Damming the Little Rann of Kutch for sweet water may seem like an easy and brilliant idea.But we should note that we are preventing the rainwater from reaching the sea; and letting a huge water body to remain stagnant round the year on a tract of salty clay mudflats which form the terrain of the Rann. The impact of this stagnant body of water on the surrounding landmass, the extent of salinity it could cause is not known. By preventing the natural flow of rainwater into the sea there could be many consequences which need to be studied carefully and understood. We all know what has been happening since the reduced outflow of water from the Sardar Sarovar Dam, depriving Narmada of its water, leading to disastrous consequences downstream, and causing sea-water ingress upto 72 kms upstream and the resultant destruction of the riverine ecology. Is it worth it? it is for all of us to decide.
Any such project should not be left solely to the government to decide. Any project that has serious environmental implications cannot be a majority backed executive decision. What has resulted from the principle of the eminent domain of the state is there for all to see. There should be a multi-stakeholder council that relies of transparent studies, consultations and depositions of the communities who would be affected, competent environmental scientists from anywhere in the world with relevant knowledge and experience. The Council would make binding recommendations on such projects. And only on the basis on the recommendations of the independent council should the corporate groups be invited to bid for the project at the appropriate venue and permissible processes.

May 29 at 6:15pm ·

http://www.thehindu.com/…/honour-killin…/article24017555.ece
Not shocked, but enraged at the murder of Kevin. It exposes the dirty casteist underbelly of Malayalee society; so much of social reform and political consciousness has still not liberated us from the stranglehold of caste. The fact that the several DYFI members have been involved in the abduction and killing reveals how their formation as the cadre of a left revolutionary party has failed to make them progressive, secular and anti-caste.
This is as much a challenge to the Church dominated by the Syrian Christians, which still discriminates against the Dalit Christians, acquiescing in the unwritten code of not encouraging any marital relations between the two communities. It is a greater challenge and shame to the Communist Parties, whose leadership and cadre are all still in the bondage of caste ideology.How many of them are able to reject caste and religion in their personal lives and faith and be real comrades?
We mourn the death of Kevin..and demand that justice is done.
Let all barriers of caste, religion, region, nation and ethnic origin be broken, and let love and sexuality be liberated of those shackles.

What else would one expect...from a city that massacred its children in 2002....what is so inhuman in children starving, childhood being snatched away, denied education ....

feeling more and more disillusioned with our lifestyles....cars, electric appliances, more and more computers, malls, multiplexes.....unabated consumerism....
trapped in this quagmire of urban life....unable to bestow anything on our children...for whom life is the sum total of all the above, based on the foundation of familial bonds. Family as the basic unit of collective consumption....consumption as the indicator of happiness...education to replicate a lifestyle that has to be based on increasing consumption....


Is there any liberation from this?


As I see the human lives being wasted in Piplaj.....all displaced from the banks of the river.... I think what else do I expect....


the river Sabarmati...mute witness to history.....the history of non-violence...written in blood....a river that was never allowed to flow....and today has been encroached and constricted into a canal.....to flow submissively with borrowed waters of her sister  Narmada, tamed and reigned in to serve Gujarat as its "lifeline".... eternally dammed and damned...


The brooks and streams in the mountains and forests that cradled and fed these rivers now hurtle down with no trees nor grass to caress and soothe as it flows.....tears of the earth...violated and raped...only to be caged in a miserable reservoir


What else do I expect to happen to those human beings, to whom the river gave its water, its banks.....


today just displaced for the sake of the beautification of this city of Ahmedabad, for the sake of water sports, for what is called the entertainment business, for creating new real estate....Evverything fits in...don't expect anything human from this logic of urbanization...there is no liberation...till the river takes its revenge....when one day it fells the dams and relaims its banks....washes down and purifies in its rage.....that is the day the city will learn....may be justice and compassion......now the city grows and grows....erases its poor from sight....enslaves them for cheap labour and dumps them as encroachers..... away from sight.

1800 children starving, childhood snatched away; living in a veritable hell called Piplaj....the nearest description would be a concentration camp...

Random thoughts is a space for my self expression. it need not be ,logical or rigorous in its consistency. It will be as it is titled, random, free flowing and unrestricted by norms, values, timefames or reason.