Sometimes just a few images, and a few facebook update texts tell you all you need to know.
New York, 18th November 2011, NYPD estimates say that approximately 36,000 people voted with their feet to take back their city, and their planet. Could this be the beginning of the end of Capitalism, at least as we know it? Continue reading The Last International: Occupy New York, Occupy the Night, Occupy Earth.
This press release was put out by the NATIONAL ALLIANCE FOR PEOPLE’S MOVEMENTS on 14 November 2011
Post-facto Green signal to Phase-I of Lavasa by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) given on the November 9th is a blot on the democratic process and a shockingly dangerous precedent in the history of environmental action in India. MoEF’s improper action has infact sent shock-waves to eco-activists within the country and also across the world. Although it is not the first time in the long history of Indian Environmental clearance regime that political highhandedness has been used to subvert rule of law and the ends of justice, this case is unique since the clearance has disregarded well established evidence based on facts collected by no other than the MoEF itself. It is surprising that the Ministry’s decision has come in the wake of the case filed by the Maharashtra government against 15 persons including promoters of Lavasa Corporation for alleged violations of the Environment Protection Act (EPA), while the Maharashtra Chief Minister on the other hand has recommended that Lavasa be considered for environmental clearance, exposes the double standards of the state government. Continue reading Clean Chit to Law-Breaker Lavasa, a Blot on India’s Democracy and Environmentalism: NAPM
This joint statement, signed and endorsed by various organisations and individuals from across India, named at the end, was put out on 12 November 2011.
The statement points out that:
Continue reading ‘A Call for Rejecting 2011 Land Acquisition Bill’
Guest post by WALED AADNAN
“Amar naam Chatterjee!” My name is Chatterjee! sounds like a proclamation from a fiery leader of the masses at a public rally, but it came from a rickshaw wallah plying his trade in the dusty bylanes of North Calcutta and addressed to no one in particular.
As I sat on his rickshaw, the frail old man launched into an indignant tirade against the ruling political party, whom he branded as a group of turncoats, insisting vehemently and repeatedly to nothing but the evening breeze that he had always been a Congressman.
Yes, he defended, petrol prices have been rising, but surely the bosses in Delhi would admit to that! What is the point of protesting about that in an insignificant meeting of rickshaw wallahs’ union? His tone of uncompromising understanding of world affairs drew me to listen to him, rather than plug in my earphones and switch off the world. Continue reading A Rickshaw Ride in Kolkata: Waled Aadnan
Dr. SURENDRA GADEKAR is a well-published physicist of international renown, and a Gandhian. After an MSc and PhD (in theoretical physics) in 1979 from IIT Kanpur, he worked for two years as a post-doctoral fellow at Iowa State University, US and then two years as a research associate at IISc in Bangalore. He resigned in 1986 (a little before Chernobyl) to do antinuclear work when the Kakrapar Nuclear Power Plant was started. In 1987, he started Anumukti A Journal Devoted to Non-Nuclear India, and has carried out and published studies of the impact of nuclear energy around the plants at Kakrapar, Rawatbata and Jadugoda. He has also carried out a study at Pokharan, which is as yet unpublished. Dr Gadekar’s response follows:
Dr A P J Abdul Kalam and Mr. Srijan Pal Singh deserve a special thanks for their article in the Sunday edition of The Hindu (November 6, 2011) entitled “Nuclear power is our gateway to a prosperous future.”
Although most of what they write is irrelevant to their topic and the rest just plain wrong, the very fact that the establishment has to bring out its ‘Big Guns’ to answer the questions raised by the Koodankulam movement, is a testimony to the success of the movement.
Originally I had intended to write a point by point refutation of their article, but I have been deterred by the sheer length of the article. What I intend to do here instead is to paraphrase their points and answer them one by one. I would urge activists to visit the Hindu website at and to read the article in the full. I make this request specially so that friends can point out if I have been unfair in summarizing their work or have missed something important.
