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EDITORS
PAGE
GAMES PEOPLE PLAY
EBATES ARE essentially polarised and noisy. But for
resolution and movement in life we need to go beyond

the absolute positions. In an ideal world there should
be enough trust and confidence that once we begin
to move ahead, there can be reviews, assessments and
course correction. But this is difficult in the current scenario where
the polluters, miners and dam builders wield more power than the
rest. Institutions that would help resolve conflicts and take credible decisions have been weakened. Trust is lost and the worst defence plays out.
However, it is also a fact that playing defensive is not working
in the long run. Environmental movements are able to stall, but not
stop environmentally disastrous projects. Worse,
since no one is ready to go beyond her or his absolute position and discuss how a project would
work if allowed, there is no improvement in the
situation on the ground. All the energy is spent
on blocking projects and once they are cleared the
mission is lost.There is no emphasisor even capacity in many casesto look at the alternatives
that would mitigate environmental damage.
Take the number of clearancesforest, environment, coastal, wildlifethat are granted by
the Central and state governments.The focus has
been on the process of clearance; to give it or not.
This is when government after government has
granted clearances as if there is no tomorrow. The rules are so convoluted that they have become meaningless.The process is so complex that the same project has to be cleared by five to seven agencies, which have no interest in compliance of the conditions they
would set.The system is so designed that we cannot invest in the improvement of the environment. It is a travesty of good management.
Once the project is inevitably sanctioned activists and affected
communities take the matter to court.The National Green Tribunal
has provided another forum for such disputes. Peoples action is understandable because they have little faith in the credibility of the
decision-making systemthe environmental impact assessment is
flawed and public hearings are abused. But even going to court ends
up stalling the project, not stopping or improving it.
In this way when a dam, mine, power plant or a shopping mall
is built, there is little focus on the conditions that would make it environmentally better, if not the best. At the time of sanction, a list of
conditions is laid out for the project proponent. But the committee,
which sets the conditions, has no real interest in their implementation.The project proponent knows that nobody will come checking
16-30 APRIL 2015
after the clearance is granted. So, the game goes on.

The community in the vicinity of the project is left to face the
consequences. It can go to the highly understaffed regional offices of the environment ministry or the state pollution control board
but usually does not have any real data or evidence. Even the state
agencies have no real monitoring data.They have been so dismembered and weakened that they now depend on what companies tell
them. Industry self-reporting is the common practice in environmental management in India. We just dont say it.
The last resort of the activist or the affected community is to go
to court. This process is not easy. Courts require hard evidence to
show that a project is not adhering to environmental conditions. We
need institutions that can collect data, analyse it,
put it in public domain and use it to verify and improve environmental performance. Without this,
even the action by Indias most well meaning and
emphatic judiciary is in danger of failing.
Even when the courts take tough actionsay,
in the case of mining in Ballary or sand mining in
rivers or restaurants in upscale South Delhithey
manage to put only temporary stops. The court
needs viable remediation plans but nobody is really interested in getting the management right.
When a plan is presented and agreed upon, there
is nobody to check implementation. So, as I said,
the game goes on.
It is time we called a spade a spade. We should demand investment in better technologies, approaches and conditions to reduce
the environmental risk and then make sure this happens. This will
need serious capacity in the regulatory agencies and in civil society.
It is not easy. Indiaand countries like ourswill require new
technical solutions and approaches to solve environmental problems. It is a fact that the already industrialised world had the luxury of money to develop technologies and to fund mitigation and
governance, and they continue to spend heavily even today. We
will never be able to catch up in this game. So, we need to build new
practices of environmental management, which are affordable and
sustainable.
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SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT FORTNIGHTLY
ON THE WEB
WHAT'S HOT
Anil Agarwal
Sunita Narain
MANAGING EDITOR Richard Mahapatra
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SPECIAL COVERAGE
World Health
Day 2015
With food safety as the focus this
year, WHO has recommended
measures to make food safe for
consumption. But these measures
would fail to achieve the desired
results in India if local factors like
unregulated use of pesticides,
increasing dependence on
antibiotics and easily available and
ultra-processed junk food are not
factored in
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Chaitanya Chandan, Shri Krishan, Raj Kumar

Singh, Tarique Aziz
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SPECIAL FEATURE
BLOG
India gets National Air Quality Index
Rajasthan's camel
law is not enough to
save its camels as
it doesn't provide
economic incentives
to their keepers, says
WEB TEAM
Rajendra Rawat, Jaidev Sharma

PRODUCTION
Rakesh Shrivastava, Gundhar Das

INFORMATION AND RESEARCH ASSISTANCE
Kiran Pandey
www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in team
Ilse Khler-Rollefson
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Chandra Bhushan, Anumita Roychowdhury

vol 23, no 23; Total No of pages 60
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www.downtoearth.org.in
16-30 APRIL 2015
letters
TARIQUE AZIZ / CSE
Straw for green power

This is with reference to the editorial "Straw in the wind" (February 16-28, 2015).
I agree that surplus straw, which is a valuable resource, should be put to far
better use in villages for rural development. Anaerobic digestion of crop residues
produces biogas and nutrient-rich manure. The biogas can be used for power
generation in areas that are not connected to the grid. This will boost economic
activities in the area. The manure produced can be used in the farms.
The technology has been found satisfactory at prototype level with rice straw
and a few other crop residues. What is required to be done is to evaluate the
technology by setting up large-sized demonstration plants in Punjab, Haryana
and western Uttar Pradesh, work out its techno-economic feasibility, including
social and environmental effects, and then promote it in the region.
M SHYAM, DIREC TOR , SARDAR PATEL RENE WABLE ENER GY RE SE AR CH INSTITUTE ,
VALLABH VIDYANAGAR , GUJARAT
Sewage farming is safe

It was shocking to go through
the report "Is sewage farming
safe?" (February 16-28, 2015).
The order of the National
Green Tribunal to destroy
sewage-farmed crops around
Bhopal and the subsequent
action of the Madhya Pradesh
Pollution Control Board need
urgent review. The practice
of farming-both agriculture
and aquaculture-using
sewage water is common
16-30 APRIL 2015
and well-known worldwide,

including in India. Besides the
success story of Gujarat, as
reported in the article, there
is another instance: people in
the East Kolkata Wetlands, a
Ramasar Site, have long been
practising aquaculture using
sewage (both treated and
untreated) from the Greater
Kolkata metropolitan area
without any complaint. Pure
sewage does not contain
inorganic toxins like heavy
REUTERS
metals unless contaminated

by other sources. I think the
reported toxicity, if any, in
MUKTIPADA DAS
Study Keoladeo
This is with reference to
"Vanishing Eden" (February
16-28, 2015). I visited Keoladeo
National Park two years ago
for a study under the UNESCO
World Heritage Programme.
I noticed that droughts and
increasing numbers of invasive
species, both terrestrial
and aquatic, have affected
the wetland's ecosystem.
Though several measures
were planned to revive the
wetland, including bringing
water from the Govardhan
dam and the Chambal drinking
water project, these are yet to
produce results. A study needs
to be done on why Keoladeo is
deteriorating despite receiving
proper funds and being
managed properly.
SE JUTI SARKAR DE
CHAITANYA CHANDAN / CSE
letters
Bhopal's sewage is due to

industrial effluents discharged
into the sewerage system,
either covertly or overtly. The
real culprit in this case has
not been identified. Maybe,
the powerful industry lobby
has been able to divert the
attention of the regulators.
Prevent, cure and care

"Shifting care" (February 1628, 2015) was very informative.
In villages, people have a
negative experience of private
hospitals.
It has been observed that
private hospitals act as purely
commercial establishments,
with total disregard towards
the patients' financial status.
Such hospitals usually advise
frivolous diagnostic tests
which are not even remotely
required for treatment of the
disease. Similarly, medicines
are prescribed from the

costliest brands citing efficacy.
Furthermore, private health
institutions have hit upon
a novel method to attract
patients from rural areas. They
organise free treatment camps
which are merely a facade,
and advise patients to visit
their hospital for treatment.
Helpless and gullible as the
village folks are, they go
to these hospitals and are
charged exorbitantly in the
name of best treatment.
The draft of the National
Health Policy is silent about
preventive care. Prevention is
better than cure as the popular
saying goes. So, in areas where
certain diseases are endemic,
the government must give
preventive care tips to save
people from miseries and
fatalities.
L R SHARMA
SORIT / CSE
http://www.facebook.com/down2earthindia
Will India wake up

to freedom-from
air pollution?
In the consumption era, such concerns

"practically" take a back seat. The main
thrust is to consume every possible
resource of this otherwise "green planet"
fully and in the shortest period. Pollution?
What is that?
SUMAN KUMAR
MAHENDRA SHERKHANE
India should reinvent on "ecosustainability" and we must start

implementing sustainable techniques as
soon as possible.
NAVEEN KUMAR
When acche din come, India will be free

from every kind of pollution.
REZA MAHMUD
India is among the topmost contenders

when it comes to emissions which lead to
6 DOWN TO EARTH
air pollution.
Only India and a few other countries

cannot resolve the problem. The united
efforts of all nations and people of the
world are needed.
YADUVEER AGNIHOTRI
16-30 APRIL 2015
The views expressed by Professor K L

Chopra ("Top scientists misuse power,
funds", March 16-31, 2015) are of immense
importance in the context of Indian
Science and the country's scientific
community. His views are true in the sense
that if we have to survive as a prestigious
nation and knowledge power, we need
to introduce "laws of punishment for
Plagiarism" and transform our system
slowly. The time is ripe as technology too
is developed to check such plagiarism
(softwares developed and used by
international journals). A national effort is
needed in this direction.
A K SONI
Beware of the dragon

This refers to "Tibetan landscape may
soon disappear" (March 1-15, 2015). China
has a severe water problem like many
countries in this part of the world. Its
resources of freshwater are one-third of
the global average. To augment them,
China plans to build around 100 dams to
generate power from major rivers rising
in Tibet and divert their flows to its north.
Currently, many of the Himalayan rivers
that arise in Tibet and flow into South Asia
(India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) have
been relatively untouched by dams near
their sources. If this frenetic dam-building
goes on over the next few years, "the
Himalayas may become the most dammed
region in the world", according to Ed
Grumbine, visiting international scientist
DENNIS JARVIS
Punish plagiarism
with the Chinese Academy of Sciences

in Kunming. China will then emerge as
the ultimate controller of water. In the
absence of a water treaty between India
and China, one has to depend on Beijing's
assurances which have not always
been explicit and transparent. The fact
that China's government is made up of
engineers and that China has a penchant
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contents
16
Cold shoulder
Private parties form a forest
certification body even as
government gives event a miss
COVER STORY
Profit over public 24

health
Government halts order on large
pictorial warnings on tobacco
products due to pressure from
tobacco lobby
Frequency not
matching
20 years after it was decided
that radio waves were the
property of the people, the
reality on the ground has
not changed much
28
11
THE FORTNIGHT
Big zero for

agriculture
Agricultural growth
would be zero per
cent this year after
unseasonal rains
damaged the rabi crop
22
Vetted by the
people
Nepal frames its climate
change adaptation
plan according to the
demands of its poorest
communities
NEW BUSINESS
Time for a
change
Awaiting
justice
Five months
after the mass
sterilisation deaths
in Chhattisgarh, the
guilty have still not
been punished
18
Kerala needs to stop

classifying neera, the sap
of coconut flowers, as
country liquor, given its
nutritional value
Genuine
intent or
tomfoolery?
Telangana plans
to drain, clean and
refill Hyderabad's
Hussainsagar lake. But it
is a deeply flawed idea,
warn experts
20
Devolution, really?
26
The Centre has decided to transfer

Panchayat schemes to the states
14
8 DOWN TO EARTH
16-30 APRIL 2015
42
TECHNOLOGY
Just a second
Nations debate the
practice of adding an
extra second to keep
pace with the slowing
Earth
The AAP 58
tangle
50
Can civil society offer

a credible alternative
in electoral politics?
The wait is
over
Delhi finally gets a
policy adopting open
source software
CLASSROOM
Fatal farming
46
Despite an agrarian economy,

farmers in India are the most
vulnerable to climate change
FOOD
A healthy, nutritious
tuber
54
Purple yam or garadu is relished by both

the tribes of Central India as well as
residents of urban centres like Indore
52
SCIENCE
Bone weakener
The breast milk

debate
39
Lending a helping
hand
Will a child be smarter and

wealthier if she or he is weaned
off at a later date?
Research shows that antacids

make bones weaker as they
interrupt calcium absorption
44
REVIEW
GOOD NEWS
A unique initiative in Madhya Pradesh

assists tribal students to opt for higher
education options
On
Chhattisgarh
What the state is, and what
it could have been
56
WILDLIFE
Toothy troubles
HEALTH
Ancient
remains,
modern
knowledge
40
Vadodara mulls a crocodile park as animal

numbers and attacks on humans rise
48
Scientists are turning

to ancient graves to
understand old and new
malaises
16-30 APRIL 2015
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FORTNIGHT
CROSS HAIRS
THE
India stares at 0% agriculture growth

brought by western
disturbances have damaged 2.7 million
hectares of crops this rabi season. This has
dampened any hope in the agriculture GDP
growth this year. Agriculture GDP, which
grew at 2.2 per cent in last three years,
was estimated to grow at 1.1 per cent this
year after the kharif season was hit by
drought. But analysts say the growth would
UNUSUAL RAINS
16-30 APRIL 2015
be zero per cent this year. Officials took

the weather anomaly into account as they
set out to prepare for the upcoming kharif
season in the first week of April. Though
initial forecasts of the India Meteorological
Department suggest the monsoon would
be normal this year, it is not certain going
by last year's experience. El Nino may also
wreak havoc with the weather pattern.
POINT
70%
people worldwide are dissatisfied

with food policies at both national
and global levels
Global Food Policy Report, 2015, International Food
Policy Research Institute
FORTNIGHT
UTTAM SAIKIA
P OAC H I N G
THE
Nobody knows who kills rhinos

52 one-horned rhinos were poached inside
Kaziranga National Park and 97 in surrounding Golaghat, Karbi
Anglong, Sonitpur and Nagaon districts between 2009 and
early 2014. Though 247 people have been arrested for poaching
during the period, not a single one has been convicted so far.
This is according to the response to a query under the Right To
Information Act filed by wildlife activist Rohit Choudhury. As per
IN ASSAM,
the police department's data, more rhinos have been poached in

the past five years than ever before. Professional poachers are
getting help from various insurgent groups who are supplying
arms, trading in horns and even killing the rhinos. A P Rout,
additional director general of police and in-charge of the Anti
Rhino-poaching Special Task Force (STF), declined to comment on
this saying he joined STF only two months ago.
Ban on rat-hole mining continues in Meghalaya
12 DOWN TO EARTH
transportation of the mineral until

May 31. Chief Minister Mukul Sangma
earlier told the Assembly that the
state is developing a framework for
safe and scientific mining and that
NGT had asked the state to consult
with the Centre before making final its
coal mining plan. Mining is the state's
highest revenue generator. The ban
resulted in a revenue loss of
`600 crore in the current fiscal year.
SUGANDH JUNEJA / CSE
Green Tribunal
(NGT) has refused to lift the interim
ban on mining in Meghalaya. In April
last year, it had issued an interim
order to stop rat-hole coal mining
across the state and warned against
illegal transportation of the mineral.
NGT, however, has provided partial
relief to coal miners by permitting
them to pay royalty on the extracted
coal within 21 days and allowed
THE NATIONAL
16-30 APRIL 2015
THE
India's own GPS on track
I N FO C U S
California faces
worst ever drought
launched its
fourth navigation satellite, IRNSS-1D, from
Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. This is part
of the constellation of seven satellites to be
put in place to roll out India's counterpart to
the US-operated Global Positioning System
(GPS). India's aim is to start its own satellite
navigation system. According to scientists
from the Time and Frequency Division
COURTESY: TIM J KEEGAN
I N D I A S U C C E S S F U L LY
California is reeling from its worst drought

in over 1,200 years, according to a paper
published in the journal Geophysical
Research Letters.
Jerry Brown, the governor, has imposed the
state's first ever mandatory water use cut.
The order forces 400 local water supply
agencies to reduce their water use by 25 per
cent. These agencies supply water to 90 per
cent of California's residents.
A week earlier, Brown declared an emergency
drought relief plan of US $1billion which
includes providing food aid and setting up
drinking water infrastructure. He termed the
plan as preparation for the uncertain future.
Snow-topped mountains that account for
30 per cent of the California's water supply are
witnessing a historic low in snowpack level:
8 per cent of the average in March. In 1977,
when California was facing a severe drought
and Brown was the governor, the snowpack
level was 25 per cent of the average.
a great
affiliation to gravity. It defines
their growth and ways of
survival. But can they survive
without gravity? Researchers
with the Japan Aerospace
Exploration Agency will
repeat their earlier Plant
Gravity Sensing study at the
International Space Station to
understand how plants sense
16-30 APRIL 2015
of the Council of Scientific and Industrial

Research (CSIR), IRNSS-1D is equipped with
three atomic clocks which will keep track
of time and guide IRNSS-1D users. "During
calamities, we have to depend on the
American GPS. Now, we are moving towards
developing our own navigational system,"
said senior scientist Ashish Agarwal of CSIR's
National Physical Laboratory.
Trade policy to boost SEZs
V E R B AT I M
year after coming to power, the National

Democratic Alliance government has declared its Foreign Trade
Policy 2015-20. It focuses on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's
"Make in India" initiative and gives a major boost to exports.
It has introduced two schemes "Merchandise Exports From
India Scheme"
and "Services
Exports From India
Scheme", under
which incentives
and rebates will
be given for the
export of specific
goods to specific
markets. To revive
the ailing Special
Economic Zones
(SEZs), introduced during the earlier NDA government and that
faced resistance from communities, will be covered under these
two schemes. This will ensure that SEZs are able to reduce their
operation cost and make profit.
ALMOST A
Can plants grow in space?

