science and environment fortnightly october 1...
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S C I E N C E A N D E N V I R O N M E N T F O R T N I G H T L Y
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Afghanistan’s big plans to exploit its minerals can
either revive its economy or squander its wealth
`45.00
S C I E N C E A N D E N V I R O N M E N T F O R T N I G H T L Y
DownToEarth
VOL 22, NO 10; To ta l No o f pages 80Editorial, subscriptions and advertisements: Society forEnvironmental Communications, 41, TughlakabadInstitutional Area, New Delhi 110 062, Phone: 91-11-29955124, 29956110, 29956394, 29956399 Fax: 91-11-29955879. Email: [email protected] © 2005 Societyfor Environmental Communications. All rights reserved throughout the world. Reproduction in any manner is prohibited. Printed and published by Sunita Narain on behalfof Society for Environmental Communications. Printed atInternational Print-o-Pac Limited, B-204, 205, OkhlaIndustrial Area, Phase I, New Delhi-110020 INDIA and published at 41, Tughlakabad Institutional Area, New Delhi 110 062.
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Down To Earth • October 1-15, 20134
OCTOBER 1-15, 2013
DOWN TO EARTH EDITORIAL DOES NOT ENDORSE THE CONTENT OF ADVERTISEMENTSPRINTED IN THE MAGAZINE
CONTENTS
24COVER STORY Mining on its mindAfghanistan must tap its minerals to revive its economy. But in the absence of regulations, transparency and infrastructure, it can end up squandering its wealth
FRONTPAGE
SPECIAL REPORT
09Dying in numbersInfant deaths in West Bengal’s apexchild hospital point topoor healthcare in ruralparts of the state
15Uttarakhand: ravaged, not rebuiltThree months after the disaster, Uttarakhand has not even started to recover,thanks to government’s ever-changing rehabilitation policies
October 1-15, 2013 • Down To Earth 5
20-PAGE DTE SUPPLEMENTW I T H S U B S C R I P T I O N C O P I E S
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Supplement Editor: Sumita DasguptaCopy: Prachi Guron, Anjali Nambissan, Ajanta SikdarDesign: Kadambari Misra, Surender Singh
S C I E N C E A N D E N V I R O N M E N T F O R T N I G H T L Y
DownToEarth On the Webw w w . d o w n t o e a r t h . o r g . i n3 EDITOR’S PAGE
6 LETTERS
NEWS
12 Moratorium on industry expansion in eight highly polluted areas
13 What led to the killing of forest officer in Andhra Pradesh
14 Rooftop solar panel scheme a big hit in Uttarakhand
SPECIAL REPORTS
18 Environment ministry violates afforestation laws, says CAG
20 Biodiversity slips out of Vidarbha fishers’ net
22 Are malnutrition figures in India exaggerated?
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
34 Tiger genome reveals how big cat evolved to hunt, kill
38 Did anyone notice climatic shift in India?
39 Chronic diseases in family also impact its food security
40 Cool Pacific checks global warming, for now
41 A new way to measure tree girth
INTERVIEW
42 P V S M Gouri, force behind TraceNet, online organic food tracker
FOOD
44 Forgotten virtues of mahua
COLUMN
47 How human rights can be used to challenge IP laws
INITIATIVE
48 Now, boats turn solar in Tamil Nadu
CROSSCURRENTS
50 New mobile tower guidelines favour industry
52 Jaywalkers’ challenge to the exclusionary vision of cities
REVIEW
55 Truely social ants
56 MEDIA
58 LAST WORD
COVER : AJIT BAJAJ
w w w . d o w n t o e a r t h . o r g . i n
Blogs
ECOLOGY OF VIOLENCE
Tariq Niazi, teacher of environmental sociology at Universityof Wisconsin at Eau Claire, US, on the violence in Sinai
KARNATAKA SACRIFICES STONES FOR RIVER SAND
State mandates use of m-sand in public works, which wouldresult in over-exploitation of another minor mineral and dam-age the environment
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Special FeatureGANESH CHATURTHI: TOXIC IMMERSION
The environmental hazards of immersing idolsof gods and goddesses in our lakes and rivers;authorities do little to check the problem
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Countdown to Election 2014REPORT CARD OF UPA FLAGSHIP PROGRAMMES
A series of analyses and reports on the progress of UPAgovernment's flagship programmes like Right toEducation, rural job scheme MGNREGS and DirectBenefit Transfer
SOCIAL SECTOR SPENDING BY UPA REGIME
Number crunching shows government has increased totalspending on social sector by 60 per cent since 2003-04
NEW ELECTORAL SOCIOLOGY
Articles that examine voting trends and changing society
SOMA BASU Pithoragarh
Pradeep Singh Dami’s two-storiedhouse in Tawaghat village inUttarakhand’s Pithoragarh dis-
trict fell like a pack of cards on June 17,when the raging Kaliganga riverknocked off a chunk of the hill beneath his house. Dami had small sav-ings so he rented a room in Dharchula
town, about 20 km from Tawaghat.Once a shopowner, he is now a shopassistant and can barely feed his family of five.
Dami does not curse his fate but heis very angry with the administration.“My newly constructed house collapsed.The administration had sanctioned it.Now I am told that my village is one ofthe many the Uttarakhand government
has marked to be resettled. The landhere is unstable, it says. Why did thegovernment sanction the building planif it knew this?”