On 27 October the Hindustan Times published an article by Hartman de Souza and on 30 October a response to it by Tarun Tejpal, editor of Tehelka newsmagazine. This guest post by HARTMAN DE SOUZA is his rejoinder
There are some of us in Goa who will know in about 20 days or so, thanks to two RTIs filed, whether Tarun Tejpal did in fact get all the necessary permissions and clearances needed to add to the lovely property he now owns in the village of Moira… or, as he more pointedly said of the village when he called me up in the Pune, “I mean, look at Moira man, it’s a dying Goan village” …emphasis on ‘dying’, and the implication being one suspects, that the Tejpals of the world can and will breathe life into it. I wonder if he remembers and can parse what I said to him in reply. Continue reading An open letter to Tarun Tejpal: Hartman de Souza
A few days ago, in a post on the rally in solidarity with the (then) striking Maruti Suzuki, Suzuki Powertrain and Suzuki Motorcycles Factory workers in Manesar, Gugaon in Haryana, we had reported a worker saying: Continue reading From Manhattan to Manesar: Naeem Moahaiemen
Goa-based journalist MAYABHUSHAN NAGVENKAR posed as a politician planning to contest the Goa assembly elections 2012, and called up a marketing executive of the Goa newspaper, Herald, asking for an interview to be published in the newspaper, for a price, as editorial content rather than advertisement. He has posted online four conversations he had with the executive, one of which you can hear below.
See the full story: Goa’s Paid Piper – Paid political interview in Goa’s Herald newspaper for Rs 86,400
And the newspaper’s response.
Guest post by LUSHKARY
Of all the things about my last workplace, being summoned by one of our editors to her cabin was one that I did not particularly like. The problem was that, unlike other parts of the office, in her cabin I could not even pretend to seem interested in what she had to say. My eyes would involuntarily travel to the soft-board above her desk and get fixated on a slightly hazy colour photograph of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. And if I shifted focus a bit towards the left, then I could also see another familiar figure standing next to Mr. Modi. That of the cabin’s proud occupant.
Now, it is not a hidden secret that the Indian business news community admires Mr. Modi. His biennial Vibrant Gujarat Summits, desi version of international pseudo-events like the Davos World Economic Forum, are a definite hit among business news hacks. How can you not be at a place where deals upwards of $452 billion get signed over just a couple of days?
Three short Video Testimonies from Suzuki Power Train and Maruti Suzuki (Manesar) Factory workers – Produced by CORRESPONDENCE DELHI, a group of young media practitioners, associated with the Radical Notes Collective, who have been tracking the workers struggle in Manesar. Courtesy, Correspondence Delhi. Continue reading Workers Speak – Suzuki Powertrain and Maruti-Suzuki Manesar: Correspondence Delhi
Here are two short articles, taken from the excellent Sanhati and Ludhiana Workers’ News by Saurav Banerjee and Amritpal (so after Faridabad and Gurgaon, yet another city gets its own workers’ newspaper !) Both point to spreading turbulence in Industrial areas in Ludhiana. The striking textile workers in Ludhiana explicitly invoke their solidarity with their comrades in Manesar in Haryana, and with female multipurpose health workers elsewhere in Punjab. Are we witnessing the beginning of a new reality? New solidarities? -Shuddha Continue reading After Maruti-Suzuki at Manesar, its Ludhiana: Sourav Banerjee and Amrit Pal
(this video, courtesy, Pratyush, Correspondence Delhi)
A big red river streamed out of the gates of Kamla Nehru Park in Gurgaon last evening (17th October, 2011). Several thousands of workers (according to one estimate – one hundred thousand workers), from many factories in the Gurgaon-Manesar belt had occupied the park from 4:00 pm onwards to stand in solidarity with the struggle of the Maruti-Suzuki, Suzuki Powertrain and Suzuki Motorcycle India Limited workers. In an unprecedented demonstration of solidarity, permanent workers are on strike to demand justice and re-instatement of their contract worker colleagues. The atmosphere at the meeting was of celebration, workers who had been occupying three different factories for more than a week had been evicted by an administration that had brought out all the police and coercive power at its disposal. But yesterday’s gathering was like a reunion, the workers of the three ex-occupied factories, and their comrades in other plants throughout the Gurgaon-Manesar belt were meeting, like old and new friends, to taste the heady experience of peacable solidarity. Continue reading A Big Red River: Solidarity Meeting with Maruti-Suzuki Workers
Appeal from the MSEU (Maruti Suzuki Employees Union) to All Trade Unions, Organisations and Individuals, by SHIV KUMAR, general secretary, MSEU, via Rakhi Sehgal of the New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI)
(Cross-posted from the Facebook group, Citizens Front in Support of Maruti Suzuki Workers’ Struggle.)