P L A N T S H AV E
FORTNIGHT
"If we are going

to liberalise it
(agriculture),
let's do it
before the next
spike in prices"
Bibek Debroy,
member, NITI
Aayog
S. CORVAJA / EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY
their growth direction without

gravity. They are studying thale
cress which is well understood
by scientists. The study will help
increase farm productivity. It
may also help gain insight into
growing plants in space and
understand mechanisms of
diseases affected by gravity,
such as osteoporosis and
muscle loss.
PA N C H AYAT I
RAJ
`60 crore
for 250,000
panchayats
The Centre's decision to reduce Panchayati
Raj Ministry's budget and transfer its
schemes to states has left the ministry
bewildered about its job and caught states
unprepared for devolution of power
JITENDRA | new delhi
S IT Prime Minister Narendra Modi's initiative to devolve power to states

and allow them to design their development programmes according to
their priorities, or to make irrelevant a ministry that was created under
the regime of the previous United Progressive Alliance government?
This question is bewildering many after Finance Minister Arun Jaitely, in
his budget presentation, slashed the plan outlay of the Union Ministry of
Panchayati Raj (mopr) to a meagre `94 crore from `7,000 crore allocated
last fiscal. The budget allocated to the ministry this time is even lesser than what
it had received in the first budget in 2005-06. The Centre has also transferred
SORIT / CSE
14 DOWN TO EARTH
16-30 APRIL 2015
PA N C H AYAT I
one of the ministrys flagship schemes

Backward Regions Grants Funds (brgf )
to the state, and drastically reduced the
funds of the other, called the
Rajiv Gandhi Panchayat Sashaktikaran
Abhiyan (rgpsa), to `60 crore from `1,006
crore allocated last year.
Both the schemes were designed to
strengthen local governance when the
ministry was conceived in 2004. While brgf
is being implemented in 272 backward
districts of the country to fund development
programmes through involvement of
panchayati raj institutions, rgpsa aims to
improve and strengthen their capacity.
Ministry sources and analysts say the
schemes would fail and the ministry would
become irrelevant without adequate funds.
Since panchayati raj is a state subject, it
depends on the state how much power it
wants to share with the local government.
So the ministry advocates, persuades and
incentivises states for devolution of power
to the third tier of governance. It is true that
a lot of our work needs expertise and not
money, says S M Vijayanad, secretary,
mopr. Without proper funds, it would be
difficult to convince states for strengthening
local governance or incentivise them for
good practices, Vijayanad admits.
The drastic reduction in funds for rgpsa
has particularly made the situation
problematic, a senior mopr official told
Down To Earth. A budget of `60 crore is
meagre to strengthen 250,000 village
panchayats across the country, he adds.
The Centre says its decision, based on
the recommendations of the 14th Finance
Commission, will flush states with huge
funds for empowering panchayati raj
institutions. The Commission had suggested
increasing states share in the net proceeds
of the Union tax to 42 per cent from
the current 32 per cent, and make the
funds available to local bodies, both rural
and urban.
The increment of 10 per cent will
translate into `2.87 lakh crore over the next
five years, of which `2 lakh crore will be
directly transferred to village panchayats;
the remaining `87,000 crore will go to
urban local bodies. The Finance
Commissions had never recommended such
16-30 APRIL 2015
Devolution of fund
What states will receive as per 14th
Finance Commission's suggestions
Funds recommended for local bodies
has increased by over three times
than last year ( `crore)
10th
11th
12th
13th
4,380
8,000
20,000
63,051
2,00,212
14th
Local bodies of six most populous

states will receive over half of the
allocated budget this year (`crore)
21,017
MP
13,555
Maharastra
15,035
Rajasthan
13,633
Uttar Pradesh
35,775
West Bengal 14,191
Bihar
Source: 14th Finance Commission Report
a large amount of money to local bodies and

had always suggested disbursing funds as
ad-hoc grants (see Devolution of fund).
The devolution of such huge funds has
increased the responsibility of the ministry.
We will now have to closely monitor the
use of fund especially in states like Bihar and
Uttar Pradesh where the panchayati system
is weak. We need to interact with states to
create panchayat level planning and would
also push for dedicated panchayat cadre that
will be our vision, Vijayanand adds.
The devolution of funds, however, raises
a pertinent question: are states willing to use
the funds for empowering local governance?
Are states prepared?
Mani Shankar Aiyer, the countrys first

panchayati raj minister, appreciates
devolution of funds for panchayats but says
the government has misinterpreted the 14th
RAJ
Finance Commissions recommendations

and assumed that everything will fall in line
once the fund is directly devolved to states.
The Commission has only dealt with the
financial aspects and has not taken
governance
into
account
while
recommending the devolution of funds.
The decision may be in conformity with the
Constitution as panchayati raj is a state
subject. But I am not hopeful as states are
not enthusiastic about sharing power with
panchayats. The government is losing out on
a major opportunity to take panchayati raj
forward, he adds.
There are others who hail the decision.
I dont know whether states are ready for
such devolution of funds or not. But
panchayati raj is a state subject and the battle
should be shifted to their door steps, says
T R Raghunandan, former joint secretary of
the Union Ministry of Rural Development.
Raghunandan is now working towards
strengthening local governance in
Karnataka. In the past 10 years, the
centralised approach to strengthen
panchayati raj institutions have hardly
helped. Non-profits that work towards
sensitising the Centre should work with the
state governments for better devolution of
power, Raghunandan suggests.
V S Vyas, former deputy chairperson of
Rajasthan Planning Board, agrees with
Raghunandan and points out another
problem with the centralised approach. The
Centre usually follows one size fits all
policy while preparing schemes for
panchayat bodies, without taking into
consideration local needs. The Centres
decision to devolve the power maybe risky
but is the need of the hour. We have to make
the states ready to empower their local
governance bodies, says Vyas.
Raghunandan says the decision of
devolution should be treated as a move to
realise decentralisation, which will help in
the long run. After all, decentralisation is a
policy not scheme. So treat this idea as
policy and shift action to states. One cannot
sit at the Centre and implement schemes.
The ministry should transform itself into
enlightened policy makers and become
arbiter at the state level, suggests
Ragunandan. n
FORESTS
Centre ignores
certifying agency
Private players set up forest certification body even
as the ministry, which manages 90 per cent of the
forests, gives it a cold shoulder
KUMAR SAMBHAV SHRIVASTAVA | new delhi
N MARCH 16, representatives
of
forest-based industries, nonprofits working on forestry,
auditors and state forest department officials gathered at the swanky Ashoka
Hotel in New Delhi. Amid much fanfare and
media presence, they launched the Network
for Certification & Conservation of Forests
(nccf ), a national body that will set standards and govern the process for certifying
Indias forests and their products on sustainable forest management. The participants,
including representatives of international
forestry agencies, hailed the move.
However, the Union Ministry of
Environment, Forests and Climate Change
(moef&cc), which is the custodian of more
than 90 per cent of the forests in the country,
gave the event a miss.
Forest certification is a market-based
tool that is voluntarily accepted by more than
120 countries. It ensures that manufacturers
of forest products conform to existing laws
and other ecological, economic and social
best practices, such as protection of
biodiversity, maintaining sustainable harvest
levels and respecting land tenure rights of
tribals. Globally, two forest certification
schemes are prevalentForest Stewardship
Council (fsc) and Programme for the
Endorsement of Forest Certification (pefc).
While fsc provides centralised certification
against its unified standards across the world,
pefc endorses national certification bodies
with country-specific certification standards.
16 DOWN TO EARTH
nccf will soon set the standards and

mechanism for certification which will be
evaluated by pefc.
Why forest certification
Private players in the country are pushing for

forest certification because several developed
countries have put a ban on non-certified
timber and timber products. To thrive in the
global market, many forest produce-based
industries have been importing raw material from certified forests from other countries
lately, says an nccf member.
India is also the only country with a
considerable forest cover that has not opted
for a domestic certification. Some private
players and forest development corporations
in the past have got fsc certifications, but the
percentage is inconsequential. Of the total
78.92 million ha forest and tree cover in the
country, only 0.8 million ha of forests have
been certified by fsc.
Interestingly, moef&cc has been
planning to set up a national forest-certification body for the past decade. In 2008, it
set up the National Forest Certification
Committee (nfcc) to recommend an
institutional mechanism to establish a
forest certification system in India. The
committee, in its report in 2010, said,
India must not miss the opportunity of
drawing upon Certification for Credibility,
Sustainability and Justice in the forest
arena of the country. In 2012, the then environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan
announced that the scheme was about to

come through. Even a Cabinet note was
drafted and circulated to start the scheme.
But the plan did not materialise.
Though moef&cc has put two of its
officials in the nccf board, the ministry
seems to be distancing itself from the process
of certification. We are not sure right now if
certification is required. There are other
priorities in terms of protection of forests
which require more focus. While the governments plans of establishing the forest certification council are still in the pipeline, the
industry is free to go ahead with its own
certification mechanism, says Rekha Pai, inspector general of forests with the moef&cc.
Hiding mismanagement
moef&cc sources say the ministry is opposed

to independent scrutiny of its forests. A section of officials thinks forests departments
have been successfully managing forests for
over 150 years and there is no need of certification. A few are apprehensive that the countrys forests may not meet the high global
16-30 APRIL 2015
KUMAR SAMBHAV SHRIVASTAVA / CSE
Forest
certification is
a market-based
tool which
ensures that
manufacturers
of forest
products
conform to
existing laws
and other
ecological,
economic and
social best
practices
standards for certification and invite unnecessary criticism, says a senior forest official.
According to the Forest Survey of India
(fsi) reports, forest cover in the country has
increased by 3.3 million ha between 1999 and
2013. However, Down To Earths State of
Environment Report 2015 highlights that
this increase in green cover is basically due
to private plantations outside natural forests.
In the same period, India has also lost
9.4 million ha forest cover, which suggests
massive deforestation in the governmentowned forests.
The other argument forest officials give
against forest certification is that it is a
market requirement; the country hardly
produces or exports timber from government
forests. The reason given for this is the low
Sources say the ministry is

apprehensive that India's
forests may not meet the
high global standards for
certification
16-30 APRIL 2015
productivity of Indian forests and a Supreme

Court ban of 1996 on felling of forests
without working plans which forced the
governments to prioritise conservation of
forests over production.
The truth is that the government has
failed to take up sustainable forest management. Forest departments have 76 million ha
of forests under them, of which 17 million ha
are designated for timber production, as per
the Food and Agriculture Organization. fsi
estimates suggest the annual productivity of
Indian forests is 0.7 cubic metres (cu m) per
ha, which means the forests should produce
11 million cu m of timber annually. In reality
the production from government forests is
2.5 million cu m of timber a year, as per the
2010 report by Indian Council of Forestry
Research and Education, Dehradun.
If the government takes up certification,
there would be motivation and pressure on the
machinery to fix these loopholes in the forest
management, says a forest official involved.
Maharaj Muthoo, president of Roman
Forum who had been part of fsc and pefc
governing boards and headed the national

forest certification committee, says demand
for Indian timber will go up if the government
manages its forests better. Once you have
enough certified forests and wood produced
from them, automatically the market would
develop for the premium product. Remember,
timber produced from certified forest management does not harm the forest ecology at
all.The revenue that you will start generating
from forests will help build constituency for
standing forests which we are losing in India
right now, he says.
Despite the ministrys reluctance, nccf
members are hopeful the process will benefit
private plantations.Several plantation owners are ready to embrace the scheme. Even forest departments and forest development corporations in Uttarakhand,Tripura, Karnataka
and Madhya Pradesh are keen on taking it up.
Once there is enough domestic demand for
certified products and the government realises the value of certification, I hope even the
government forests will be certified in large
extent, says nccf chairman K K Singh. n
STERILISATION
DEATHS
Justice delayed, denied

Five months after
14 women died in
sterilisation camps in
Chhattisgarh, there is
no sign of justice being
delivered to those
who lost their kin.
Rather, they are being
harassed for standing
up for the truth
REUTERS
JYOTSNA SINGH
| new delhi
N NOVEMBER 10, news of 13 women
dying and many others landing in

hospital after mass sterilisations in
Chhattisgarh made national and
international headlines. Subsequent investigations, including by Down To Earth
(Operation Cover-Up, 16-31 December,
2014), exposed state attempts to cover up the
entire incident as well as deep flaws in Indias
approach to family planning. Five months
on, no justice seems to have been done. In
fact, evidence points to the state government
being responsible for the deaths.
The state government has repeatedly
tried to shift the responsibility of deaths and
illness among survivors to non-state agencies,
saying that the drugs were contaminated
with rat poison. But reports of the State
Forensic Laboratory, Raipur, show that the
deaths were not caused by rat poison. Viscera
analyses of five of the 13 women who lost
their lives at the sterilisation camp did not
find poison in the body of the deceased, says
a source who has a copy of the reports.
Viscera report is the final word in forensic science in investigations of deaths. The
State Forensic Laboratory reports suggest
the deaths have not occurred due to any poison, let alone rat poison,says B L Chaudhary,
forensic expert at Lady Hardinge Medical
College, Delhi. All postmortem reports suggest that the deaths occurred due to infection,
caused by unhygienic conditions and medical practices at the camp, he adds.
Test results of drugs used at the camp
Ciprocin 500 (contains antibiotic ciprofloxacin) by Mahawar Paharma and Ibuprofen
400 mg (contains anti-inflammatory
ibuprofen) by Technical Labs and Pharma
further expose the callous attitude of the state
government.
Soon after the incident, drug samples
from the spot were sent to four laboratoriesgovernment and private-to determine cause
of deaths and illness. The list includes the
Central Drugs Laboratory (cdl), Kolkata,
the National Institute of Immunology, Delhi,
Sriram Institute of Industrial Research
(siir), Delhi, and Qualichem Laboratories,
Nagpur. All four laboratories reports, which
are with Down To Earth, state that the medicines used in the operations were substandard. A tablet is defined as substandard when
it contains less than 80 per cent of what is
STERILISATION
claimed, explains an official with the Central

Drugs Standard Control Organisation (cdsco), Delhi. Two reports indicate toxicity.
siir tested 50 tablets of Ciprocin 500.
The results showed that each tablet contained
only 295 mg, or 59 per cent, of ciprofloxacin.
It also indicated toxicity. Four of the five mice
who were administered with the tablets died
within 24 hours. The laboratory conducted
an additional test which showed the presence
of zinc/aluminum and phosphide or rat
poison. Its report, however, does not mention
the amount, crucial to determine whether the
deaths happened due to rat poison. siirs test
on Ibuprofane also shows that the tablets
were substandard, with 219 mg of ibuprofane, and contaminated with rat poison.
Similarly, the report by the National
Institute of Immunology, Delhi, shows that
after administering very high dose of
Ciprocin 500 (500 mg/rat) the animal suffered from acute toxic shock and died. The
same dose of another standard medicine
Ciplox by company Cipla, did not affect the
rat adversely. A public health expert, on condition of anonymity, says such high doses can
be fatal for animals. He points out that the
women at camp did not consume such high
doses. Amount is the key to the mystery of
deaths and illnesses, he says.
The report by Qualichem Laboratories
Women, who
underwent
sterilisation
surgeries at a
government
mass sterilisation
camp, had to be
admitted to the
Chhattisgarh
Institute of
Medical Sciences
hospital in
Bilaspur for
treatment
DEATHS
Deposing before the commission has been an ordeal

for the victims and families. Many victims had to
travel hundreds of kilometres at their own expense
established that the medicines were substandard. It is silent on contamination.
The cdl report also shows that Ciprocin
500 contained only 258.88 mg, or 51.78 per
cent,of ciprofloxacin claimed. cdls report,
however, does not mention contamination
with rat poison. The Kolkata laboratory is
not even equipped to test for contamination
of zinc phosphide, or rat poison, says the cdsco official. Why did the state administration
send samples to a laboratory that cannot test
for the probable cause of deaths espoused by
the state itself?
Lack of seriousness
The cdl report points to the lousiness of the

