Why India's solar push could kill the livelihood of pastoral communities

Experts working on just transition to renewable energy believe that specific laws are needed to protect these communities.

Business Standard : The parched brown of the land in Charanka village in north-west Gujarat, around 50 km from India’s border with Pakistan, seemed endless. In peak summer, during one of the worst droughts to hit the region in 30 years, it seems devoid of all life--even doughty bush plants have lost most leaves. Cyclone Vayu, that hit the Gujarat coast in June 2019, did little to revive the district of Patan.

This perhaps explains why the official website of the Gujarat Power Corporation Limited describes the 5,384 acres across which the Charanka solar park is spread as “unused” land. A project map available at the park’s office differs from this assessment--of the 5,417 acres, close to 2,000 acres are under cultivation, it showed. The rest, as per the map, is “government land”.

The villagers were livid at these labels. “What do they mean that the land is unused and that it belongs to the government?” asked Raku Ben, a livestock rearer. “We use it for grazing livestock, and our livelihood depends on this land. It doesn’t belong to anyone, it belongs to everyone.”

The solar park project launched in December 2010, has been functional since April 2012. It sits on what used to be the pasture for the region’s livestock herders, called maldharis. They have traditionally never owned the land where their animals graze but it is critical for their livelihood. The maldharis were once a nomadic community but some have opted to settle down.

These factors are not reflected in the state’s latest solar power policy of 2015 or the Gujarat Wind-Solar Hybrid Power Policy of 2018. The words “compensation” or “livelihoods” do not figure anywhere in the solar power policy.

Having lost access to the grazing lands, maldharis can no longer rear goats, sheep, cows or buffaloes. And the forest department denies them entry to other fertile patches in the region.

“As a result, the once self-sustaining and independent community has now been reduced to doing daily-wage labour in either agricultural fields in neighbouring villages or working as cleaners in the solar park,” said Anu Verma, the focal person in India for the South Asia Pastoralist Alliance, a network that advocates pro-pastoralist policies on commons lands, livestock, food and environment.

Delay in monsoon pushes rainfall deficiency to 45% in first 9 days of June

The rainfall deficiency in June could be higher due to the sluggish pace of the monsoon and a weak El Niño, a phenomenon associated with heating of Pacific waters.

A delay in the arrival of monsoon has pushed the country’s rainfall deficiency in the first nine days of June to 45 per cent, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.

Monsoon made an onset over Kerala on June 8, a week after its normal arrival date. This has also delayed its arrival in different parts of the country. The country received only 17.7 millimetres of rainfall as against the normal precipitation of 32.4 millimetres, which comes to around 45 per cent, it said.

The rainfall deficiency in June could be higher due to the sluggish pace of the monsoon and a weak El Niño, a phenomenon associated with heating of Pacific waters.

An on-going cyclonic circulation in the Arabian Sea could slow down the progress of monsoon over the next few days, it said. “A low pressure area has formed over southeast Arabian Sea and Lakshadweep area and east central Arabian Sea.

It is very likely to concentrate into a depression during the next 48 hours over southeast and adjoining east central Arabian Sea. It is very likely to move north-northwestwards and intensify further into a cyclonic storm subsequently,” the IMD data said.

Of the four meteorological divisions of the country, the deficiency was 66 per cent — the highest in the country — in central India that covers the states of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Goa, Odisha and Chhattisgarh.

Gujarat and Kutch and Saurashtra sub-divisions of central India have clocked a deficiency of 100 per cent, it said.

Business Standard

Jobs deficit: Why Gujarat's GIFT City is struggling to create employment

Despite efforts by Modi over the past five years to offer tax and regulatory concessions, and a big push to get banks and brokerages into GIFT, the project remains far short of expectatation.

When he was chief minister of Gujarat in 2011, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi kicked off an ambitious project to develop a financial hub in the style of Singapore or Dubai.

The developers were tasked with transforming an expanse larger than New York's Central Park into a city with more than 100 skyscrapers supporting more than 1 million jobs - all within a decade.

Nearly eight years later, Gujarat International Finance Tec-City, or GIFT City, supports only 9,000 jobs and only about 3 million of its 62 million square feet of planned development have been built, according to documents from the company's current presentations to investors reviewed by Reuters, and interviews with GIFT officials. Three million square feet are under construction.

Despite efforts by the Modi government over the past five years to offer tax and regulatory concessions, and a big push to get banks and brokerages into GIFT, the project remains far short of expectations. GIFT's future is uncertain, with its main partner in financial trouble over soured bets in other projects.

The lack of development and job creation at GIFT, critics say, reflects one of Modi's challenges as a whole as he begins a second term in office.

Critics contend GIFT is a high-profile example of some of Modi's ill-conceived and over-ambitious initiatives. They note demonetisation - Modi's move in 2016 to ban all high-value currency notes then circulating - is another big example of overstretching, as was his government's hurried and botched rollout of a nationwide goods and services tax. Those moves stung small businesses and dented India's economy.

"The real issue is Mr. Modi's quixotic approach to macro-economic management," said Sebastian Morris, a senior faculty member of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, one of the country's top business schools.