15th October 2011
We, the Maruti Suzuki Employees Union (MSEU), Suzuki Powertrain India Employees Union (SPIEU) and Suzuki Motorcycle India Employees Union (SMIEU), have been on strike in our respective plants in Gurgaon-Manesar from the 7th of October, 2011, demanding our right to respectable and non-precarious employment and unionization. Our movement stands at a crucial juncture today, we therefore send this appeal to all the labouring people of the country and beyond, the trade unions and all other sections of society which have stood with us in solidarity to come forward with renewed vigour to take this movement forward. Our struggle is not a struggle for a mere wage-hike of any one section of workers, but is a struggle for our dignity and right to organise. We struggle also more importantly for the contract workers among us, whose insecurity and precarious condition of existence is a burning issue before the entire labouring people of the country today, which puts the very framing of the available labour laws into question.
Continue reading Appeal from the Maruti Suzuki Employees Union: Shiv Kumar
It is not yet dawn, and I am wondering what is happening inside the Maruti Suzuki Factories in Manesar. How exactly is the Haryana Police, armed, along with its usual ordnance, with a High Court order, and the Haryana Labour Department’s ‘go ahead’, going about its stated business of ‘escorting’ a few thousand unwilling workers out of their factories under cover of darkness? Apparently, the factory fence has been layered with tent cloth. No light gets in, no light gets out. The Maruti Factories in Manesar have become black holes.They are producing more darkness than cars in Manesar tonight.
There is no way of knowing just what is going on inside. And yet, a few hundred surveillance cameras must be recording what the management, police, administration and ‘security personnel’ are doing to ‘convince’ the workers to leave. Someday, this archive, every inch of video footage, should be played and rewound repeatedly, in order to arrive at a clearer understanding of the evolution of class relations in the industrial belt around the National Capital Region in the second decade of the twenty first century in India. Unfortunately, I have a strong feeling that tonight’s footage is going to go where all inconvenient truths go – to the limbo of unsolicited erasure.
Continue reading The Black Hole of Manesar : (Non) News of a Strike at Maruti-Suzuki
Update: A Day after the publication of this post, Tehelka changed the status of Essar from “Principal Sponsor” to merely one of several “patrons” on the Goa ThinkFest website.
Guest post by BOBBY KUNHU
Without doubt, one of the most important documents to make its appearance after the arrest of Soni Sori by the Chattisgarh Government in Delhi on 4th October 2011 was the cover story titled, “The inconvenient truth of Soni Sori” that appeared in Tehelka, written by Shoma Chaudhary. It tells the story of Soni Sori and her nephew Linga Kodopi as narrated to Tehelka and the sequence of events that led to their persecution.
Nonetheless there is an intriguing twist to how this story was framed. The introduction of the story goes: “Why were two tribals and the Essar group framed by the Chhattisgarh police? Why are Soni Sori and Linga Kodopi being systematically silenced? This chilling story of one family reveals more about India’s Naxal crisis than any official document can.”
In other words, Tehelka is arguing that Essar is also being framed in this narrative along with Soni Sori and Linga Kodopi.
Continue reading Everybody Loves a Good War – Tehelka and Essar: Bobby Kunhu
Guest post by NAYANJYOTI
(On behalf of Krantikari Naujawan Sabha, part of the solidarity effort with struggling workers of Maruti Suzuki.)