Bilaspur Food and Drug Administration,
which had handed over samples to the laboratory. While cdl received 200 tablets (10x20
strips), the official communication put the
count as 1,000 (1000x1x500mg). cdl report
also claims that the expiry date of September
2016 mentioned on the strip did not match
with the expiry date of September 2015
mentioned in the official communication.
Even though these details do not affect the
test results, it shows that the authorities were
not serious about the issue, says Sulakshana
Nandi of Peoples Health Movement, who
has been fighting for the rights of the victims.
Responding to Down To Earths queries,
R Prasanna, who heads Health Department
in Chhattisgarh, said, We cannot reveal anything as the matter is pending before a judicial commission.
State harassment
The only serious step taken by the state government so far is to set up a one-person
Bilaspur District Sterilisation Camp Judicial
Inquiry Commission headed by retired judge
Anita Jha. But deposing before the commission has been an ordeal for victims and their
families. They had to travel long distances at
their own expense. Ramanuj Sahu, for instance, had to travel 50 km twice to submit
affidavit on behalf of his wife. The commission did issue letters urging women to file af-
fidavits, but that was on March 3, 2015, the

last date of the submission. Of 134 cases, only
51 have submitted affidavits. Most of the victims could submit affidavits only after receiving guidance from the Centre for Social
Justice, a non-profit in Bilaspur. Gayatri
Suman Narang, who heads the non-profit,
says, The government did not put any effort
in collecting affidavits. The room was found
closed on several occasions. To add to their
troubles, the commission since March 27 has
started to cross examine those who deposed.
The affidavits outline the way surgeries
proceeded on the two days of the camps. In
one affidavit, a woman recounts how she
gave thumb print on a paper, but the contents were not read out to her. In another affidavit, husband of a deceased woman says
that he has not received the postmortem report of his wife despite asking for it several
times. He says the surgeon reached the venue only at 3.00 pm, leaving little time for
proper sterilisation of 83 women in one day.
Apart from the judicial commission, the
police is investigating the matter based on
firs of the deaths. The state government has
also initiated a departmental inquiry into the
matter, but it is biased as all the members are
from the health department, says Yogesh
Jain, convenor of non-profit Jan Swasthya
Sahyog. This is the reason, we have been demanding a clinical inquiry since January. A
clinical inquiry is done by a team, that includes a forensic expert, epidemiologist, gynaecologist, toxicologist, microbiologist,
public health expert and local activists, and is
considered unbiased. But the state government is yet to set up one, he adds.
The courts have also intervened in the
matter. The Chhattisgarh High Court took
suo motu cognizance of the matter and has
asked the state government to submit a response. A public interest petition filed by
Human Rights Law Network, Delhi, is
pending in the Supreme Court. The apex
court, on March 21, blamed the government
for being unprepared in the matter. The next
date of hearing is April 17, 2015. n
C O N S E R VAT I O N
Dry cleaning
Hussainsagar
Telangana plans to first
empty Hyderabad's
great lake and
then refill it with
rainwater. Experts
say it is nothing but a
harebrained plan
SUSHMITA SENGUPTA
| new delhi
20 DOWN TO EARTH
ALL IT his farsighted idea to restore
knows where and how the lake water will be

the health of a lake or plain blun- released. Conservationists say the water may
der, Telangana Chief Minister K be released into the Musi river, that flows 9
Chandrasekhar Rao is determined km south of the lake. In that case, the murky
to clean up the fabled Hussainsagar first by water of Hussainsagar will further pollute the
emptying it and then refilling it with rain- Musi, the water of which is not fit for bathwater. In February, Rao directed the Greater ing, say soul activists.
Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (ghmc)
We have emptied and refilled small
to start pumping out the water and clean the ponds in Kolkata to restore the health of the
16th century lake before monsoon arrives.
water bodies, says Mohit Roy, environmenWhile the authorities
talist and president of
are yet to begin work, conKolkata-based non-profit
servationists say it is an
Vasundhara. But using the
impractical venture.
method to restore the
For one, emptying a
health of Hussainsagar
A SERIES ON URBAN
lake that spans 141 hecseems impractical. EcosysINDIA'S WATER BODIES
tares with a depth of over
tem of small ponds is sim500 metres is a humonple while that of lakes is
gous task, says Jasveen
complex. Pumping out
Jairath, founding convener of Hyderabad Hussainsagar requires a complex managenon-profit Save Our Urban Lakes (soul). ment of the biodiversity of the lake, Roy adds.
Removing 22.6 billion litres of water requires
Cleaning up the lake through this crude
round-the-clock pumping for up to 50 days, method is infeasible for another reason: it
admits an official of the Hyderabad involves dredging out the sludge that has reMetropolitan Development Authority mained deposited on the lake bed for over
(hmda). This translates into hundreds of 450 years. soul estimates that the lake built
crores of rupees (see Impractical clean-up by Ibrahim Quli Qutub Shah of Qutub
plan on p21). Since the government is yet to Shahi dynasty for providing drinking water
make public the detailed project plan, no one to the city could be holding 4.4 million cubic
Lakes
Urban
16-30 APRIL 2015
C O N S E R VAT I O N
Kukatpally drain
Dying lake
Hussainsagar has
shrunk by 40% over
last 30 years. Instead of
runoff water, it is now
mostly fed by drains
Yousufguda drain
Picket drain
Osmania University
Jubilee Hills
Hussainsagar
Banjara Hills
Banjara dr
ain
Secretariat
Musi river
TELANGANA
Hyderabad
Musi river
Sewage pumping station

Sewage treatment plant (STP)
Waterways
Disposal of sewage
Map not to scale
Impractical clean-up plan
220,000 22.7 billion litres 10 days

trucks, each of 25 tonne
capacity, would be needed to
remove 4.4 million cu m of
sludge over four years
metres (cu m) of sludge. Given that earthmovers can dredge a maximum of 1 million
cu m of sludge a day, it would take four years
to complete the task. For transporting this
amount, 220,000 trucks, each with a capacity of 25 tonnes, need to be pressed into action.
Besides, de-silting is not a simple
process, warns Hyderabad-based environmentalist K P Reddy. It is not feasible to desilt immediately after emptying the lake as
high moisture content of the sludge would
not allow movement of earth-movers. Since
physical and chemical composition of
dredged material is complex, Reddy suggests
that the government should conduct scientific studies about its properties, identify stabilisation mechanism, and then specify the
mode of disposal. If disposed of without protective lining, hazardous wastes and faecal
matters present in the sludge would contaminate surface water and groundwater.
But such a scenario seems unavoidable as
there is little coordination between ghmc,
responsible for keeping the lake water clean,
and hmda, which works on catchment restoration. The Superintendent Engineer
(Lakes) of hmda, B L N Reddy says ghmc
has not kept his department informed about
16-30 APRIL 2015
of
water needs to be pumped out.
For this, water has to be removed
round-the-clock for 50 days using
pumps of 1,800 HP capacity
the restoration plan of Hussainsagar.

Shailendra Joshi, principal secretary of
the Irrigation Department, cites another reason why Raos dream project would fall flat.
Filling the lake only with rainwater is impossible as most of the runoff gets obstructed due
to poor drainage network in the catchment.
Joshis statements are corroborated by a study
by Rammohan Reddy of Jawaharlal Nehru
Technical University (jntu), Hyderabad,
who found that the lakes surrounding area
does not have a good network of stormwater
drains. Even if hmda revives the entire
catchment and redirects the runoff towards
the lake, Down To Earths assessment shows
it will take 10 days of continuous rainfall in
the monsoon to fill up. But this is less likely
as the region is increasingly suffering from
rainfall deficit and recurrent droughts.
Moreover, chief minister Raos dream to
restore the health of the lake is likely to remain just thata dreamunless the authorities manage the flow of municipal solid
waste from surrounding residential and industrial areas (see Dying lake). Every day,
78 million litres of sewage and 15 million litres of industrial effluents flow into the lake
through four drains, as per Andhra Pradesh
of continuous
rainfall in the monsoon can
refill the lake. This is less
likely as the region has lately
faced rainfall deficit, drought
Pollution Control Board (appcb) data of

2012-13. The two sewage treatment plants
(stps) near the lake are insufficient to handle
the wastewater load, say soul activists.
So, instead of undertaking an ambitious
project, the need of the hour is to understand
what plagues Hussainsagar. In last three
decades, the lake has shrunk by 40 per cent,
primarily because of encroachment by both
public and private agencies, according to
non-profit Forum for a Better Hyderabad.To
save the lake, conservationists, including K L
Vyas, convenor of Save the Lake Campaign,
have moved the High Court of Andhra
Pradesh several times, but to little avail.
In 2000, the Hyderabad Urban
Development Authority issued a notification
to protect the lake, but there have been
instances where it gave in to the real estate
lobby and allowed residential colonies on the
catchment. In 2006, hmda initiated Hussainsagar Lake and Catchment Area Improvement project and set up stps and wastewater
interception and diversion structures. It also
installed fountains to aerate the lake to
improve its water quality. But these measures
are lying defunct. Maybe, Rao should revisit
these unfinished plans first. n
CLIMATE
CHANGE
People's cure to
climate woes
Ecologically vulnerable
Nepal has framed
its climate change
adaptation plan with the
help of communities
VINEET KUMAR | kathmandu
22 DOWN TO EARTH
HE POOREST districts in one of the most
poor countries of the world have suggested ways to mitigate the problems they face due to climate change.
Nepal, which is going through a political
transition and drafting a Constitution, has
made the most vulnerable sections of its population a part of climate change adaptation
planning.
High poverty rates and fragile ecology
make Nepal extremely susceptible to climate
change impacts. As per assessments done by
the government, the mid-western and farwestern regions, where small-scale
agriculture is the main occupation, are highly
prone to drought, landslides and changing
rain patterns (see Precariously balanced).
Compared to the rest of the country, the
adaptation capability of these regions is also
quite low. But despite the turmoil it is going
through, Nepal became the first country in
the world to develop a bottom-to-top

planning approach when it announced the
National Framework on Local Adaption
Plans for Action in November 2011. The
implementation started in 2013 and is to be
completed by the end of 2015.
Local Adaptation Plans of Action,
or lapa, identify local needs, options and
priorities, and incorporate them in national
policy. The programme was conceptualised
to ensure better implementation of
Nepals National Adaptation Programme of
Action (napa), which was launched in
September 2010.
Local plans are prepared with inputs
from the village/municipality level, using
community wisdom.They are the wish
documents of communities, says Som Lal
Subedi, secretary, Ministry of Federal Affairs
and Local Development (mofald), Nepal.
For instance, drought-prone village Vishala
in Dailekh district wanted the authorities to
provide drought-tolerant seed varieties and
construct a pond. These suggestions were
accepted. A total of 70 local plans were
prepared for 69 villages development
committees (vdcs) and one municipality in
14 of Nepals poorest and vulnerable districts
for implementation in 2013-14. The plan
16-30 APRIL 2015
CLIMATE
COURTESY: GOVERNMENT OF NEPAL
Key solutions
Adaptation activities indicated by
communities in Local Adaptation Plans
of Action in 14 districts of Nepal
43%
Agriculture, food
security, livelihoods,
forest, biodiversity
70 Local
Adaptation
Plans for Action
are being
implemented
in 14 of Nepal's
poorest and
vulnerable
districts
included 796 types of climate change

adaptation activities (see Key solutions).
About 45 per cent of lapa activities have
been implemented till February 2015,
according to government sources.
As far as budgetary allocations are
concerned, they are being made as per napa
guidelines which make it mandatory to
disburse at least 80 per cent of the budget
directly for implementation of the identified
adaptation action at the local level. Of the
total approved budget of 54 crore Nepali
Infrastructure
development
9%
Capacity
development*
Water
resources,
alternative
energy
12%
Climateinduced
hazards,
disasters
*Skill development and income generation,

planning, monitoring
Source: UNDP Nepal NCCSP project document
rupees (npr), npr 49 crore were allocated

in 2013-14 (US $1 equals npr 100.13).
For 2014-15, of the total allocation of
npr 73 crore, npr 57 crore has been granted.
Teething troubles
The process of formulating lapa was not easy.

We faced a lot challenges in sensitising the
community about the problems their region
was facing and getting their inputs on the
possible solutions, says Subedi. The
government needed to figure out adaptation
Precariously balanced
Humla
The 14 districts where local plans are being

implemented are highly vulnerable to climate change
Mugu
Bajura
Achham
Jumla
Kalikot
Jajarkot
Rukum
Rolpa
Kailali
Dolpa
Bardiya
Dailekh
9%
27%
Dang
Source: National Adaptation Plan of Action, Nepal

16-30 APRIL 2015
Combined vulnerability
Very low
Low
Moderate
High
Very high
CHANGE
programmes suited to different regions of the

country, which is marked by undulating
terrain, fragile landforms and unevenly
distributed
resources.
Community
involvement was also necessary to ensure that
they support the plan.
The government took the help of ngos
to reach out to communities and the
preparation process was overseen by Nepals
environment ministry. UK-based consulting
firm htspe Ltd assisted in formulating local
adaptation plans. The preparation of plans
started in April 2012 and was completed the
same year in September.
The implementation of lapa was
overseen by the Ministry of Science,
Technology and Environment in coordination with mofald. A plethora of
government and non-government bodies
were also involved. These included Nepals
Climate Change Council, Ministry of
Finance,
district
administrations,
community-based organisations, ngos and
indigenous groups. District development
committees and vdcs were the key
implementation agencies at the local level.
The United Nations Development
Programme (undp) provided technical
assistance to the programme.
Gauging success
It is a little difficult to assess the success of

lapa, say experts. Different countries have
different circumstances, policies, and
governance structures and it seems that local
plans have a great potential to succeed.
However, in Nepal it is still too early to say
because result will take some time to be
visible, says Shanti Karanjit, climate change
policy analyst, undp Nepal.
However, it is clear that the programme
has made communities an important
stakeholder in the planning process rather
than a spectator. The Local Adaptation
Plans of Action being developed and
implemented in Nepal are an excellent
innovation that other countries should
follow, says Saleemul Huq, director,
International Centre for Climate Change
and Development. Such initiatives create
awareness in the community, and help in
bringing climate change adaptation
mechanisms to the mainstream. n
TOBACCO
WA R N I N G
Don't
ignore the
deadly sign
Government buckles under pressure from

tobacco industry and halts order on large
pictorial warnings on tobacco products.
Will profit prevail over public health?
SAVITA VERMA | new delhi
OBACCO CONTROL measures in the coun-
try have been impeded by industry pressure. On October 15 last

year, the Union Ministry of Health
and Family Welfare notified the Tobacco
Products (Packaging and Labelling) Rules
under the national anti-tobacco law to
increase the size of pictorial warnings on
the package of all tobacco products from the
current 40 per cent to 85 per cent60 per
cent of which should be pictures and 25
per cent text. The notified rules were to be
effective from April 1 this year. But the
government has put its decision on hold
after criticism from the tobacco industry.
Dilip Gandhi, chairperson of the
Parliamentary Committee on Subordinate
Legislation of the current Lok Sabha, wrote
a letter to Union health minister J P Nadda
on March 2 saying that his committee was
examining the notified anti-tobacco rules
and suggested deferment of their implementation till it arrives at an appropriate conclusion. The committee, in its report presented
in Parliament on March 18, mentions that a
few members of Parliament (mps) and industry organisations had expressed serious apprehensions about the adverse impact of the
modified rules on the livelihood of tobacco
24 DOWN TO EARTH
workers. The committee also questions the

health ministrys authority to frame tobacco
rules, saying that the ministry should seek
views from other departments, such as labour
and agriculture, since the socio-economic
impact of these rules trespasses its domain.
Following the report, the health ministry has
decided to postpone the implementation of
larger pictorial warnings, although no formal
announcement has been made yet.
Public interest v profit
Health activists and experts have strongly

opposed the move. On March 31, several
mps, civil rights activists, doctors and patients
met at the Constitution Club in Delhi to express their disapproval of the governments
decision. In the meeting, Supriya Sule, Lok
Sabha mp from Pune belonging to the
Nationalist Congress Party, sought the prime
ministers intervention. It is disheartening
to see that the government has decided to delay its earlier decision. India demonstrated
global leadership last year when it announced
the new rules mandating larger pictorial
health warnings on tobacco products.Taking
cue from us, countries like Nepal, Pakistan
and Sri Lanka also announced to increase the
size of health warnings on tobacco products
VIKAS CHOUDHARY / CSE
to 90 per cent, 85 per cent and 80 per cent