He said GIFT was impracticable, ignoring issues such as location and skills availability. Some bankers also complained that the Gujarat state's decades-long alcohol prohibition policy hasn't helped either.

Modi's office and the Gujarat chief minister's office did not respond to requests for comment.

Business Standard

On the economic front, every Indian political party is on the left

Mr Modi has proved more statist than the Gandhis. Before he took power he criticized Congress welfare programs as insulting to the poor but after coming to power he doubled down on those programmes.

Business Standard : Like many global investors I am leery of big government. But I did not come to this view on Wall Street. It came to me growing up in India, watching lives ruined by the broken state, including the public hospital that hastened the death of my grandfather by assigning an untrained night aide to attempt his emergency heart surgery.

As an idealistic 20-something in the late 1990s, my hope was that India would one day elect a free market reformer like Ronald Reagan, who would begin to shrink the dysfunctional bureaucracy and free the economy to grow faster. Looking back, I see how clueless I was.

In Delhi every politician is wedded to big government, and there is no constituency for free-market reform. I kept hoping for Reagan, and India kept electing Bernie Sanders.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is no exception. Five years ago he led the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, known as B.J.P., to power on a Reaganesque promise of “minimum government,” and now he seeks a second term in the general election that ends on Thursday.

But in office, Modi has wielded the tools of state control at least as aggressively as his predecessors. In this campaign, he went toe to toe with rivals, vying to see who could offer the most generous welfare programs, and it appears to have worked. Exit polls released Sunday showed the B.J.P. and its allies with a commanding lead.

This should surprise no one. India’s political DNA is fundamentally socialist. After independence in 1947, India established a parliamentary democracy, and a deeply meddlesome government to spread the wealth to its impoverished masses.

But if Indians were ready for political freedom at such an early stage of development, I often wondered, why not economic freedom?

My hopes focused first on the Gandhis, the leading dynasty of the Congress party, now the main national rival to Mr. Modi and the B.J.P. Perhaps Congress would find its worldly reformer in Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of Rajiv Gandhi, the prime minister slain in 1991. Later I saw hope in Sonia’s son Rahul, a Cambridge graduate who had worked at a London consulting company and now leads Congress’s 2019 campaign.

Drought-hit Gujarat has water for factories, but no water for Kutch farmers

Farmers and activists say the state government is intentionally driving farmers and cattle-rearers out of Kutch to make way for industries.

Business Standard : Bhavanbhai Patel stood facing his farm, as dry and cracked as his farming hands. The 65-year-old farmer lives in Dayapur village in Lakhpat taluka of southern Kutch, which has been receiving erratic rainfall since 2003. His farm comprises a few hectares of green, bright amid the sunburnt fields all around. “The rest belongs to my family, but now only I’m left here out of 10 brothers. Everyone else has gone,” he told IndiaSpend in early February.

Lakhpat is one of 10 talukas in Kutch, the least populated taluka of India’s largest district spanning 45,674 sq km, covering 22% of Gujarat (196,024 sq km). Lakhpat residents keep leaving because, as Patel said, “there is no way to make a living here”. He said his was a basti (hamlet) of 20,000 that is now down to 1,500 people.

“In places like Lakhpat, there is no water. Not even underground water is left that we could pull out and farm with,” said Patel, weary after working for six hours.

Dayapur is 520 km from the Narmada Main Canal, but has not received any water from the canal in the 71 years since its foundation stone was laid, promising to bring the waters of the Narmada river to the parched Kutch, Saurashtra and North Gujarat regions of the state. Already facing years of drought, these regions have seen no rainfall so far in 2019. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) recorded that Kutch saw a 99% departure from normal climate conditions, while other regions’ rainfall deficit is 100%.

This is the third story in our series on drought that is affecting more than 40% of India’s land area. This story examines the situation in Gujarat’s worst-hit Kutch region, where scanty rainfall and rising temperatures have exacerbated competition for scarce water between farms on the one hand and cities and industries on the other, while raising questions over why the Narmada Valley Project’s raison d’etre--to irrigate farms in Kutch, Saurashtra and North Gujarat--remains unfulfilled 71 years on.

Promises made and belied

When the Narmada Valley Project was envisioned in 1946, the government’s plan was to harness water for irrigation and hydropower through construction of the Sardar Sarovar and Narmada Sagar dams, and over 3,000 smaller dams and canals. The first plan proposed that the Sardar Sarovar dam be built in two stages, 160 ft and 300 ft, which was later increased to 320 ft--the height considered necessary for the water to reach the arid Kutch and Saurashtra regions.

After various disputes over water sharing between the states of the Narmada basin--Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan--the central government constituted a Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal (NWDT) on October 6, 1969 to settle the matter.

Statue of Unity: How environment, Adivasi rights lost again to Patel's name

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel is often thought of as the inspiration for the Sardar Sarovar dam which faced a lot of environmental and humanitarian protests.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi will today inaugurate the world’s largest statue, the Statue of Unity in Gujarat. At 182m tall (240m including the base), it is twice the height of the Statue of Liberty, and depicts India’s first deputy Prime Minister, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

The statue overlooks the Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada River. Patel is often thought of as the inspiration for the dam, which came to international attention when the World Bank withdraw its support from the project in 1993 after a decade of environmental and humanitarian protests. It wasn’t until 2013 that the World Bank funded another large dam project.