The struggle of the workers in Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, IMT Manesar refuses to die, and just when quietening under settlement truce, has stood up again, gathering political edge and crucial concrete support among workers in the area. In a significant development this morning, 7th October 2011, the workers in seven nearby factories along with workers of MARUTI SUZUKI INDIA LTD, IMT MANESAR have gone on strike. These are workers in the nearby plants of SUZUKI POWERTRAIN INDIA LTD. and SUZUKI CASTINGS (Plot 1, Phase 3A), and SUZUKI MOTORCYCLE INDIA PVT. LTD (in the Gurgaon-Manesar road), along with the workers of LUMAX AUTO TECHNOLOGIES LTD (165, Sector-5), SATYAM AUTO COMPONENTS LIMITED (26 C, Sector – 3), ENDURANCE TECHNOLOGIES LTD ( Plot no. 400, Sector 8), HI-LEX INDIA PVT LTD, (Plot No.55 Sector-3) completely halting production. Continue reading Strike in Maruti-Suzuki and Seven Other Factories in Manesar: The Struggle Continues: Nayanjyoti
Guest post by SWAGATO SARKAR
Montek Singh Ahluwalia (MSA) has taken over the English news channels [okay, perhaps not all, but two “exclusive” interviews to Headlines Today and CNN-IBN’s FTN (F stands for ‘Face’, btw)] tonight to shoot back at his opponents and detractors, the likes of Roys, Drezes, Aiyars. The discourse had three parts: the sermon, gloss and proto-penance, and the affirmation of the revealed Truth.
The Planning of Commission of the sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic of India is not a Stalinist Planning Commission. It has the solemn duty of finding India’s rightful place in the world at the average rate of 8% per year. But India is a poor country [exclusive news which cannot be shared at Davos]. The GDP has to enlarge. Market is what will make it happen. But market has limits. Hence, welfare. But MSA is not happy that the Growth-Decline story did not work out as he would have wished. But that is no reason to be anti-Growth [now go to the first line of the para and read it all over again.]
As governments across the world prostrate themselves before corporations and corporate greed takes over the daily business of governing, mass struggles are breaking out all over the world. What started as the much propagated ‘Arab Spring’ – apparently the Arab world’s yearning for American and Western values represented by ‘democracy’, has now, after spreading through Europe (France, Greece, Spain, Portugal…) engulfed the heart of Empire – the United States of America. The Occupy Wall Street movement that started almost three weeks ago, with thousands of people assembling in Zucotti Park in Lower Manhattan, New York, has now spread amdist media blackout and police repression, to other parts across the United States. A glimpse of the situation about a week ago:
Continue reading Occupy Wall Street – An American Spring Amidst Media Blackout?
So Kingfisher has decided to ground its low-cost airline, Kingfisher Red. Here’s what the Indian media will not tell you. Continue reading What the Indian media will not tell you about Kingfisher Red
This release comes via the NATIONAL ALLIANCE FOR PEOPLE’S MOVEMENTS
Nellore, September 18 : “Government of Andhra Pradesh has given licenses to 28 companies to establish thermal power plants with a total capacity of 32,000 MW. How can a fragile coastal zone can take up so much of ecological pressure ? Is this the way to plan the needs of electricity for development ?” asked the delegates who had come from different parts of the State and joined by eminent social activists Medha Patkar, Sandeep Pandey, Banwari Lal Sharma, Gabriele Dietrich, Sister Celia, Manoj Tyagi, Viveknanad Mathane, P Chennaiah, Ramakrishnam Raju and others. Jan Sansad was hosted by NAPM and Jana Vigyan Vedika at the premises of Nehru Yuva Kendra, Nellore. Continue reading ‘Jan Sansad demands a Development Planning Act not an Act to Facilitate Land Acquisition’
This guest post by SIMI CHACKO and PRATIKSHA KHANDURI is the full text of a booklet released in August 2011. A .pdf version of the booklet (41 pages, 304 KB) can be downloaded here.
Introduction
A. UID: The Basics
B. The Enrolment Process
C. Benefits of UID
D. Concerns: Biometrics, Privacy, Data security, Surveillance
Continue reading A Critical Primer on India’s UID: Simi Chacko and Pratiksha Khanduri
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 