respectively, she said.
Activists believe that the committee
headed by Gandhi has no mandate over the
anti-tobacco lawCigarettes and other
Tobacco Products (Prohibition of
Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and
Commerce, Production, Supply and
Distribution) Actpassed by Parliament in
2003. The law allows the health ministry to
frame rules in pursuance of tobacco control
in the country, says Monika Arora, an antitobacco activist. P C Gupta from Healis
Sekhsaria Institute for Public Health says
that the committee is an advisory body and
the health ministry could have rejected its
recommendations. It is clear lobbying by the
tobacco industry. We have to see whether we
want to safeguard industrys interests or
1 million people who die from tobaccorelated diseases every year, Arora adds.
The World Health Organization (who)
has warned that tobacco companies are
undermining anti-tobacco efforts made by
governments. At the World Conference on
Tobacco or Health, 2015, held in Abu Dhabi
on March 18, who director general Margaret
Chan said she would like to see all tobacco
companies shut down. Governments that
16-30 APRIL 2015
Tobacco trail
The debate over pictorial warning on
tobacco products continues 20 years
after it was first proposed
1975 Government of India passes
legislation restricting production, supply
and distribution of cigarettes. Introduces
first text warning, `cigarette smoking is
injurious to health', for all cigarette packets
and cigarette advertisements
1995 Parliamentary Committee on
Subordinate Legislation of the 10th Lok
Sabha suggests strongly worded statutory
warnings through pictorial depiction.
Recommends such warnings in regional
languages as well
1996-2002 Delhi, Goa, West Bengal,
Assam and Tamil Nadu enact state
legislation prohibiting smoking in
public places
Research in India shows that large pictorial health warnings on tobacco products inhibit regular tobacco
users, while preventing adolescents and children from initiation
are trying to protect their citizens through

larger pictorial warnings or by introducing
plain packaging of tobacco products are
being intimidated through lengthy and
costly litigation, she added. Australias legislation on tobacco that mandates plain
packaging is being challenged at the World
Trade Organization by Philip Morris Asia,
a multinational tobacco company whose
products are sold in more than 180 countries.
A picture says it all
A 2012 report of the health ministry links

rampant chewing of tobacco to almost 90 per
cent of oral cancer cases in the country. Every
year, 75,000-80,000 new cases of oral cancer
are reported. Public health experts say clear
pictorial warnings about the harmful effects
of tobacco are important in India, where
education and awareness levels are low.
Research by several tobacco control groups
shows that regular tobacco users are
inhibited by large warnings, while
adolescents and children are prevented from
initiation. Smaller warnings have not been
found to be very effective.
But the parliamentary committee thinks
16-30 APRIL 2015
differently. Newspaper reports have quoted

Gandhi saying there is no Indian study linking tobacco with cancer. Since cancer does
not occur only because of tobacco, the Indian
context should be studied in detail. Many
people depend on bidi-making in states like
Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh,
Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, he had said.
Health experts have snubbed his
remarks, calling them ridiculous.
Even as the industry projects that it is
working for the the cause of tobacco workers,
it continues to exploit them. Bidi rollers live
in abject poverty. Moreover, the trade is practised in homes where children and pregnant
women inhale tobacco dust. Many of
them develop tuberculosis, says Pankaj
Chaturvedi, a doctor at the Tata
Memorial Hospital.
The debate over large pictorial warning
on tobacco products has now reached the
highest authority of the country. According
to media reports, Prime Minister Narendra
Modi has also supported the health
ministrys decision to increase the size of
pictorial warnings. However, Down To Earth
could not verify these reports. n
2001 Parliamentary Standing Committee

on Human Resource Development
recommends mandatory pictorial warnings,
such as skull and crossbones, on cigarette
packets and other tobacco products
2001-2003 Some states impose ban on
the production and sale of gutkha and
pan masala
2003 Parliament passes Cigarettes and
other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of
Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and
Commerce, Production, Supply and
Distribution) Act
2006 Rules to enforce
pictorial warnings on
tobacco products
notified, become
effective from May 31,
2009
October 2014 Government notifies rules
to increase the size of pictorial warnings
on packages from 40 per cent to 85 per
cent. These were to be effective from
April 1, 2015
March 2015 Parliamentary Committee on
Subordinate Legislation of the current Lok
Sabha presents report in Parliament
expressing concern about the loss of
livelihood of tobacco workers. Following
report, government defers its decision
NEW
BUSINESS
Vidya P T of Kuruvattoor village in Kerala receives training in neera extraction
High on nectar
Demand for neera, the fresh sap
of young coconut flowers, is rising
with advances in food preservation
technologies. It's time Kerala stopped
classifying it as country liquor
M SUCHITRA | kozhikode , kerala
26 DOWN TO EARTH
T'S LIKE doing the unimaginable for Vidya P T, a resident of
Kuruvattoor village in Kozhikode district of Kerala. She

tightly clasps onto the trunk of the coconut tree and starts
climbing it.Two knives and a piece of bone remain tightly fixed
to her waistbelt; a small, sterilised pot hangs from it. On reaching
the crown, Vidya tends to a spadixa young inflorescence of coconut palm. She removes the bright sheath around it, gently taps the
flowers for a while using the bone, cuts the tip of the spadix, and ties
the pot next to it. It would take 12 to 15 days before the flowers start
oozing sweet clear sap into the pot. Then, for the next few months,
Vidya would climb up and down the tree every morning and evening to collect the fresh sap or neera.
Vidya is one of the four women in a batch of 20 youths who are
being trained as neera technicians by the federation of coconut producers societies at Payimbra village in Kozhikode. Over a hundred
federations in Kerala are providing similar training.They want a new
batch of neera technicians ready to cater to the growing demand for
the delicious health drink, both across the country and outside.
Traditionally we used to extract a lot of neera. It was even
given to pregnant women and children as health drink, recalls
P Aravindan, president of Payimbra federation. But the practice was
16-30 APRIL 2015
NEW
PHOTOGRAPHS: AJEEB KOMACHI
forgotten after the government classified

neera as country liquor and placed it under
the Kerala Abkari Act, 1967, that regulates
trade in liquor.
In the past one year, neera is regaining its
glory.There is a growing awareness about the
health benefits of coconut inflorescence sap
worldwide. In India, the Coconut
Development Board (cdb), a Central government agency, has started promoting it as
a health drink. Neera is more nutritious than
any other commercially marketed fruit juice
in the country, says T K Jose, chairperson of
cdb. Jose, who serves neera as a welcome
drink to all those who visit his office, claims
that sugar, jaggery and syrup made out of
neera are also highly nutritious.
As per articles published in the Indian
Coconut Journal of cbd, neera is a rich source
of minerals and vitamins. It has substantial
amounts of iron, phosphorus and ascorbic
acid. Palm sugar, which is made by boiling
neera, contains protein, 16 amino acids,
Vitamin B, iron, potassium, magnesium, calcium and zinc. It can be useful for treating
anxiety, depression and biopolar disorder.
The most significant characteristic of neera
and its products is low Glycemic Index (GI),
an indicator of the extent of sugar absorbed
into the blood. While table sugar has a GI of
70, sugar made from neera has a GI of 35.
Foods with GI less than 55 are classified as
The spadix of
coconut flower
has to be
tapped carefully
to ensure high
yield of neera
low GI foods, and can be used by people suffering from diabetes and high cholesterol.
With the global demand for low GI
sugar rising, neera sugar and jaggery can fill
this gap, says Sreekumar Pothuval, processing engineer at cdb Institute of Technology
in Ernakulam district. Given the market
potential of neera, they can enhance farmers
income, create employment and revive
Keralas rural economy, Jose says.
The change is already visible on the
ground. Of the 19 coconut farmer-producer
companies in Kerala, Palakkad Coconut
Producer Company (cpc) and Kaipuzha
Coconut Producer Company have launched
their neera brands in the market. Our objective is to replace unhealthy aerated drinks
with fresh and healthy neera, says Joji M
Thakkadi, chief executive officer of Palakkad
cpc, which produces 500 litres of neera a day.
It sells its product through 20 outlets and
charges `25 for 200 ml. It also sells palm sugar at `350 a kilogram. Kaipuzha cpc sells
neera through vending machines and charges `25 per 200 ml; bottled neera costs `30 per
200 ml. Kaipuzha cpc has a daily turnover of
`10,000 and has set up a plant with a capacity to process 10,000 litres of neera a day at an
expense of `1 crore.
Coconut farmers are happy about the revival of neera at a time when they are facing
price fluctuations and monopoly by copra-
COURTESY: COCONUT DEVELOPMENT BOARD
Neera products are nutritious and have low GI value, which makes them suitable for diabetic patients
16-30 APRIL 2015
BUSINESS
coconut oil traders. A coconut tree can yield

2-4.5 litres of neera a day, depending on the
health of the tree, season and skill of the neera
technician. Even if a palm yields two litres,
we get a minimum assured income of `50 per
tree a day for six months. If we leave the palm
for nut production, we would get as much
amount in a month, says C Chandran, a
farmer in Kuruvattoor panchayat who has
leased out 50 coconut trees on his homestead
for neera extraction.
Neera is also generating employment for
the youth. A neera technician receives a
monthly salary of `10,000. This is over and
above the incentive they receive for extracting each litre of neera and the insurance coverage for any accident, says Anitha Babu, a
neera technician in Kozhikode district.
If 10 per cent of the 180 million coconut trees in the state is available for tapping
neera, it can generate one million employment and contribute `54,000 crore to the
gross state domestic production, says Jose.
However, the state is yet to realise the
potential of the sap. Between March 2014
and January this year, the state government
has granted neera extraction licence to only
173 of the 345 federations in the state and is
delaying the issue of fresh licences.
What prevents the promotion of neera is
its wrong inclusion in the Abkari Act, which
defines the non-alcoholic, unfermented juice
as country liquor. This is akin to interpreting milk as curd since curd is produced from
milk, explains Jose. He points out that the
Abkari Act came at a time when no technology was available to preserve fresh neera.
Now, technologies have been developed by
institutions such as the cdb Institute of
Technology, the Kerala Agricultural
University, the Central Food Technological
Research Institute and the Defence Food
Research Laboratory for arresting the fermentation process. In fact, neera can now
have a shelf life up to one year, says Reshmi
Sajai, technical officer with cdb.
In 1939, Mahatma Gandhi wrote that
making neera sugar as a cottage industry is a
way to solve the worlds poverty. Indonesia
and the Philippines market palm sugar with
Mahatma Gandhi as their brand ambassador with his words inscribed on the packets.
Its time India wok up to its potential. n
COVER
STORY
ON WRONG
H
T
G
N
E
L
E
V
A
W
Twenty years after the Supreme Court
asserted that people have a right over
radio waves, community radio continues
to struggle. Instead of supporting the
stations, the Centre now plans to carry out
a listenership survey to gauge its impact
and decide its future
ANUPAM CHAKRAVARTTY
OME FRIDAY and the telephones at Gurgaon

Ki Awaaz, a community radio station, will ring
off the hook. The reason for the deluge of calls is
that its most popular weekly programme Chahat
Chowk is aired on Friday afternoons. And the
one-and-a-half hours programme, which talks
about reproductive and sexual health, is driven
by queries raised by its listeners.
We had started Chahat Chowk in 2010 with the plan of airing
just 16 episodes, but we decided to continue with it because of the
popularity. We receive queries throughout the week, and the number
of phone calls from our listeners shoots to more than 50 on Fridays,
says station director Arti Jaiman.
Gurgaon Ki Awaaz is arguably one of the few community radio
stations in the country with 22 hours of broadcast daily. Jaiman says
the show has not only dispelled a lot of myths about pregnancy
and contraception, but has been successful in reducing the stigma
associated with such topics in the rural area of Mullahera.
But despite its popularity, Gurgaon Ki Awaaz, like most other
stations in the country, is struggling to keep afloat because of
government apathy, competition from commercial radio channels
and lack of funds.
For masses, community radio is us as against the big media,
which is them, says Rajiv Tikoo, director, OneWorld Foundation
STORY
PHOTOGRAPHS: VIKAS CHOUDHARY / CSE
COVER
In 2014, India had just

170 community radio
stations as opposed
to the earlier plans
of setting up 4,000
stations by 2010
COVER
STORY
India, an organisation that has been helping

communities set up radio stations.
The countrys experiment with community radio
started after the Supreme Court in 1995 said radio
waves belong to the people and that the government
is a caretaker. Subsequent to the verdict, civil society
pressured the government to grant licences to
community radio.
But two decades later, the concept of community
radio has not caught on. This despite the fact that
almost all the governments at the Centre have
promised to strengthen the medium which, they say,
is an integral component of the right to free speech
and expression.
On November 16, 2006, the United Progressive
Alliance government at the Centre promised that
there will be more than 4,000 community radio
stations by 2010. But on July 1, 2014, only 170
stations were operational, according to the Telecom

Regulatory Authority of India (trai).
Flawed focus
A year after the Supreme Court verdict, a

parliamentary subcommittee headed by Ram
Vilas Paswan formulated a working paper on
national media policy in March 1996. The paper
emphasised on the setting up of non-commercial
broadcasting stations to be run by universities,
educational institutions, panchayats, local bodies
and state governments.
As a result, the first licences for community
radio were given to educational institutions and
government-run agriculture universities and not to
local communities. In fact, the first station run by a
community was launched as late as in 2008.
By definition, community radio should be a non-
Out of range
More than two-thirds of the community
radio stations in the country are run
by educational institutions and not by
the community
is the number of
states that do
not have a single
grassroots
station
Andhra Pradesh
Assam
Bihar
Delhi
Gujarat
Chandigarh
5
4
Kerala
Puducherry
Maharashtra
5
4
Odisha
Punjab
Uttar Pradesh
Tamil Nadu
4
4
Rajasthan
Uttarakhand
1
1
Stations operated by
agricultural institution
Telengana
4
4
Madhya Pradesh
Karnataka
Stations operated by
educational institution
Haryana
Himachal Pradesh
Jharkhand
12
Stations operated
by NGO/community
Jammu and Kashmir
Source: 2014 Compendium of community radio

stations, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting
30 DOWN TO EARTH
Chhattisgarh
103
61
2
21
12
West Bengal
16-30 APRIL 2015
COVER
state, non-market venture, owned and managed by

the community. But in practice, most community
radios (in the country) are being run by educational
institutions and even religious trusts, says Vinod
Pavarala, unesco Chair on Community Media at
University of Hyderabad.
As a result, of the 170 community radio stations
in the country, 101 are run by educational institutes
and universities, six by Krishi Vigyan Kendras and 63
by civil society organisations. Currently, community
radio stations in rural and remote areas are being run
by ngos educational institutions mostly (run the
radio stations) in urban and semi-urban areas, says
the 2014 trai report. (see Out of range ,p30)
This is a fundamental problem because the
issues that are important to a community and an
educational institution are different and as a result
the content has to be different. According to a paper
presented at the information and broadcasting (IB)
ministrys National Consultation on Community
Radio in India in December 2010, two-thirds
of the community radio stations operating in
the country are run by institutions and as a result
local participation in content generation largely
remains missing.
Advantage commercial radio
India got its first commercial radio station in

1993. The government took another nine years
to formulate the first guidelines for community
16-30 APRIL 2015
radio. And the guidelines, released by IB

ministry in 2002, were restrictive in nature. It
said community radio stations cannot use
transmitters that have capacities higher than
50 watts. At the same time, most commercial stations
use transmitters with 3,000 watts capacities that
reach a larger listener base.
While 50 watts transmitters work well in rural
areas, they are grossly inefficient in urban spaces
that have high-rise buildings and in places with
hilly terrain. Radio Khushi discovered this a couple
of years ago. In 2013, officials from the IB ministry
visited the community radio station run by the
Guru Nanak 5th Centenary School in Mussoorie
because allegedly the programmes from the station
could be tuned in from Ambala. This happened
because the stations tower is installed at a place on
the mountains that obstructs the broadcast from
reaching Mussoorie and Dehradun city but gets
transmitted to the plains. This can be addressed if
the tower uses a transmitter of higher capacity.
Low-wattage transmitters also fail to work
in places where villages are separated by long
distances. One such example is Rann of Kutch
where villages are separated by many kilometres.
The government should make an exception because
of the geographical difficulties and allow the use of
higher-wattage transmitters, says Pavarala.
Jaiman says 50W is also insufficient in urban
places such as Gurgaon as the frequencies get
STORY
Gurgaon Ki Awaaz is one of

the few community radio
stations in the country with
22 hours of broadcast daily
C O V E R
STORY
India's
experiment
with radio
The country got its
first community-run
radio station more
than 60 years after
Independence
October 1, 1885 | The British

government enacts the Indian
Telegraph Act. The Act is still
used by the Centre to claim
exclusive jurisdiction over
wired and wireless
communications in the country
July 23, 1927 | The Indian
State Broadcasting Service
inaugurates the first regular
radio service in Bombay. The
1.5 KW station had an
effective range of 48 km
June 1936 | Indian State
Broadcasting Service renamed

