justice K G Balakrishnan said after completion of the two-day camp here.

Stating that the NHRC aimed to wipe out the cause of alleged starvation deaths, malnutrition and other problems faced by people in the KBK region, Balakrishnan said the commission wanted to know about the status of its recommendations on different welfare schemes including public distribution system, health, and special security schemes in the area.

"The commission has also directed the state government to effectively co-ordinate and implement various schemes for the KBK districts," he said.

Worried over no substantial development in the KBK region despite implementation of different welfare measures, the commission held a separate session to discuss issues relating to the area.

Issues of poverty, unemployment, deprivation, hunger, starvation and malnutrition in the KBK region were discussed in the presence of senior state government officials, NHRC member Satyabrata Pal said.

While rejecting the state government's claim that no one died of of starvation in KBK region, the commission observed that though none was directly a victim of hunger, the prevailing situation may lead a person to that fate.

It came to the observation while disposing a case relating to the alleged starvation death if 12 children in Nabarangpur and Balangir districts.

As most of the people died of anemia or malnutrition, this could be due to prolong poverty in the region, the commission observed adding that people might be facing shortage of food.

"The state government has also been directed to send detailed report on the issue of bogus ration cards, particularly in the KBK region," Justice Balakrishnan said adding that action taken by the state government against the corrupt officials would also be informed to the commission.

Western Orissa awaits so-called promised hospitals since decades - Another Example of Criminal Negligence By Orissa govt towards Western Orissa

Three medical colleges were proposed in 2004 for western Orissa, facilitated by Western Orissa Development Council (WODC), but they are yet to see the light of day. Other subsequent proposals are still in very early stages.

The planning and coordination department sanctioned Rs 10 crore each for medical colleges in Rourkela, Jaring (Kalahandi district) and Balangir and the state government had provided 25-acre land each to these proposed colleges.

Officials said the proposed medical college at Balangir has faced a dead-end. After WODC advertised seeking private partnership for the proposed colleges, there were two responses. But both the parties failed to qualify in the technical expertise criteria.

Before this, three private parties, selected for Balangir college, quit at various stages. First, GSL Trust of Andhra Pradesh was selected for medical colleges at Balangir and Rourkela and a MoU was signed on January 31, 2004. But the MoU was cancelled since the trust did not commence work. The government signed another MoU with Sri Balaji Educational and Charitable Public Trust on October 6, 2006 for Balangir. After its delay in the start of work, the MoU was cancelled and RVS Educational Trust was selected as a private sponsor. The trust expressed its inability on February 17, 2010 to execute the project.

Work for the medical college at Jaring in Kalahandi, being undertaken by Selvam Educational and Charitable Trust, Tamil Nadu, is under way, after a MoU was signed on January 30, 2004. A 500-bed hospital was supposed to function by January 30, 2008, (five years from the date of MoU). But as of now the hospital is ready in part. While a building for the 300-bed hospital, three operation theatres and a seven-bed ICU is ready, the hostel buildings are yet to be ready.

"The outcome of the inspection by the Medical Council of India in May 2008 was not satisfactory. The trust filed a fresh application before the MCI on November 30, 2010, and the team visited the site once again in April-May," a senior health department official said. Construction of the Rourkela college is being undertaken by Vigyan Bharati Charitable Trust after the government signed a MoU on July 4, 2008. Construction work is on. WODC officials are, however, optimistic. "Barring the Balangir college, the other two projects at Rourkela and Jaring are doing reasonably well. They should be commissioned as early as 2012," said WODC chief executive officer Aswini Mishra.

While neglecting the cause of Western Orissa...Orissa govt went ahead and gave full funding for setting up an ESI medical college in Bhubaneswar which was initially proposed at Balangir then was moved to Rourkela due to our ineficient local leaders.

Time has come for people of Western Orissa to stand united and starts a bloody revolution for our basic rights from the currupt Orissa administration who are more than busy blaming center for everything.

Eunuch Politicians and local Leaders are good for nothing...How many more years they will be fooling us like this ???

Note:- Some of the Contents were taken from Times Of India

Kalikesh urges PM to include KBK in development plans for Maoist-hit areas

Courtesy:- DailyPioneer

BJD MP from Balangir Kalikesh Narayan Singh Deo has approached Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to take a call on the KBK region. He said that unless the Prime Minister intervenes in the matter, these areas would continue to rot.

Singh Deo said the eight most backward districts of the world in Odisha’s KBK region need inclusion in Unified Action Plan for Naxal-Affected Regions (UAPNAR), which is a Central Government initiative to tackle the Maoist menace through development programmes.

Singh Deo said the PM is aware that people of KBK are exposed to extremely adverse human development indices and are one of the most deprived communities. He requested the PM to intervene for the inclusion of the KBK region in the UAPNAR so that they are delivered with a semblance of justice.

EXCLUSIVE FULL SAXENA COMMITTEE REPORT ABOUT ILLEGAL MINING IN NIYAMGIRI

The odds are now stacked against Vedanta's bauxite mining in the Niyamgiri hills in Kalahandi with UPA government building a watertight legal case against the aluminium giant in the lead up to the decision it is to take next week on the fate of the $1.7 billion project in Orissa.