But very few are as fortunate asDami to have received compensation.Kamal Singh of the same village loaned `20,000 to claim compensation for hishouse. He spent all the money visitinggovernment offices, but has still not
October 1-15, 2013 • Down To Earth 15
� S P E C I A L R E P O R T
Devastated stillMonths after disaster struck Uttarakhand, government has done little to improve people’s lives
PHO
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She quietly sits in front of her damaged houseon Dharchula-Tawaghat road for hours alongwith her dog. Still in a state of shock, she livesin a refugee camp set up by non-profits
Down To Earth • October 1-15, 201318
SUGANDH JUNEJA
Coming down heavily on the envi-ronment ministry, the country’stop auditor has highlighted seri-
ous regulatory lapses in forestlanddiversions in a report tabled inParliament recently.
The Comptroller and AuditorGeneral of India (CAG), while examiningthe performance of CompensatoryAfforestation Fund (CFA), found that theMinistry of Environment and Forests
(MoEF) had failed to promote compen-satory afforestation. In complete viola-tion of environment norms, there wereunauthorised diversions of forestlandfor mining. MoEF also failed to monitorcompliance with the conditions laiddown in the Forest (Conservation) Act(FCA), 1980.
“Numerous instances of unautho-rised renewal of leases, illegal mining,continuance of mining leases despiteadverse comments in monitoringreports, projects operating without
environment clearances, unauthorisedchange of status of forestland and arbi-trariness in decisions of forestry clear-ances were observed,” the report notes.
Between August 2009 and October2012, the ministry invoked penal provi-sions in only three cases. In these, too,show cause notices were issued. What’smore, the ministry and its regionaloffices did not make 64 files available toCAG for audit.
Funds grow, afforestation does notBetween 1980 and May 2004, as much as921,000 hectares (ha) of forestland wasdiverted for non-forest use. To compen-sate for the loss, the Supre me Courtordered the user must pay an amountwhich would be used for forest regener-ation, management, infrastructuredevelopment and wildlife protection. InOctober 2002, the apex court orderedformation of CFA. The money receivedtowards compensatory afforestation,penal afforestation and net presentvalue of forestland would go to CFA.
� S P E C I A L R E P O R T
AfforestationinterruptedEnvironment ministry fails to use funds for afforestation,monitor forest diversions: Comptroller and Auditor General
AJIT BAJAJ / CSE
C O V E R S T O R Y
Afghanistan’s dream of earningsubstantial revenue from miningmay not come true anytime
soon. The government is already strug-gling to overcome hurdles like securityconcerns and inadequate infrastructure.But the biggest hurdle for it is a bill topromote and regulate mining.
The draft Minerals Law introducedby the Ministry of Mines in 2012 iscaught in the eye of a storm. While min-ing companies welcome the bill, parlia-mentarians and civil society oppose it.
Mines minister WahidullahShahrani says the bill is based on inter-national best practices, has investor-friendly provisions and takes care ofcommunity and environmental con-cerns. But Afghanistan’s Parliamentalong with civil society is not convincedyet. They want major changes in thedraft bill.
If passed, the bill will replace a 2009law. A senior ministry official says thenew law will expedite investments in themining sector. Under the existing law, acompany must obtain separate approv -als for exploration and exploitation.The bill will allow the company that dis-covers the minerals to also mine it.
The bill faced the first hurdle in theCabinet. In a meeting on July 2012, theCabinet rejected it, saying its provisionswere against the interest of the country.President Hamid Karzai, after the meet-ing, supported the Cabinet and saidAfghanistan’s interests requiredbetter protection. But in
February 2013, the Cabinet gave its goahead to the bill. It was introduced inthe lower house of Parliament in Julythis year.
Mariam Kosha of non-profitIntegrity Watch says parliamentariansare unhappy with the bill because itgives too much power to the Ministry ofMines and makes it the sole authority toclear all mining projects.
An important provision in the exist-ing law is that contracts of all majormining projects go through an inter-ministerial committee and Parliament.The provision gives Parliament limitedpowers and says it cannot delay the pro-ject for more than a month after whichit is deemed cleared. The industry is nothappy with even such limited power toParliament. An official of the Indianteam negotiating the Hajigak miningcontract said under the existing law acompany has to lobby with a lot of pow-erful people before getting the contractappr oved. “We will pro-ceed only after thenew law is enact-ed,” he says.
While Mes-Aynak projectescaped thisp r o v i s i o nbecause the
contract was signedbefore the existing min-ing law was enacted in2009, developers of severallarge-scale mining projects,including two gold mines inZarkahan and Badakshanprovinces, have deferredtheir deals and are waiting forthe passage of the new law.
Chances are slim that the billwill be cleared anytime soon. OnSeptember 22, civil society groupsmet a group of parliamentarians,including powerful MPs like GulPacha Majeedi from Paktiaprovince and Obaidullah Raminfrom Baghlan province, which hassignificant reserves of iron ore andbarite. The activists apprised the parlia-mentarians of lacunae in the draft law.
One of the key demands of civilsociety is that a percentage of the profitearned from mining should be ear-marked for community development.“We want at least five per cent of theprofits to be shared with the communi-ty,” says Wadood Pedram, executivedirector of non-profit Human Rightsand Eradication of ViolenceOrganization. “We also want issues likedisplacement and community develop-ment at project sites to be incorporatedinto the draft,” Pedram says, adding thatthe government should not pass the billwithout consulting civil society.
People present at the meeting sayeven the MPs are in no mood to pass the
bill in its current form. It seemsAfghanistan will have to wait
for sometime to reap ben-efits from its mineralwealth. ■
Needed, arobust law CIVIL SOCIETY AND PARLIAMENTARIANS OPPOSE A NEW MINING BILLTHAT AIMS TO BOOST INVESTMENT. WHAT’S THE WAY AHEAD?
LEGAL FRAMEWORK
AJIT BAJAJ / CSE