All India Radio (AIR)
August-November, 1942 |
During the Quit India
Movement, freedom fighter
Usha Mehta launches Congress
Radio, an underground radio
station in Bombay, to
encourage the youth to
participate in freedom
struggle
September 1949 | AIR
starts Radio Farm Forum
programme in seven stations
blocked by concrete buildings. Gurgaon Ki Awaz

is not received in buildings that are more than
12 metres high, says she.
Community radio operators also complain that
the process of getting licences is time-consuming.
This, they claim, favours commercial radio operators
who have deep pockets and can wait. It takes around
five years to get a licence, while it should be issued in
a month, says Bijoy Patra of oneworld.net, which
helps communities set up radio stations.
One of the biggest reasons for the delay in
issuing licences is lack of coordination between
various ministries, says Supriya Sahu, former
joint secretary of the IB ministry. (See Licensing
process , p35)
According to government figures released in
February 2015, the IB ministry has received 1,692
fresh applications and it has issued letter of intent
to 409 of the applicants. Out of the 409, 218 have
managed to get the Grant of Permission Agreement
and are waiting for the licence. While the IB
ministry has been proactive in clearing licences,
their counterpart (Ministry of Communications
& IT) has been slow in allocating licences, says
Ram Bhatt, vice-president, Association Mondiale
Des Radiodiffuseurs Communautaires, a global
association of community radio broadcasters.
"One of the biggest

reasons for the delay in
issuing licences is lack
of coordination between
various ministries"
Supriya Sahu,former joint secretary,
Ministry of Information and Boadcasting
32 DOWN TO EARTH
January 1956 | AIR conducts

Farm Radio Forums with the
assistance of UNESCO in 150
villages across five districts in
Maharashtra
January 25, 1958 | AIR
unsuccessfully uses folk media
on radio to attract and
educate local communities on
social issues
April 1964 | Indira Gandhi
asks the then finance
commissioner A K Chanda to
prepare a report on
Patra highlights another problem community

radio station applicants face. He says following
the 2G Telecom Spectrum scam, the Ministry of
Telecom has started issuing an undertaking to all the
radio operators, commercial and community, which
states that spectrum allocations can be cancelled at
any time in the future and that the ministry has no
liability. This acts as a deterrent for cash-strapped
communities, says he.
Low on budget
The one thing that is common to all community

radio stations is that they are cash-strapped. A
station with four hours of daily programming incurs
a cost of a little less than `3,000 a day (see Average
COVER
broadcasting in India. In his
report, Chanda says AIR should be
made autonomous and its rural
stations should be more
participatory
January 1965 | AIR makes rural
service an integral component of
all its stations. Farm and home
units established in 10 AIR
stations to provide technical
support to farmers
October 1967 | The Centre allows
commercial advertising in the
Bombay-Pune-Nagpur chain of
Vividh Bharati stations

July 1977 | First FM station comes
up in Madras
1993 | First private FM station,
Times FM, comes up in Indore,
Ahmedabad and Delhi
February 2, 1995 | Supreme
Court says airwaves are public
property and the government is
only a regulator
March 1996 | A Parliamentary
committee suggests setting up of
non-commercial broadcasting
monthly cost , p35).

To improve the situation, trai in December
2004 allowed community radio stations to broadcast
advertisements for five minutes every hour. The
move has been of little help because the stations
can only air advertisements and announcements
relating to local events, local business and services
and employment opportunities. The 2014 trai
report admits that most community radio stations
do not get adequate advertisements. It says one of
the major reasons for the community radios inability
to get local advertisements is the stipulation in the
Directorate of Audio-Visual Publicitys (davps)
guidelines for empanelment of community radio
stations which says community radio stations
ANUPAM CHAKRAVARTTY / CSE
STORY
stations to be run by universities,

educational institutions,
panchayats, local bodies and state
governments
July 1999 | Ministry of
Information and Broadcasting
announces private companies
registered in India will be allowed
set up 101 FM stations in 40 cities
16 December 1999 | AIR Bhuj
telecasts first community radio
programme on the Kutch
community. The thirty-minute
programme, Kunjal Panchchi
will undertake in writing that davp approved rates

accepted by them are their lowest rates and exclusive
to davp and cannot be offered to any other agency.
davp reserves the right to review empanelment rates
if this condition is violated.
The existing davp rate is `4 per second which is
rather high for advertisers in rural areas. This means
the stations have to charge more than `4 per second
from other advertisers, which they say is not possible.
The trai report recommends that the davp clause
be relaxed. I am finding it difficult to get sponsors
sitting here in Gurgaon, which is in the middle of
the industrial hub and close to the national capital.
One can only imagine how the channels sustain
themselves financially in remote areas, says Jaiman.
The problem does not end here. Most stations say
getting the bills cleared from davp is a task in itself.
The payments are often not made on time, causing
delays in paying the station staff, says Jaiman.
In 2013, the IB ministry introduced a `100-crore
scheme called Supporting Community Radio
Movement in India under the 12th Five Year Plan
(2012-2017) for providing financial support to
community radio stations. Under the scheme, the
ministry would grant financial support to community
radio stations for purchasing equipment to the extent
of 50 per cent of the total estimated expenditure,
subject to a ceiling of `7.50 lakh. The scheme plans
to support 100 new community radio stations and 30
existing operational community radio stations each
year. Under the scheme, a total of at least 650 grants
are likely to be made over the 12th Plan period.
The one thing that is common
to all community radio
stations is that they are
cash-strapped
COVER
STORY
Kutchji, was produced by Kutch

Mahila Vikas Sangathan in the
Kutchi language
July 17-20, 2000 | A UNESCO
workshop in Andhra Pradesh urges
the government to create a threetier structure of broadcasting in
India: state-owned radio, private
commercial radio, and non-profit
community radio. This is called the
Pastapur Declaration
January 2002 | Narrowcasting
started at a local market in

Budhikote village of Karnataka.
The Namma Dhwani programme
used to broadcast goods and crop
prices. The programme also
broadcasted social messages and
birthday greetings
December 2002 | Information and
Broadcasting ministry releases the
community radio guidelines that
restrict community radio licenses
to well-established educational
institutions. It prohibits
broadcasting of news and current

affairs and advertisements.
It allows a maximum of
50 watts transmitter 30 metres
high antenna to broadcast
community radios
February 17, 2003 | A community
radio station at Oravkal shut down
by the government for violating
the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885,
and operating without a licence
November 2003 | Amit Mitra
But Jaiman says most community radio

stations will find it extremely difficult to even fund
50 per cent of the cost on their own.
Ban on news
Ravi Negi of Radio Hemvalvani that is aired in

Chamba of Uttarakhand says many lives could have
been saved during the 2013 flash floods in the hills
if his radio station was allowed to transmit news.
The government had failed to forecast the
magnitude of the rains. So, once the rains started,
we could have forewarned the people in the remote
areas and many of them could have travelled to
safety, says he.
Negis sentiments have been echoed time
and again by different government-appointed
committees as well. In 2000, the government
appointed Amit Mitra, former chairperson of the
Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and
Industry, to look into the demand. His report said
private radio should be allowed to broadcast news. In
2004, when trai was made the broadcast regulator,
it recommended the government to allow news
broadcast by radio channels.
Experts say the ban should be lifted because
there is a thin line that separates issues discussed
"I am finding it difficult to get

sponsors sitting here in Gurgaon,
which is in the middle of the
industrial hub and close to the
national capital. One can only
imagine how stations in rural
areas sustain themselves"
Arti Jaiman, station director, Gurgaon Ki Awaaz
34 DOWN TO EARTH
(Radio Broadcast Policy)

Committee Report recommends a
revenue share model for Phase-II
of FM licensing. Recommends
news and current affairs for
privately owned FM and
community radio stations
January 9, 2004 | Telecom
Regulatory Authority of
India (TRAI) becomes
broadcast regulator
February 1, 2004 | Anna
on community radio and current affairs. News and

current affairs are not defined. Many community
radio stations feel vulnerable since anything they
do could be defined as news and invite censure from
government, says Pavarala.
The government, however, maintains that news
cannot be allowed on radio as it might be used for
anti-national purposes. The level of mistrust in the
minds of politicians can be gauged from the fact
that till recently, not a single licence was issued in
states affected by insurgency such as Jharkhand,
Uttarakhand and Northeastern states.
And while India is still struggling with the
idea, neighbouring Nepal has successfully allowed
broadcasting of news on private radio channels (see
COVER
Community Radio becomes the

first campus radio station in India.
It is established under the 2002
community radio guidelines
December 9, 2004 | TRAI
recommends simpler criteria for
community radio licence. It also
suggests news and current affairs
programmes be permitted on
community radio. It suggests five
minutes of advertisements to be
permitted per hour of broadcast
November 16, 2006 | The Union

Cabinet approves the new
community radio policy which
opens up community radio to
non-profit organisations. News
not permitted, but advertising
is allowed
October 17, 2007 | Telecom
minister asks private company
Nomad to develop low-cost FM
transmitters for community radio
June 26, 2008 | First community
Tune in to the world , p36).

In December 2013, Delhi-based non-profit
Common Cause filed a public interest petition in
the Supreme Court of India, contesting the ban
on news by private and community radio stations.
While the verdict is awaited, former Union IB
minister Prakash Javadekar had hinted last year
that the present government may allow private
radio stations to broadcast All India Radio news
without alteration.
No respite in sight
And at a time when the community radio needs

government support, the Centre is interested in
carrying out a listenership survey to understand
radio wireless operating licence

for a civil society organisation
issued to Mann Vikas Samajik
Sansthan in Satara, Maharashtra
October 15, 2008 | Sangham
Radio becomes the first
community radio station in the
country. The station in Pastapur,
Andhra Pradesh broadcasts for
about one-and-a-half hours at
7 am and runs a repeat broadcast
in the evening
STORY
November 4, 2009 | Directorate

of Audio and Visual Publicity
(DAVP) announces `1 per second
advertisement rate for community
radio stations
February 18, 2012: DAVP revises
rates to `4
2013: Supporting Community
Radio Movement in India scheme
launched to provide financial
assistance to new and existing
community radio stations
Slow and expensive

Setting up a community radio station in the
country is both time-consuming and expensive
Licensing process
1 Get a letter of intent by the Ministry of Information
and broadcasting (IB)
2 Apply online for Standing Advisory Committee on
Radio Frequency Allocation at Ministry of
Communications & IT
3 Approach the IB ministry for a Grant Of Permission
Agreement
4 Finally, apply to the Ministry of Communications &
IT for a Wireless Operator Licence
Average time : 5 years

Average monthly cost*
Cost of studio and equipment: ` 10,00,000
EMI (12.5% rate of interest for the period of 10 years):
` 15, 000
Staff cost: ` 50, 000
Energy consumption (`50/hr): ` 6,000
Stationery + cassettes: ` 5,000
Community
radio stations
demand that
the government
should lift the ban
on broadcasting
news and
current affairs
Fuel cost: ` 5,000

Miscellaneous: ` 5,000
Total: ` 86,000 per month

* Calculations done for a station that broadcasts for four hours daily; Source: Radio Vikalp, Bundelkhand, Madhya Pradesh
COVER
STORY
Tune in to the world

India can learn a thing or two
about community radio from the
experience of other nations
Nepal
UK and Ireland
In the UK, many community radios broadcast
for minority immigrant communities such as
the Afro-Caribbean and the Asian
communities. Ireland encompasses stations
serving a geographic community or a
community of interest such as campus
stations and Irish-language stations
In 1997, Nepal became the first South Asian

country to grant licences for community
radio stations. Today the country has over
20 community radio stations. Based on the
ownership of the station, Nepal has three
kinds of community radio stations: NGOowned stations, cooperative-owned
stations and local government-owned
stations. The country also allows private
radio stations to broadcast news and
current affairs
Taiwan
Till 2004, Taiwan
had more illegal
radio stations
(200) than legal
ones (170)
because media
houses influence
the government
to not issue new
licences
USA and Canada

Community radios in Canada
often target minoritylanguage communities such
as Franco-Ontarians,
Acadians, Anglo-Quebecers or
First Nations. Community
radio in the US began in 1949,
when a California pacifist
received a licence to operate
an FM station. Despite the
early beginnings of
community radio, the US
media is largely dominated
by big companies
Africa
Community radio
emerged under
diverse political
conditions and was
severely affected not
only by dictators but also by
democratic governments. For example,
in Guinea-Bissau, the change in power
from the absolute reign of Nino Viera
to democracy did not favour conditions
for media in the nation
Australia
Unlike India, community radio here is
defined by the audience and not by the
geographical location. As a result, there are
community radio channels catering to
indigenous and ethnic groups, people with
print disability and the elderly
Compiled from various papers
the outreach of community radio. On February 27,

the IB ministry finalised eight private agencies to
gauge listenership of 108 community radio stations.
Through this study the ministry seeks to understand
the effectiveness of community radio in providing
tangible or intangible, direct or indirect benefits to
the community, says the ministry brochure that
invited agencies to conduct the survey.
Experts are wary of the intent and say the real
reason behind the survey is the governments plan
to discontinue community radio stations that have
small listener base. This, they say, is being done
because there is a shortage of frequencies.
Pavarala says the idea of gauging the efficiency of
community radio stations by the number of listeners
is bizarre. The service provided by community
radio should be evaluated in terms the social value it
represents, says he.
36 DOWN TO EARTH
IB officials justify the move by saying that the

survey will serve as trp ratings and in the process
help community radio stations attract more
advertisements. With the help of these surveys,
we will be able to extend financing schemes to the
community radio operators, says a senior official of
the IB ministry.
Pavarala says, The pro forma given for the survey
reflects a particular, narrow quantitative approach
to research and is not tailored to the context of
particular communities. He adds that the attempt
to gauge the outreach of the stations goes against the
1995 Supreme Court judgement.
Experts also say that instead of wasting time and
money on the survey, the Centre should take simple
steps to strengthen community radio in the country.
For starters, all operators unanimously say
the process for granting licences needs to be
16-30 APRIL 2015
Advertisement
COVER
S T O R systems
Y
`Simplify
licensing
for community radio'
INOD PAVARALA has been

advocating community right
over radio waves. UNESCO's
Community Media Chair at the
University of Hyderabad, Pavarala tells
Down To Earth what an ideal community
radio station should be and how
government can regulate it well
It has been more than 10 years since

a policy for community radio was
formulated. What are the new issues?
If you look at the vastness and diversity
of this country, 170 stations are hardly
anything. You are looking at less than
20 stations in a year. I think we need
to look at the reasons that are slowing
down the medium. The first reason is
the elaborate bureaucratic procedures
that have been put in place for licensing.
The government has to simplify the
procedures and create a single-window
system. The second issue that needs a
re-look is the continued ban on broadcast
of news. What is community radio
without news? At present, a public
interest litigation is under way on the
issue and hopefully the Supreme Court
will permit broadcast of news soon.
The third issue is the policy saying that
no content of political nature shall be
broadcast. Of course, the policy does not
define politics. But politics is increasingly
becoming local.
Recently, the government announced

its plans to conduct a listenership
survey. What are your thoughts
on this?
I have heard of the listenership survey
idea that the government is floating.
Its purpose is maybe to show the
effectiveness and impact of community
radio on other wings of government.
But the survey will not help community
radios get advertisement. Listenership
surveys can give you some sense of what
but often they cannot answer questions
about the why. I think the why can be
answered by qualitative research.
Community radio stations by
streamlined. Many of us who have worked on the

field have been asking the government for a single
window system, says Pavarala.
Experts are also demanding reservation of
frequencies for community radio stations to
safeguard them from commercial radio stations.
The time has come for the government to think of
a comprehensive spectrum allocation plan under
which the government must reserve frequencies for
community radio stations, says Pinki Chandran,
station manager of Bengaluru community radio
station Radio Active.
And finally, the Centre needs to devise ways to
better support community radioboth monetarily
and otherwise. They say the government should
carry out campaigns to sensitise people about
community radio and organise special camps to
38 DOWN TO EARTH
grassroots organisations often face

financial hardships. Will the new
`100-crore scheme help?
Financial sustainability is the new
buzzword used at all community radio
events these days. I know of NGOs who
have large projects but their domain
is primarily not community radio.
Their domain might be sustainable
agriculture, literacy or children's rights
and they get funding for the domain.
Now they are diverting a part of their
funding to run community radio. I think
this is a sustainable model and more
organisations should look at it. This
is important because the possibility
of community radio surviving only
on advertisements is unlikely. The
government should ensure that the funds
allocated under the Supporting
Community Radio Movement in India
scheme is administered independently so
that it actually reaches the people.
What would be the ideal model for a
community radio station?
The community radio stations that
function really well are the ones that are
rooted to a particular social or grassroots
movement. They are based on peoples'
rights, access to resources and are not
just a part of NGO activity. Even if NGOs
are getting licences, the content should
not be "NGOised".
impart technical knowledge to set up community

radios.This is extremely important when one realises
that almost all of the successful community radio
stations in the country today are run by educational
institutions and not by the community. The
content produced by the students in an institution
will be vastly different from the content needed
by a community, says Pavarala. The government
must, therefore, make a clear cut division in
the classification of different kinds of community
radio stations.
Union finance minister Arun Jaitely at an event
last month said that his government is dedicated
to strengthening community radio in the country.
Experts say it is time the Centre underwent a
paradigm shift to keep the radio within the reach of
the community. n
16-30 APRIL 2015
SCIENCE
BYTES
ECOLOGY
Decreased resilience
be resistant to
changing climatic conditions. But their
resistance is lowered when they face natural
or anthropogenic disturbances such as fires or
insect outbreaks. A study on seven shrublands
in Europe found them to be quite resistant to
moderate experimental warming and drought.
Plants are particularly sensitive to changes
in the early stages of their life and even small
climatic changes can result in vegetation
shifts when ecosystems are disturbed. The
understanding will help predict the response
of ecosystems to climate change. Nature
Communications, March 24
ECOSYSTEMS CAN
Antacids weaken bones
Consumption interrupts absorption of

calcium by the intestine
JJ HARRISON
BIOLOGY
On way out
swift parrot is
undergoing a population collapse and could
be extinct in 16 years. The parrot is a major
pollinator of blue and black gum trees which
are crucial to the forestry industry. Ironically,
its habitat is being destroyed by the industry.
A five-year study which tracked movement
and breeding habits of the parrot predicts that
their numbers would halve
every year and there is a 94.7 per cent chance
of its extinction. Biological Conservation,
March 25 (online)
THE TASMANIAN
E CAREFUL before you take your next antacid.
According to a study, antacids make bones weaker.