Like the dam, the statue has been condemned for its lack of environmental oversight, and its displacement of local Adivasi or indigenous people. The land on which the statue was built is an Adivasi sacred site that was taken forcibly from them.

The Statue of Unity is part of a broader push by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to promote Patel as a symbol of Indian nationalism and free-market development. The statue’s website praises him for bringing the princely states into the Union of India and for being an early advocate of Indian free enterprise. (Business Standard )

The BJP’s promotion of Patel also serves to overshadow the legacy of his boss, India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru’s descendants head India’s most influential opposition party, the Indian National Congress.

The statue was supposed to be built with both private and public money, but it attracted little private investment. In the end, the government of Gujarat paid for much of the statue’s US$416.67 million price tag.

The Gujarat government claims its investment in the statue will promote tourism, and that tourism is “sustainable development”. The United Nations says that sustainable tourism increases environmental outcomes and promotes local cultures. But given the statue’s lack of environmental checks and its displacement of local populations, it is hard to see how this project fulfils these goals.

The structure itself is not exactly a model of sustainable design. Some 5,000 tonnes of iron, 75,000 cubic metres of concrete, 5,700 tonnes of steel, and 22,500 tonnes of bronze sheets were used in its construction.

Critics of the statue note that this emblem of Indian nationalism was designed by a Chinese architect, and the bronze sheeting was put in place by Chinese labour... Read More

5 arrested for flogging dalit man to death in Gujarat as video goes viral

According to the complaint filed by the victim's wife, Jayaben Vaniya, her husband was beaten up by the five people as they suspected the couple of committing a theft

Police have arrested five people for allegedly thrashing to death a 35-year-old Dalit man suspecting him to be a thief in Gujarat's Rajkot district, an official said today.

A video of the incident -- purportedly showing two people taking turns to beat the man, identified as Mukesh Vaniya, a ragpicker, with a stick while another person holding him by a rope tied to his waist -- has gone viral on the social media.

Based on the video, the police arrested the five people.

"A man who used to collect garbage was beaten up by some people at the Radadiya Industries compound near Shapar town yesterday. The factory owner accused him and his wife of theft," Rajkot (rural) in-charge superintendent of police Shruti S Mehta said.

The victim's wife lodged a complaint at the Shapar-Veraval police station in Rajkot last evening, accusing the five people of thrashing her husband following which he died, Mehta said.

"We have arrested the five people based on the video that purportedly showed the victim being beaten up. An investigation is underway," she said.

According to the complaint filed by the victim's wife, Jayaben Vaniya, her husband was beaten up by the five people as they suspected the couple of committing a theft.

The couple was picking garbage near the Radadiya Industries, located in the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) area, when they were held and then beaten up by the accused.

Mukesh died while being taken to the government hospital in Rajkot, an official at the Shapar-Veraval police station said.

An FIR was lodged under sections 302 (murder) and 308 (culpable homicide) of the IPC, he said.

Four of the arrested persons were identified as Chirag Patel, Divyesh Patel, Jaysukh Radadiya and Tejas Zala.

Jaysukh Radadiya is the owner of the factory where the incident allegedly took place while the others are his friends, according to the police.

GSEB HSC Result 2018 announced: 73% pass exam; steps to check score

Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board (GSEB) has released the Gujarat HSC Result 2018 on its official website gseb.org. Find steps to check score in GSHSEB Class 12th Science results.

Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board (GSHSEB) announced the class 12 (science) result today, on May 10. The result is available on the official website - gseb.org.

The result was announced by Gujarat Education Minister Bhupendra Singh Chudasam in a press conference.

The overall pass percentage is 73 per cent. Girls have outshined boys with a pass percentage of 74.9 per cent. For boys, the pass percentage is 71%.
According to reports, nearly 170,000 to 180,000 students appeared in Gujarat boards this year. Of which, nearly 150,000 students appeared for HSC Science stream.
Last year, the overall pass percentage of GSEB science stream was 81.89 per cent.



Steps to check GSEB Class 12 science exam results:
1. Log on to official website gseb.org. (One can also visit partner websites gujarat.indiaresults.com and examresults.net)
2. Click on the link 'GSEB HSC Result 2018' or 'GSEB Class 12 Results 2018'
3. Enter asked details ( registration number/roll number)
4. Download the result
The Board also published the Gujarat Common Entrance Test (GUJCET) result today (10 May). Over 135,000 students had appeared for the exam at 34 centres across the state.
GUJCET is conducted by Gujarat government for admissions to engineering, paramedical and diploma courses in the state.



Steps to check GUJCET result:
1. Log on to the official website - gujcet.gseb.org
2. Click on the result link
3. Submit asked details
4. Download the result
GUJCET result can also be checked via app. There are several apps in Google Play Store that provide results of various exams.