The anatomy of our greed

Click on the image to enlarge and read. The poster is based on Arundhati Roy's various essays, Shoma Chaudhary's brilliant articles in Tehelka, and common sense.

Just think about this before you start shouting like a television anchor who is baying for blood:

The Fifth Schedule of the Constitution grants tribals complete rights over their traditional land and forests and prohibits private companies from mining on their land.

Human rights activists have long argued that the real intention of the Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh was to capture tribal land — brimming-rich with minerals — and hand it over to private companies. The fact that 600 tribal villages have been evacuated in the last few years gives credence to this theory. If tribals no longer live on that land, the inconvenient Fifth Schedule of the Constitution will not apply.

-From the powerful story in Tehelka by Shoma Chaudhary. Click here to read.

About time you read the Fifth Schedule?

Here's a bit more on it.

Here is Arundhati Roy's powerful essay on which this poster is based.

Read it word for word. It will open your mind.

And here is the interview every Indian must listen to. They have a transcript for you to read as well.

From the interview:

AMY GOODMAN: Arundhati Roy, we just have less than a minute. What gives you hope?

ARUNDHATI ROY: What gives me hope is the fact that this way of thinking is being resisted in a myriad ways in India, you know, from the poorest person in a loincloth in the forest saying, “We’re going to fight,” right up to me, who’s at the other end, you know. And all of us are joined together by the determination that, even if we lose, we’re going to fight, you know? And we’re not going to just let this happen without doing everything we can to stop it. And that gives me a tremendous amount of hope.

That says it all, doesn't it?

Happy Independence Day

Click on the image to enlarge and read.

Every day, every single minute a poor farmer is being driven away from his land. His land is being given to corporates to build malls, industries and other temples of development.A Buddha statue is to be installed at the cost of $250 million dollars. It will displace 2990 families. Where will they go? Will they ever get compensated? Has anyone ever got compensated?

This Independence Day let’s stop saying everything is going to be alright.

No it will not. Unless we start questioning our systems in larger numbers than we have ever done before. Make use of RTIs. Question. Question. Question. And if you don’t get answers, demand them.

This Independence Day let’s stop saying everything is going to be alright. This Independence Day, let’s start making things right.

The Land Acquisition Act is dispossessing millions of Indians of their homes, their basic human rights. And that’s neither pessimistic, nor optimistic. That’s plain and simple reality.

This poster is based on a powerful Tehelka story by Magsaysay Award winner, Sandeep Pandey. Click to read it.

Double Speak

So much for the green Commonwealth Games, Yamuna and our insatiable stupidity.
Here are a few links:

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Govt-nod-for-DTC-parking-on-Yamuna-flood-plain/480102/

http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/taxonomy/term/1266

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/enviornment/india-to-host-green-commonwealth-games_100201381.html


And here is Double Speak on the issue of “Degraded Forests”.
Which one do you believe?

1.
I believe forest cover is better than monoculture plantations, for the former are multi-layered eco-systems. Our first challenge is to preserve the existing forest cover, roughly 24 percent, and to improve its quality. Nearly 60 percent is degraded forests, which we must improve to high-density forests. That will have a tremendous impact on carbon sequestration. But India’s targetted 33 percentgreen cover can only come from afforestation.

Jairam Ramesh in an interview to Tehelka. Here is the interview:

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main42.asp?filename=hub270609the_forest.asp


2.

Bloomberg cited Mr Jairam Ramesh environment minister as saying that India will expedite environmental approvals and allow mining in degraded forests to double the nation’s coal output.
Mr Ramesh said the country needs to increase coal production to 1 billion tonne in the next 7 years to feed new power plants. He said “Our power plants won’t materialize unless we produce a billion tons of coal.”
He said “As far as we are concerned, all degraded forests are go and all medium or heavy density forests are no go.”

Is anyone listening? Hello?

The Great Indian Clearance Sale

Click on the image to enlarge

SALE: Orissa
BUYER: Vedanta

Interesting interview:
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main39.asp?filename=Ne310508cover_story.asp

This is where you will find how Vedanta manufactures lies and feeds them to the ever so hungry government:
http://www.survival-international.org/behindthelies/vedanta

Here are the orders of the government clearing the way for Vedanta:
http://downtoearth.org.in/vedanta.asp
Check out the pdfs for the official documents. They are an amazing read.

Of course, if you google it, you will find more truths about how we sold Orissa to this company.

If you are interested in bringing your evil empire to India, flouting environmental norms, or crushing people's rights, please feel invited to our great country. The Great Indian Clearance Sale is on. And we are selling everything.