Stomach acid in the gastrointestinal tract helps
the intestines absorb and transfer calcium to the skeletal
system. But antacids interrupt and even stop the gut
from absorbing calcium. This leads to weaker bones
and increases the chances of fractures. Researches had
indicated that antacids block the absorption of important
nutrients, but it was not known how or why this was
happening in the body. The new study could help find ways
to treat common clinical conditions which are currently
being treated with medications that make bones weak.
PLOS Genetics, March 26
16-30 APRIL 2015
C L I M AT E
Antarctica on thin ice

of Antarctica's floating
ice shelves has decreased by as much as 18 per
cent in certain areas in the past two decades.
Data collected by satellite radar altimetry
missions of the European Space Agency during
1994-2012 shows that the ice volume decline
is accelerating. At the current rates, the ice
shelves in western parts of Antarctica could
lose half their volume in 200 years.
Science, March 26
THE THICKNESS
HEALTH
PHOTOGRAPHS: OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
Digging for diseases,

past and present
Students excavate human remains buried in the post-medieval churchyard at Badia Pozzeveri in Tuscany, Italy
Scientists are
turning to ancient
grave sites to
unravel the
mysteries of
human ailments
APRAJITA SINGH
| new delhi
40 DOWN TO EARTH
HE ABANDONED medieval church of
Badia Pozzeveri in Tuscany, Italy,

which is surrounded by a 1,000-yearold cemetery, has had some unique
visitors in the past four summers. Led
by scientist Clark Spencer Larsen from
the Ohio State University in the US, these
researchers and students have been excavating the site where they have found a mass
grave of victims of cholera epidemic of the
late 1980s.
The deceased were buried in a casing of
lime to contain further spread of the infection.
The lime encasing is amazing for bone
preservation. These are the best preserved
remains of cholera victims from this time
period ever found. We are very excited about

what we may be able to learn, says Larsen.
So far, the researchers have found dna
of microbes in the bone remains. These
microbes were present in the bodies at the
time of death and could be Vibrio cholerae that
causes cholera.
Analysis of the dna will help trace the
evolution of cholera over the centuries and its
spread across Europe in the 18th century.The
information can also be vital in
understanding the bacterias current form, and
possibly, how to combat it. Says Larsen, The
pathogens past strains can reveal an important
record of the evolution of the pathogenic
bacteria in comparison with the modern
16-30 APRIL 2015
bacteria. Evolutionary history can provide a

tool for addressing the pathogenicity of the
bacteria and its treatment.
The researchers are also excavating other
graves in the site, which are presumed to be of
victims of the Black Death, the pandemic that
killed millions of people across Asia and
Europe in the 14th century.
A unique science
Larsens team is not the first one to study

modern diseases using archaeological
remains, also known as palaeopathology.
Scientists are increasingly using this field of
science to predict the course of a disease in the
future by understanding its history based on
the evidence from ancient remains, including
bones, teeth and dental tissue.
Diseases often leave direct or indirect
imprints on the skeletal system, as in the case
of osteoporosis, and sometimes, tuberculosis.
While skeletal remains inform about the past,
advance tools, such as biotechnology, help
map and study diseases of the past. Helen
Donahue, from the University College
London School of Life and Medical Sciences,
explains the relevance of studying ancient
remains
to
modern
medicine.
Paleopathology can provide evidence of the
epidemiology and past geographical range of
ancient infections, she says. It can also give
insights into the social context of past human
infections. For example, leprosy is linked with
rural populations and mud floors, whereas TB
is linked to the density of population so it
increases in cities. This is seen as long ago as
ancient Egypt, she adds.
Donahue has extensively researched the
history of tuberculosis and leprosy. A recent
work was a 2012 study published in the New
England Journal of Medicine. The study
conducted on bodies found in a sealed crypt
in Vac, Hungary. The bodies were buried
between the late 18th century and early 19th
century, and were found to have been
naturally mummified due to conditions
prevalent in the crypt. A large percentage of
the bodies were found to have been infected
with tuberculosis and the samples obtained
were sufficiently intact to enable molecular
fingerprinting of the strain of Mycobacterium
tuberculosis (mtb). We have found that
several individuals were infected with more
16-30 APRIL 2015
than one strain of mtb, and one individual

had three different strains, she says.
They were all from modern lineage-4
(European) but can be distinguished from
each other. Today, this pattern of infection is
found in sub-Saharan Africa and there was
speculation that it may have been driven by
hiv and/or the impact of antimicrobial
therapy. Our data from the 18th century
suggest that this phenomenon arises
whenever there is a high level of infection in
the population, she continues.
In certain cases, the disease in question
may not affect the same demographic as it
did in the past. A 2012 paper by Mauro
Rubini from the University of Foggia, Italy,
of a disease. Kirsten Bos, physical

anthropologist from Canadas McMaster
University used dna obtained from a burial
site in London to prove that the culprit
behind the Black Death was Yersinia pestis,
the highly virulent bacterium responsible for
bubonic plague. She thus silenced opposition
to the theory from researchers who claimed
that the medieval pandemic was caused by a
virus similar to Ebola, an idea that received
some traction, thanks to the book published
on the topic.
Bos further proved that all modern
strains of the disease had evolved from the
strain responsible for the Black Death. This
information may be imperative in
Students clean
remains found
in the Badia
Pozzeveri
churchyard
studied the case of childhood leprosy in two

mummies excavated from the second-third
century BC and 8th-10th century BC, one of
which yielded the dna of Mycobacterium
leprae. The study was published in the
International Journal of Osteoarchaeology.
While childhood leprosy is now a rare
occurrence, the study of the disease is
nevertheless important due to a lack of
historical literature on the subject. These are
real-time markers of genetic changes, thus
enabling better understanding of the evolution of human pathogens, says Donahue.
There have also been instances where
dna evidence from remains has been used to
prove or verify theories about the history
understanding a disease which has still not

been completely eradicated. Indias last
recorded plague outbreak occurred 20 years
ago in Surat, claiming numerous lives. Minor
outbreaks are reported each year all over the
world, including a major one in the
Democratic Republic of Congo in 2006,
indicating the continuing need for further
study of the diseases history to truly
understand its propagation dynamics.
Studying these diseases may even give
us clues about human history. Studying
obligate pathogens, such as M leprae that
have co-evolved with their hosts, may
provide information about human migration
across continents.
TECHNOLOGY
A second too long
The world has been

adding an extra second at
regular intervals to keep
pace with the slowing
Earth. Will the practice
be stopped as the US says
it is bad for business?
ANUPAM CHAKRAVARTTY
| new delhi
TARIQUE AZIZ / CSE
42 DOWN TO EARTH
16-30 APRIL 2015
HIS JUNE 30 will have an extra second to
ensure time on atomic clocks stays in

sync with Earths slowing rotational speed. The day might also be the
last time the Earth measures time correctly
because the process, called leap second, is
likely to be discontinued forever. Several
countries, including the US and China,
have been vehemently opposing leap second, and a decision on its future will be
taken at the World Radio Conference in
Geneva in November this year.
A leap second is a one-second
adjustment that is occasionally applied to
Coordinated Universal Time to keep its time
of day close to the mean solar time. This is
done because the Earths rotation is slowing
down by about two thousandths of a second
every day because of tidal friction. If these
seconds are not introduced, the disparity will
widen so greatly that over time the world
will read midnight at sunrise. Introduced in
1972, only 25 leap seconds have been added
till date. A leap second was added every year
between 1972 and 1979. In the 1980s, six
leap seconds were added. The world has
added another four leap seconds in the
past 13 years.
BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME
The world has added

25 leap seconds till date
1754 AD: Immanuel Kant suggests
a steady deceleration in the Earth's
rotation due to tidal friction, which
later becomes a basis of inserting
leap seconds
1928: International Astronomical
Union recommends Greenwich Mean
Time (GMT) as Universal Time
1972: Coordinated Universal
Time quickly replaces GMT as the
international reference time for
setting clocks
1972: First leap second inserted
2005: The US makes a proposal to
remove leap seconds to safeguard
navigation and computer systems
from crashing
2015: World Radio Conference in
Geneva to decide in November
whether to abolish leap seconds
Forget the second
The idea to ban leap second was first floated

by US experts in 2005 when they said it did
more harm than good. The leap second that
was added to the first day of 1996 made
computers at Associated Press Radio station
crash. As a result, the station started
broadcasting older programmes.
In 1997, Russian global positioning

system Glonass was broken for 20 hours after
a transmission to the countrys satellites to
add a leap second went awry. Even the last
leap second in 2012 caused problems for
big US-based companies such as Reddit,
LinkedIn, Gizmodo and Four Square.
In todays world of high-speed
"In today's world of

high-speed computer
communications, one
second can be a significant
length of time"
"We have to take into

account the slowing Earth's
rotation. It is not for any
country to decide whether
to incorporate it or not"
R A Nelson, late physicist who authored paper,

The leap second: its history and possible future
Ashish Agarwal, National Physical Laboratory,

New Delhi
16-30 APRIL 2015
computer communications that time

stamp messages at the sub-second level,
one second can be a significant length of
time, wrote late physicist R A Nelson in his
2001 paper, The leap second: its history and
possible future. The problem is that during
the leap second, the computer clock shows
60 seconds instead of simply rolling over to
the next minute, or shows the 59th second
twice. The computer sees a leap second as
time going backward, he said.
Watch out
As an astronomer, I think time should follow

the Earth, says Daniel Gambis, director,
Earth Rotation Service at the Paris
Observatory. He calls the American effort
an intrusion on the scientific dialogue
(see Brief history of time). British
astronomers have maintained that the
abolition of leap seconds will render the
Greenwich Mean Time redundant.
We have to take into account the
slowing Earths rotation. It is not for any
country to decide whether to incorporate
it or not, says Ashish Agarwal, senior
scientist, Time and Frequency Department
at National Physical Laboratory in Delhi.
He adds that the importance of leap
seconds will increase for India, which is
developing a more precise atomic clock.
India is developing the worlds second
atomic clock with Ytterbium ions that is
more accurate than Caesium atomic clocks,
says Agarwal.
Some others have argued that removing
the link between time and the sun would
require making changes to telescopes which
will cost between US $10,000 and $500,000
per facility. Experts also fear that once this
link is broken it could never be restored
because although the Earths timekeeping
systems are built to accommodate the
occasional leap second, adding a leap minute
or hour to global time would be virtually
impossible.
Astronomers agree that the leap second
causes inconvenience, but believe looking
for viable solutions instead of banning it
makes more sense. Google, for instance,
adds milliseconds to its servers at different
times throughout the year to ensure an entire
second is not added at once.
COLUMN
H E D G E H O G TA L E S
RAKESH KALSHIAN
Rumours of breast and bottle
How credible is it to turn breast milk into a panacea

and natural law that all women must subscribe to?
HE HEALTH benefits of breastfeeding are stuff of
commonsense, and are increasingly endorsed by

science. But when someone claims that breastfed
babies grow up into smarter and wealthier adults,
it does raise a few eyebrows.Thats precisely the suggestion
of a recent controversial study from Brazil that tracked
about 3,500 newborns over a period of 30 years and
concluded that the longer the weaning period, the higher
the intelligence and earning ability in later years.
The study, which graces the cover of the latest
issue of The Lancet Global Health,
has sparked off a fresh row in a
highly polarised debate between
the champions of breastfeeding
who seek a ban on formula foods
and a band of feminists who believe
that the global frenzy over
breastfeeding undermines the
politics of womens rights.
Its true that in recent decades
governments,
international
agencies, and media have
TARIQUE AZIZ / CSE
come together to canvass for
breastfeeding. In the UK, for example, working class
women are bribed to breastfeed their babies; in India,
doctors are forbidden by law to promote formula.There is
even a World Breastfeeding Week observed every August.
Part of this is fuelled by an essentialist view of
motherhood, in part by the greens campaign against
commercial infant milk substitutes and in part by the fact
that a large number of babies, mostly in the developing
world, die young because they dont get enough breast
milk. But the greatest advertiser by far is the sciencemedia nexus. Media is full of stories of how breastfeeding
makes children healthier and smarter, and conversely, how
formula milk renders them vulnerable to diseases, such as
stomach infections, allergies and asthma.
How credible are these stories? Lets consider the
Brazilian study. Despite its reasonably good design, it has
been criticised on many counts. First, many people view IQ
tests as a flawed and misleading measure of intelligence.
44 DOWN TO EARTH
If anything, they reflect social class and cultural biases

more than true intelligence. Linking breastfeeding with
increased intelligence therefore may seem over the top.
Second, half the subjects in the study dropped before it was
concluded, which weakens the validity of its conclusions.
Lastly, even though social class was not a confounding
factor as poor and relatively privileged mothers breastfed
their babies alike, the fact remains that across cultures
mothers who suckle their babies more and longer tend
to be better educated and wealthier than those who dont,
or for some reason cannot. In fact,
last year a study at the Ohio State
University in the US found that
many of the much-touted longterm advantages attributed to
breastfeeding may have lot more
to do with the social and material
wellbeing of the women who opt to
nurse their babies than with breast
milk itself.
Correlation, as they say,
doesnt imply causation, a crucial
distinction the media often fails
to appreciate. By this reckoning, many believe that the
only credible benefit of breastfeeding is that it protects the
child against stomach bugs.They dismiss other benefits as
unproven or contradictory, and assert that in most studies
of the Brazilian kind, taking full measure of the socioeconomic moorings would narrow the gap between breast
and bottle.
No one, not even the radical feminists, denies some
health benefits of breastfeeding. But to turn it into a
panacea and a natural law that all women must subscribe
to regardless of their will or constraints makes for bad
politics. Indeed, for all we know, the secret behind children
who turn out better may lie not in the supposed ambrosial
properties of some chemical found in breast milk but in the
happy and mysterious conspiracy of innumerable elements
such as a hike in the hills, grannys improbable tales, an
inspiring book, violin lessons or first love, that ultimately
determine the style and substance of ones life.
16-30 APRIL 2015
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GOOD
MORNING
DELHI
CSE
Every Wednesday, at 9 AM
A CSE and Radio One initiative to inform, involve and engage
Delhi on issues of environment, development and health
Tune in and
lets talk!
For details,
please visit
www.cseindia.org
CSE BOOK STORE
nurturing Nature
The environment is not just pretty trees and tigers

threatened plants and ecosystems. It is literally the entity on which we
all subsist, and on which entire agricultural and industrial development depends
State of Indias Environment The Second Citizens Report, CSE, 1985
http://csestore.cse.org.in
Our films and publications are also available at
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CSE Book Store

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Core 6A, Fourth Floor, Lodhi Road
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FOOD
Yamilicious!
During her visit to Indore,

APARNA PALLAVI tickles her
taste buds with crispy fried
purple yam or garadu and
discovers the health benefits
of the delicacy when boiled
46 DOWN TO EARTH
APARNA PALLAVI / CSE
The Baiga tribe prefers to eat the purple inner skin of ratal kanda
without condiments as it is considered healthy
16-30 APRIL 2015
RECIPE
T ANY given time of the year,
Indore is a great city for food

lovers. The famous Indore ke
namkeen, its amazing variety of
gajak, street-food havens like Chappan
Dukan where you can enjoy sinful delights
such as the heavy, sweet shikanji and as many
kinds of chaat as you can think of Indore
has it all.
But winter is a special time for a foodie
to be in the city. Reason? October to March
every year is the season of garadu (Dioscorea
alata or purple yam), a delicacy Indore loves.
It can be seen stacked in rows after rows at
vegetable stalls in any market in the city. A
trip to Indore during these months would
be incomplete without tasting crispy, fried
cubes of garadu sprinkled with the citys
signature hot and tangy spice, jeeralu masala.
My first brush with garadu, however,
happened not in Indore but in Maikal hills in
Madhya Pradeshs Dindori district, home to
the reclusive Baiga tribe. In these hills, purple yam is known as ratal kanda.This is not to
be confused with shakarkand (Ipomoea batatas or sweet potato, which is known as ratalu in some Hindi-speaking areas). Kanda,
a collective name for yams and tubers, are
significant for the Baigas. They grow and
consume a variety of wild tubers during
winter to keep themselves warm.
Ratal kanda does not have many healing properties compared to other yams,
but it is considered warm. It is filling
and you dont need to eat any grain when
you have it. You dont get cold, cough or
aches if you have enough kanda in winter, says Hariaro Bai Deoria, a Baiga
matriarch from Talaidabra village.
The Baigas prefer ratal kanda either
boiled or roasted. Chopped into large
chunks, the yams are boiled with the skin or
roasted in the hot ashes from fire-
Indore loves its food fried.