The step by step build-up to pulling the plug on the controversial bauxite mining venture will reach its penultimate phase on Friday when the Forest Advisory Committee under the environment ministry is to take a call on the N C Saxena report recommending a ban on Vedanta's operations.

The FAC is unlikely to go against the grain of Saxena committee's report which is seen as well-argued. Importantly, one of the members of the FAC, Amita Baviskar, also happens to be on the Saxena panel.

The FAC's recommendation would then allow the environment ministry (read: Jairam Ramesh) to take a final call on aluminium czar Anil Aggarwal's ambitious project in Orissa. Indications are that Ramesh, but for a political intervention, will reject the proposal for a clearance to state-owned Orissa Mining Corporation to dig out bauxite for the Vedanta aluminium refinery project. In fact, the findings are such that they may even lead the minister to block construction of the refinery.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL SAXENA COMMITEE REPORT

She was sold for Rs 40 two decades back; today she might have to sell her daughter

Written by Vibhuti Mishra for "The Tribune"

"I walk eight kilometres every day to earn Rs 260 a month. On some days we eat and on some days we don’t. We sleep on empty stomachs. I became a showpiece. They published my photographs and forgot I needed food to live." This comes from Banita (32) who was sold for Rs 40 in 1985. Her name along with that of her native place Kalahandi made it to the headlines, causing the then Prime Minister to rush to Orissa.

Driven by hunger and starvation, her sister-in-law Phanus Punji sold off 14-year-old Banita to one Pati Boda for just Rs 40 almost two decades back. The then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and his wife Sonia rushed to the remote village of Anlapali in the Khariar block of Kalahandi, where she lived. There was a beeline of politicians, officers and journalists to the place. The heart-rending story of Banita formed the staple of sensational stories in glossies and Kalahandi became synonymous with poverty, starvation and sale of children.

Eighteen years later the world has forgotten Banita who is still caught in the vortex of poverty and misery. She has become cynical. "Why do you all come? To take my pictures and print them? What do you come to see? My hunger, poverty, my blind husband, my famished children?" she cries out. Worn out and withered, Banita looks like an old woman. A mother of five and with a blind, ailing husband to look after, she is neck deep in loans and ever-increasing interest. None of her kids go to school and dreadful poverty stares her in the face. To stave off starvation, she perhaps has no other option but to sell her youngest child, a daughter who is barely three.

Pati Poda who bought her got her married to his blind, elderly son Bidyadhar Poda and she bore him five children. "My husband forbade me to have the operation. He said he would abandoned me if I got it done," she says explaining why she did not go for a family planning operation. To make matters worse she faced social boycott as she was not the legally wedded wife of Bidyadhar. The marriage did not get social sanction as they did not have the money to host a wedding feast.

"There was no marriage. I had no choice," she reveals calmly. However, 15 years later on October 21, 2000, her marriage was conducted according to Vedic rites, thanks to former union minister of state for railways Bhakta Charan Das who funded the wedding and the feast.

The villagers accepted her but life remained grim. She was engaged as a cook in an Anganwadi centre 8 km away. At first she earned Rs 3.50 a day; an amount that was hiked to Rs 7. Today she gets a monthly salary of Rs 260 which is not paid to her regularly and at times, if she buys leftover food from the center for her starving children, the supervisor deducts her salary.

She is the only earning member of her family. None of her children go to school and her blind husband cannot work. Sometimes her elder daughter tends cattle and gets some rice in as payment for the work. To ward off starvation, Banita has taken loans from local people at an interest of 5 per cent per month. She now lives in Khatimunda village. The other villagers are too poor to give any help to her. And Banita’s is perhaps the poorest family.

Banita’s case has been extensively reported but she has got little benefit. Says B. Behera, a social activist working in the Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput region, "It’s all because of the lack of political will and failure of administrative machinery. There are hundreds of such cases and poverty continues to stalk these poor souls. They are forced to sell everything, including their children, to eke out a living." But the government officials do not agree that any child has been sold. The much touted KBK (Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput) project launched by the government of India in 1996 has failed to take off and bring about the all-round progress envisaged for the poor and poverty stricken people of the region. Says an official of the Bongomunda block, "Actually the funds for KBK were released almost four years after the programme was announced and then the administrative set up was not there. So it will take time. " However there have been constant allegations of corruption and siphoning off of funds which politicians like Bishwabhushan Harichandan, revenue minister of Orissa and B. K. Deo, MP from Kalahandi, deny.

Some years back Banita had to support her parents-in-law, too. But now they have died and along with them have died her hopes. All household things have been sold off and her life is a daily struggle against poverty and privation. Life has nothing much to offer her. Much like the promises of the district administration. Poverty alleviation is a topic that figures only in government meetings.

Banita is worse off than her sister-in-law Phanus who still lives in Anlapali. She has at least got an Indira Awas Yojana house to find shelter in. Even that has not come to Banita who in her search for food has unwittingly become food for publicity.