Crispy cubes of purple yam
sprinkled with the hot and
tangy spice, jeeralu masala,
is a favourite winter snack
16-30 APRIL 2015
wood-fuelled cook stove. The thin, outer skin is then delicately peeled, and the
flesh, along with the purple inner skin, is
eaten without condiments. This has a
gritty texture as if fine grains of sand
were sticking to the flesh. We do not
mind the grit because the coloured part
is healthy, Deoria says, handing me
several chunks on a leaf.
Research, though sparse, corroborates tribal wisdom. A 2009 paper by
S Misra of the M S Swaminathan Research
Foundation, published in the Food and
Agriculture Organizations Plant Genetic
Resources Newsletter, confirms the medicinal values of yams. According to
this paper, not only do yams ensure food
security for tribal people during winter, but
are also useful as stimulants, expectorants,
carminatives and tonics.
These beliefs are prevalent in Indore city,
too. During my visit, I was trudging through
a vegetable market with a bad cold. Have
a plateful of hot, fried garadu and you will
be better tomorrow, said Yam seller Ram
Manohar Pugalia, offering me the delicacy.
Feisty Indoris are not a big fan of boiled
yams. Indore is a city that likes its food fried.
My friend, Saroj Misra, an Indore-based
textile researcher who taught me to prepare fried garadu, sums it up accurately:
In Indore, samosa and kachori are part of
peoples daily diet and namkeen is a prominent
part of meals. No one could care less about
the nutrients lost when the yams inner skin
red or purple when uncookedis peeled
off. The catchword is taste, which comes
from oil-soaked crispness and a generous
sprinkle of mouth-burning jeeralu masala.
Having tasted both the versions of
purple yam, I am hard put to choose.
My urban taste buds lean a little towards the Indore style. But years of experiments with central Indias tribal food
and low-spice cooking from my ancestral land of Chittagong in Bangladesh has
reformed my idea of food, and the Baiga
version would win my vote. But then, what is
cooking without variety? Indore has the right
if it wants its yams fried.
Boiled ratal kanda

(Baiga style)
INGREDIENTS
Purple yam: Any quantity

Water: Enough to cover the yams
METHOD
Wash the yams well to remove any

soil or grit. Chop the yams with
skin into chunks and place them
in a deep vessel. Cover with water
and boil for 15-20 minutes. The
yams should be cooked by now, but
they should be firm, not squishy.
Drain the water and let them cool.
Carefully peel the outer skin,
taking care not to damage the
purple inner skin. Serve plain or
with salt and condiments. This can
be eaten as a main dish for a meal
or as a snack.
Fried garadu
(Indore style)
INGREDIENTS
Purple Yam: 250 gm

Jeeralu masala (available in shops
in Indore): To taste
Oil: For frying
METHOD
Peel the yam thickly and chop into

one-inch cubes. Toss in a little salt
(optional). Heat oil in a pan and
deep fry the yam cubes till cooked.
Drain and keep aside. Before
serving, heat oil again, and double
fry the cubes till the outer skin is
golden and crisp. Drain into a deep
dish. Sprinkle jeeralu masala and
toss well. Serve hot as a snack.
WILDLIFE
Gujarat's burgeoning
crocodilopolis
Vadodara plans a
park for crocodiles to
keep their numbers
and attacks on
humans in check
RAJAT GHAI | vadodara
RAIF KAYSER
residents of
the industrial city of Vadodara
face a strange problem. As the
rains swell the Vishwamitri river, which passes through the heart of the
city, crocodiles pop up at the most unlikely placesroads, rail tracks and parks.
Travelling through the sewer line, baby
crocodiles have sometimes even appeared
in bathrooms.
Vadodara is an island of crocodiles, says
B C Choudhury, conservationist and former
URING MONSOONS,
scientist at the Wildlife Institute of India,

Dehradun. The statement is not without
basis.The Gujarat district, with a population
of over 3.6 million, is home to hundreds of
mugger crocodiles (Crocodylus palustris), a
species found throughout the subcontinent.
And their numbers are rising. With the spike
in crocodile numbers, cases of attacks on
humans have also increased in the past
two decades.
I have been collecting data on crocodile
attacks in Gujarat since 1960. Till 2013,
some 60 attacks were reported in the state

an average of one attack a year. But in 2014,
the number of attack was 24. Of these, 12
were in the Vishwamitri basin, says Raju
Vyas, crocodile expert and an official with the
city administration. The reptiles inhabit the
Vishwamitri river, its tributariesthe
Dhadhar, Surya and Devand numerous
ponds in the district. They are also found in
the Narmada, which forms the districts
southern border. People who live in close
proximity of the water bodies and use
them for fishing and washing, or defecate
near them, are particularly vulnerable to
crocodile attacks.
The attacks take place because of
mistaken identity. A human being washing
clothes on the river bank may appear
something similar to a four-legged prey
animal to a crocodile, says Choudhury.
Officials set up
a signboard
warning about
the presence
of crocodiles
in a pond
near Laxmi
Vilas Palace in
Vadodara
RAKESH D VADHWANA
GUJARAT
Vadodara
Riverfront
development area
V A D O D A R A
Rising threat
In the last census in 2010, there were 206

crocodiles in Vadodara city, but in a districtwide survey done on January 20-21 this year,
we counted 450 crocodiles. The city alone
accounted for 250, says V K Saxena, deputy
conservator of forests (in-charge), Vadodara
Range. The census is usually conducted in
winters because cold blooded crocodiles bask
on the banks of water-bodies during the day,
making it easy to count them. Counting is
also done in the night because their eyes glow
in the dark, making it easy to identify them,
says Saxena.
So, what is the reason behind the
increase in numbers? Being listed under
ScheduleI of the Wildlife Protection Act,
1972, crocodiles have legal protection.
Moreover, unlike in other parts of the
country, they are not killed in Gujarat
because the mugger crocodile is the mount
of Khodiyar Maa, a form of the Mother
Goddess worshipped widely in state. But
the single biggest reason is the animal itself.
It is a very tough species, found from
southern Iran to Bangladesh. It has evolved
to survive in a drought-prone region and is
very adaptable, Vyas adds.
There is another reason, he says. The
Vishwamitri and its tributaries are flush
with fish stocks and help the crocodile
population thrive.
16-30 APRIL 2015
Vishwamitri
river
Vadodara municipal corporation boundary
Protected area for crocodiles
City planners have mooted a proposal to

declare a certain stretch of the Vishwamitri
passing through the city a protected zone for
crocodiles and beautify it. This, they say, will
prevent the attacks. It will not be a protected
zone as defined under the Wildlife
Protection Act. But we will ensure that the
animals are not disturbed, says Vyas.
The initiative has been proposed under
the Vishwamitri Riverfront Development
Project. The project has been conceptualised
on the lines of the Sabarmati Riverfront
project in Ahmedabad that came about
when Prime Minister Narendra Modi
was the chief minister of Gujarat. A
feasibility study has been done and the
report has been sent to the state government
for approval.
We are still scouting for a stretch
alongside the Vishwamitri between
Vadodara and Jambughoda (in neighbouring Panchmahal district) to set up the protected zone. It is going to be a long process.
First, the approval of the state government
and then of the Centre will have to be
sought. But in the next two-three years, we

hope to have such a zone for the
Vishwamitri crocodiles, says Saxena.
This is a very enlightened move, says
Romulus Whitaker, founder and trustee of
the Madras Crocodile Bank, the biggest
crocodile sanctuary in India. Though encouraging big reptilian predators near an
area may seem a bit strange, there are plenty
of examples, both in India as well as other
parts of the world where crocodiles or other
mammalian predators live side by side with
humans with little or no conflict, he adds.
However, Whitaker has a word of
caution. What is important is how the forest
department and municipal officials
implement the idea, keeping in mind the
need to teach people to live safely with
predators. And of course, determining the
crocodile carrying capacity of the protected
zone is crucial, he says.
Choudhury echoes Whitakers views.
Maintaining the crocodile population is not
difficult.The administration should look at it
as an opportunity rather than as a constraint.
They should work out the carrying capacity
of the proposed crocodile park. They can
always remove crocodile eggs before they
hatch to control the population. Most
importantly, they should provide suitable
conditions: water all year round so as to
maintain a metre-and-a-half depth
(optimum level for crocodiles) in a kilometrelong stretch of the river, he says.
Will the project succeed? Knowing
the Gujarati crowd, they would never kill
an animal, however dangerous it might be.
I am sure there is an opportunity here,
says Choudhury.
COLUMN
PAT E N T LY A B S U R D
L AT H A J I S H N U
Push for open source software

Delhi has been awfully late in adopting open
source software, but the policy is finally there
T HAS taken the government of India a decade and
more to grasp a basic truththat open source software

(oss) is the way to go. March-end, the Information
Technology (IT) ministry unveiled, finally, a policy
for adopting oss as the preferred option in all e-governance
systems implemented by various government organisations. The policy, which makes it mandatory to adopt
oss, is intended to lower costs and ensure strategic control
of these systems. It says the aim is to ensure efficiency,
transparency and reliability of such services at affordable
costs. Sigh.
All one can say is that its been a long, long learning
curve for Delhi. Organisations and governments across
the world have switched from
proprietary software, such as
those provided by Microsoft,
to oss not merely to cut costs
(hugely) but to have control
of their operating systems
by reducing dependence on
vendors. It allows better interoperability of systems, is easier
to customise and also helps
promote the development of
systems in local languages.
If only IT ministry officials
TARIQUE AZIZ / CSE
had cared to look at what was
happening in one corner of the
country it may not have taken them so long to formulate
a policy on the use of oss in its various arms.
Kerala is the not-so-far corner where oss or foss (Free
oss), as its also known, was recognised as the path to the
future in 2001. It was the first state to include the use of oss
in its IT policy. It ought to be made clear here that free here
does not mean free of cost but free to use as the developer
wishes. foss as a radical paradigm to democratise
knowledge came into its own a little later in 2007 when
the Marxist government of V S Achuthanandan made
the considered decision to use this platform to build an
egalitarian knowledge society. The goals were enunciated
in the title of the policy it issued: Towards an Inclusive
50 DOWN TO EARTH
Knowledge Society. By then prophets of the foss

movement, notably Richard Stallman, had made many
visits to Kerala, preached widely and laid the foundations
for a philosophy that the state took to its heart.
Another leap came with the setting up of an
International Centre for Free and Open Source Software
(icfoss) in 2011 to popularise foss for universal use
and network with different nations, communities and
governments to jointly promote foss as a powerful
alternative to the monopolistic approaches to knowledge
creation. Its lofty charter and well-grounded work may
have created waves globally but not a ripple appears to
have touched Delhi.
In July last year, icfoss
helped Kerala cross another
milestone when its Legislative
Assembly shifted to oss for
recording its huge volume of
business. Commendably, the
migration from Microsofts
XP system was completed in a
record three months, since the
US software giants support
services was set to expire in that
period. The magnitude of the
task can be gauged from the
following: 500 pages of text are
keyed in daily on average when
the Assembly is in session and this is mostly Malayalam, a
complex Brahmic script.
Should one applaud or lament Delhis belated
discovery of oss? Even if it had dismissed the Kerala
path as a leftist experiment how did it fail to notice the
shifts taking place the world over? Now, with a policy
finally in place one can only hope oss takes off rapidly
in the country. And it could also provide a new lease
of life to the governments own Bharat Operating
System Solutions which was plugged as an alternative
to Microsofts Windows platform but found few takers
for want of official backing and poor customer services.
That should change.
16-30 APRIL 2015
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GOOD NEWS
Wings to soar high

A counselling initiative in Madhya Pradesh identifies interests of tribal
students and facilitates their admission to institutes of higher education
TARUN CHOUDHARY
VANI MANOCHA | new delhi
Along with sensitisation training, the Bharat

Calling team helps government school
students fill up application forms to seek
enrollment for higher studies
52 DOWN TO EARTH
FTER COMPLETING his
schooling,
getting into a college was an
uphill task for 29-year-old Sandeep
Mehto. His family, hailing from
Kesla tribal block in Pathrota village, Madhya
Pradesh, did not have enough money to support his higher education. But Mehto was
determined. He borrowed from a moneylender to get enrolled in the Samrat Ashok
Technological Institute in the state and
sought an education loan to get into the Tata
Institute of Social Sciences (tiss), Mumbai,
in 2009. While he made it to the prestigious
institute, Mehto knew that far too many
children gave up on their dreams of a higher
education either because they did not have the
financial means or were not aware of the

career choices which could give them a good
education without costing a fortune.
The urge to help children pursue their
dream uninterrupted led him to start Bharat
Calling, which he co-founded in 2009 with
John Basumatary, his batchmate from tiss.
The venture, started in Hoshangabad district,
was registered as a society in 2011, supported by Shri Ramesh Prakash Samajik
Sansthan, a non-profit based in Pathrota.
Bharat Calling provides counselling to
government school students about higher
education streams, including courses like forestry, environmental studies, music, dance,
sculpture and physical education, and
16-30 APRIL 2015
connects them to colleges and universities to

facilitate their admission. Once a network is
built, it becomes easy for students to enquire
about courses, fee and duration of study.
Since I went through a crisis myself, I can relate to the challenges faced by students who
neither have Internet connectivity to find out
where to apply nor enough money to enroll
for higher studies, Mehto says.
An idea that changed lives
Mehto and Basumatary started Bharat

Calling with an initial investment of `30,000
that came partly as a contribution from their
professor at tiss and partly from a trust in
Mehtos village. Initially, the initiative had
50 students under its counsel. Today, it
connects 12,000 students from about 900
villages to educational institutions across
Madhya Pradesh and neighbouring states. In
2011, the initiative was also showcased in the
TV reality show Kaun Banega Crorepati as
Ek anokhi misaal.
As part of their work, six employees of
Bharat Calling, who started as volunteers,
meet government officers to seek permission
to conduct awareness camps in schools during November-December every year. If permitted, they contact the school principal and
arrange infrastructure like classrooms and
books to hold 45-minute long sensitisation
training with students. These sessions, once
conducted by the co-founders, are now held
by volunteers who are selected through a
fellowship programme. Students have to
fill forms with their areas of interest for
higher studies.
When I was in class 12, I had no idea
ARCHANA RELAN
what to do next. But the

teers run Bharat Calling.
desire to be a teacher was
The core team comprises
somewhere within me.
six salaried members
MADHYA PRADESH
When Bharat Calling
four coordinators and
Itarsi
came to our school in
two managers, one of
Jhunkar village and its
whom is Mehto. The
volunteers guided us,
volunteers are not paid.
Hoshangabad
most of us realised that our
Funds for the initiative now
district
dreams could come true,
come from the Development
says Arti Damde, now pursuing
Bank of Singapore and Caring
her bachelors degree in education from the Friends, an informal group of funders.
Regional Institute of Education, Bhopal.
Besides funds and online crowdfunding to
Sensitisation is only the first round. In seek donation, Bharat Calling also runs onMarch, when application forms are made line campaigns asking people to sponsor a
available for admission to higher education- child. The management has already started
al institutions, the Bharat Calling team again getting scholarships for deserving students.
approaches the students to conduct intensive
Mehto and his team are a source of
training camps to prepare them for entrance encouragement to those students who want
examination. They also help students fill up to study but have no one to guide them, says
application forms. Since most of us could Lorry Banjamin, an education activist who
not afford to make many phone calls, the once worked with the Ratan Tata Trust.
team kept in touch with us. Had it not been
for Bharat Calling, I had lost all hope to study Worth all the trouble
further, adds Rajkumar Patel Gujjar, a The journey for Mehto, however, was not a
student of B.Sc in Forestry from Guru cakewalk. When I pushed the idea to school
Ghasidas University, Bilaspur.
authorities, they were not very supportive as
Sunita Wadhwa, principal of a school in the concept focused more on raising awareBankheri village, believes that not every ness about career choices than assured
student wants to be an engineer or can enroll economic benefits, he says. He also faced soin reputed institutes like the Indian Institute cietal pressure for not choosing a convenof Technology (iit). The initiative gives trib- tional career path for himself. But he was
al students an opportunity to explore uncon- fortunate to have his familys support.
ventional career options and groom themMehto conceived the idea of Bharat
selves to earn a livelihood out of them. This Calling while studying at tiss. He conductnetwork identifies students interests and tal- ed a survey to assess the situation of higher
ents and guides them to seek admission in education enrollment in Kesla. The survey
institutes whose fee they can afford, showed a dropout rate of 82 per cent among
Wadhwa adds.Today, as many as 200 volun- class 10 students. It also revealed that those
who continued to study further got enrolled
in colleges rated B by the National
Assessment and Accreditation Council.This
is when Mehto and Basumatary decided to
bring about a change. The goal of Bharat
Calling is to ensure that no student is denied
the right to higher education due to poor socio-economic conditions, says Mehto, who
wants his cause to reach other states as well.
Bharat Calling is one of the few projects
Students are
of this kind. Renowned mathematician
encouraged
to pursue
Anand Kumars Super 30 is another initiaunconventional
tive where his team selects and trains stucareer options
like physical
dents from economically backward sections
education and
to appear for iit entrance exams. n
sculpture
CLASSROOM
Mayhem
in
March
A worm's eye view
Oh, it's
raining again!
Help! Help!
Climate change!
Western
disturbance!
I've never seen

such a rainy
March!
by
And I've never

seen farmers
committing
suicide due to
unseasonal
rain!
by
After three hundred years of colonial plunder and a
series of famines, India started its journey as a free
nation with 0.1% growth rate in agriculture.
That's the irony!

Let me tell you
the story...
I wonder why farmers in

an agrarian country are
so vulnerable.
Farmer took his

life after
unseasonal rain
India began seeking food aid

and emerged as the biggest food
importer of the 20th century.
Greenion
lut
Revo
...advocated by
the aid agencies
of the West.
54 DOWN TO EARTH
So, the first

priority before
policymakers
was to...
We opted for
the Green
Revolution.
But why not

the indigenous
model?
...develop
agriculture!
Well, lack of
political will,
economic
strength...
We had two models

to choose: one that
was tried and tested
for thousands of
years and the other...
...anyway, the
Green Revolution
transformed India
into a food-sufficient
country...
Ind
ig
modenous
el
...But it came with a

heavy price. It took a
toll on the
environment...
16-30 APRIL 2015
But at present, those very Western nations advocate removal of the subsidies and
other social securities in the name of economic reforms. When the state support or
subsidies were removed, agriculture collapsed like...
...groundwater levels
dipped, water and soil were
polluted due to high use
of pesticides.
The model
advocated by
Western nations
was also heavily
dependent on
subsidies.
...a house
of cards.
Flood of
subsidised
imported
food grains.
Huge
debt
burden.
Now, our friend
the farmer is left
with a piece of
land poisoned
with pesticides
along with...
We can't carry on
with the existing
model. It's too costly
and unreliable.
Price volatility
in global
food grain
market.
On road to city...
Quit agriculture.
Let's go to the cities.
We will work as a
labourer. I've heard
there are plenty of
jobs.
We are victim of
agrarian distress and
are migrating to cities.
Who are you

and where
are you going?
And who are

you and where
are you going?
I am an urban worker,
who is a victim of
global economic
slowdown.
CITY
ge
Villa
I'm
migrating
to my village
The options for

an Indian farmer
are decreasing
rapidly.
Let's move
to the
next world.
Shrikrishna Kalamb, a farmer of Akola in Maharashtra,

penned his last poem, two days before he hanged
himself on March 24, 2008.
The land will not
belong to the
Different I am,
farmer or the
worms anymore,
so unusual my life,
but to the
my death too,
highrises.
will surprise you

like untimely rain...
16-30 APRIL 2015
REVIEW
Story from a divided land

The memoir celebrates Chhattisgarh but laments the lost
opportunity for its inclusive and violence-free development
KATE CHAILLAT
INSIDE CHHATTISGARH-A
POLITICAL MEMOIR Ilina Sen
Penguin Books | 300 pages | `320
LINA SEN loves Chhattisgarh, thus it is with great empathy to
the challenges faced by its inhabitants that she recounts

30 years of living and working in the region with her
husband, paediatrician Binayak Sen, in her new thought
provoking book Inside Chhattisgarh-A Political Memoir.The story
captures the social and environmental transformations that the
region went through, first as a far off corner of Madhya Pradesh and
then as a new state.
The first person narrative makes for an engaging read, full of
anecdotes and asides. Faithful to her scholarly background,
Ilina has carefully placed events and people in context.
And her interest in local history and folklore adds to
the narrative and reveals the culture that is at stake as
Chhattisgarh is taken over by industries.
This four-part memoir begins with a personal
account of the arrest, trial and conviction to life
imprisonment of Binayak for alleged sedition and
collaboration with the Maoists. With a keen eye for the
absurd, the author describes how the police, during the
house search, carefully analysed her daughters algebra
notebooks. During the trial, the prosecution submitted
as evidence daaknams (pet names in Bengali) interpreted
as Maoist code names. Beyond the court proceedings
was the vicious propaganda war over Binayaks trial and
conviction (which) made (Ilina) wonder several times
about what had changed in the state. A desire to capture
that change by relating the story of their work in the region
is one of the threads that binds the memoir together.
In 1981, the couple moved to Dalli-Rajhara, a mining
settlement attached to Chhattisgarhs Bhilai Steel plant
(bsp), which is famous for its labour movement. Under
56 DOWN TO EARTH
the guidance of social activist Shankar Guha Niyogi, the mine

workers who were on contract at the plant had set up their
own trade union, the Chhattisgarh Mines Shramik Sangathan
(cmss), to fight for their rights. In due time, Niyogi included the
tribal community in the struggle. The cmss notably lobbied for
the construction of a hospital in Dalli-Rajhara for the workers
and local people, who were initially not given access to bsp health
facilities. Doctors Binayak Sen, Ashish Kundu and Saibal Jana
were instrumental in setting up the Shaheed Hospital.
With little resources, the doctors decided to train local
volunteers to run the hospital. Ilina describes how the mine
workers and their family stopped working one whole day to
cast the roof of the new hospital building, which is now a source
of pride for the community. She also highlights how women
from the state were an integral part of cmss, though she notes
that no woman reached leadership position. Furthermore,
women participation reduced in cmss as the situation of the
people improved.
In the late 1980s, the couple
SORIT / CSE
ON SHELF
moved to Tilda where Binayak worked for a missionary hospital.
Inspired by the work of R H Richharia, they began to experiment
with organic farming using indigenous seeds. From that time
onwards, they collected and learnt about different seed varieties.The
author notes, Chhattisgarh is one of the last places on earth to have
a remembered history of an enormous diversity of food resources.
In 1994, the couple set up their own organisation, Rupantar, to
work with tribal communities in maang gaons or villages demanded
by the people in forests south of Raipur. These were unauthorised
villages set up by the people in the late 1940s after dams on the
Mahanadi river submerged their villages. They did not exist in
the official records, and even in the 1990s, lacked schools, health
services, electricity and hand pumps for portable drinking water.
Rupantar grew organically with the needs and demands of the
maang gaons, and expanded its field of action always in collaboration
with the tribal people. Malaria was endemic in the area; this was in
part due to the delay in diagnosis as blood samples had to be sent far
away for analysis. Binayak set up a microscope in the health centre
with one lab technician who could read the samples and trained
all the health workers in taking blood samples. This significantly
reduced cases of malaria in the area.
The last part of the memoir talks about the creation of the state
of Chhattisgarh, its challenges and contradictions. In the beginning
Binayak and Ilina were invited by the new state to draft studies
and participate in setting up social programmes such as Mitanin,
inspired by their community health workers. Mitanin became a
model for the Centres Accredited Social Health Activist (asha)
programmes. They however became aware of discrepancies in the
way these programmes were being set up, and it became evident
that criticism from local stakeholders was not welcome in a state
committed to industrial development.
Going back to her question about what had changed in the
state, Ilina makes an interesting analysis of the rhetoric that
surrounded the creation of the state and its actions thereafter. She
brings to light the top to bottom approach to development, which
consistently ignores local stakeholders. She also critically analyses
the way the state divided up the land between various industrial
corporations disregarding local claims to the land. Saffronisation
of the state happened after the Bharatiya Janata Party won the
2003 state elections which further threatened the local culture.
These contradictions which could be read as warning signs leading
to Binayaks arrest, culminated in Salwa Judum, the tribal youths
armed by the state to resist Maoists operating in the economically
backward but mineral-rich district of Bastar.
The book is a necessary account of the recent history of
Chhattisgarh. It raises many questions on how to guarantee
human rights and civil liberties in a state committed to industrial
development at all costs. She comes to the conclusion that reason
and sanity will never be restored unless peace and democracy are
restored in Chhattisgarh. Obviously, the road to achieving this is
tortuous and will necessitate serious undoing of the sins of omission
and commission. n
Kate Chaillat is a freelance writer and filmmaker in Mumbai
Feeding the Forgotten

Poor; Perspectives of an
Agriculturist
by William Dollente Dar with
Arun Tiwari
Orient Blackswan/ `435
an autobiography in which personal

reminiscences serve as a vehicle for voicing concern
for the underprivileged. It draws attention to "orphan
crops" and "hidden hunger". Noting that more than one
billion of the world's seven billion people go hungry
or are malnourished, the book critically examines the
political, economic and environmental issues to which
contemporary agriculture is closely tied-tariffs and
farm subsidies, water pollution, biofuels, the prospects
and problems of genetically modified organisms, the
growing backlash against mechanised agriculture and
increasing support for sustainable practices.
Envisioning the scenario in 2050, when the global
population is projected to cross the nine million mark,
William Dollente Dar draws the conclusion that viable
solutions are not just about technology and sciencethey require a change in mindset, sound policy and
adroit handling of institutions.
THIS IS
Open Standards and the

Digital Age
by Andrew L Russel
Cambridge University Press / `1,500
the idea of openness become the defining

principle for the 21st century Information Age? This
book answers this question by looking at the history
of information networks and paying close attention to
the politics of standardisation. It attempts to provide
the first history of American communication and
information technology to focus on standardisation,
with a clear description of where standards come
from and how they are a central element of American
political economy and global business.
HOW DID
LAST WORD
CIVIL LINES
R I C H A R D M A H A PAT R A
A trial with too many errors
Infighting within AAP post its brute win in Delhi raises

doubts about civil society's tryst with electoral politics
N THE past one month, the Aam Admi Party (aap) has
grabbed headlines for all the wrong reasons. For a party that emerged out of a public protest against corruption and assumed power twice in the capital, these developments have large ramifications. For the
impatient middle class, with hardly mature political
perspective, aap represents an alternative politics. But as
the intra-party squabbling suggests, there is not much difference between a mainstream party and the supposed
champion of public cause.
Here, I will limit the debate to the problems that aap
outlined and the solutions it promised. The failure of the
party to address pressing concerns of everyday life could
crumble the democratic structure. At least, without any alternative to the current system of governance, it is most
likely to reduce peoples faith in it.
Let us look at some issues that aap capitalised on during the election campaign. The party promised clean water, access to energy, better public transport and an overall
transparent government setup that reflects public concerns. In the first month of its governance, aap leaders definitely retained the focus on these issues. But their solutions, as outlined by aap, are no different from other
political parties.This is a bad sign given that other parties,
in the past, have miserably failed in keeping their word.
aap is focusing too much on cheap electricity and
TARIQUE AZIZ / CSE
58 DOWN TO EARTH
water. And it has hardly applied logic to solve the

problems ailing the public transport sector. It has made
promises, but the same ones have been made by other parties too. Instead of conceptualising new and practical
measures, aap is trying to perpetuate old practices. For
example, affordable water is necessary for the economically weaker section. But claiming fulfilment of its
electoral promise on the basis of just one action is a disservice to those people who are not connected to the water
supply system. The new rebates for water supply are anyway limited in scope. Similarly, aap has decided to scrap
the Bus Rapid Transit system. But these steps are hardly
alternatives that the people of Delhi voted for.
This is where the buck might stop when it comes to
voters choice for an alternative.The ones who will suffer
the most are civil society groups whose movement gave
birth to aap. It is most likely that people voted this party
to power looking at the credibility of its candidates and the
voluntary groups associated with it. Most of these groups
have been working in the public domain for decades and
in the process have created a space for alternative voices.
Does aaps failure mean that people will lose faith in civil society groups too?
There is already internal unrest among the members
of these groups who have been directly or indirectly supporting the aap experiment. Many of them contested the
last general election as aap candidates. But now, many are
overtly withdrawing from the party with the dissatisfaction that the experiment never lived up to peoples expectations. Many feel that their association with aap will
eventually hamper their own public credibility and the issues they have been fighting for.
This brings us to another pertinent point: should civil society groups join electoral politics in the first place?
The two founding members of aap, Prashant Bhusan and
Jogendra Yadav, are debating on this. Their idea is to create an alternative platform for civil society groups to explore alternative politics.They should not forget that aap
started on similar lines. It is a tightrope walk for civil society members.
16-30 APRIL 2015
There are
simpler ways
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environment and
development
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PAST SENSED
In 18th century, bison skins smeared with body fluid
tainted with smallpox was used to eliminate American
Indians. Who says bio-terrorism is a new idea?
Potatoes were known

as products of
dirt and darkness
in Europe. In the
Middle Ages,
people believed
eating them
would cause
leprosy
The homely
chicken was a
novelty in ancient
Egypt, which had
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this before. When
it crowed, people
listened with rapt
attention. When it
walked around the court,
everyone made way
DownToEarth 's Environmental
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Forest, Wildlife, Air pollution, Climate change,

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GAMES PEOPLE PLAY

EBATES ARE essentially polarised and noisy. But for

resolution and movement in life we need to go beyond

16-30 APRIL 2015

after the clearance is granted. So, the game goes on.

EDITOR AND PUBLISHER

Vibha Varshney, Archana Yadav, Aruna P

Kumar Sambhav Shrivastava,

Snigdha Das, Rajat Ghai, Jemima Rohekar,

Chaitanya Chandan, Shri Krishan, Raj Kumar

India gets National Air Quality Index

Rajendra Rawat, Jaidev Sharma

Rakesh Shrivastava, Gundhar Das

Chandra Bhushan, Anumita Roychowdhury

For the first time, the

and catalysing pollution

FOR ADVERTISEMENT CONTACT

Down To Earth editorial does not

Our roads, our space

16-30 APRIL 2015

TARIQUE AZIZ / CSE

Straw for green power

Sewage farming is safe

and well-known worldwide,

metals unless contaminated

CHAITANYA CHANDAN / CSE

Bhopal's sewage is due to

Prevent, cure and care

are prescribed from the

Will India wake up

In the consumption era, such concerns

India should reinvent on "ecosustainability" and we must start

When acche din come, India will be free

India is among the topmost contenders

Only India and a few other countries

16-30 APRIL 2015

The views expressed by Professor K L

Beware of the dragon

with the Chinese Academy of Sciences

Komarabanda , Kodad,Nalgonda (Dt) ,Telangana.

Our school is located in a quiet,

CENTRE FOR LEARNING, ORGANIC

We allow our teachers to involve themselves

MATURE STUDENT PROGRAMME

We incorporate those wishing to study distance learning

16-30 APRIL 2015

Inspired by the philosophy of J. Krishnamurti, CLOAAT is

for massive engineering projects like

For trade enquiries

Chamraj Estate, The Nilgiris - 643 204, India

If you are interested in teaching, please send

Profit over public 24

Big zero for

Kerala needs to stop

The Centre has decided to transfer

16-30 APRIL 2015

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