Crops over 564,000 hectares destroyed the floods in Odisha

BHUBANESWAR:The government has been able to evacuate about 2 lakh 30 thousand people marooned in flood waters in different areas of the state like Ganjam, Gajapati, Puri and Khordha.Metaphorically as well it has caused heavy casualties in the shape of loss of human and cattle lives, extensive damage of standing crops and collapse of thousands of huts, homes and houses across the state. 

Crops over 564,000 hectares destroyed the floods in the state are getting worse by the hour. And the deluge can only get worse, with more rains expected in the next 48 hours.

Rain and flood continue to disturb normal life in Odisha. It has lashed about 10 districts of the state, thrown the lives of people of over four thousand six hundred villages out of gear. There is no respite from incessant rain lashing several parts of the state for the past five days under the influence of low pressure and the north east Monsoon.

The low pressure induced rain caused fresh flood in Budhabalanga river in Mayubhanj district and Rusukulia river of Ganjam district yesterday as it received over 30 centimeters rainfall during the past 24 hours.

The death toll went up to 19 due to rain related incidents in the state. Rivers and rivulets are flowing to their brim due to heavy inflows due to which several more villages are facing a threat of flood. The authorities are evacuating people from low lying areas especially those who are closer to the river banks government official said today.

And in neighboring West Bengal, torrential rains flooded streets, uprooted trees and sent houses crashing that took two lives.

Road and rail routes have been badly hit huge stretches of train tracks are under water, so are parts of the NH-5 and SHs. Overall, 1533 km of roads have been damaged.

Devastated flood-hit Ganjam and other coastal districts of Odisha

BHUBANESWAR:Spanking new floods triggered by low force induced rains devastated cyclone-hit Ganjam and other coastal districts of Odisha. Leaving 10 persons dead, five missing and lakhs marooned as helicopters launched rescue operations today.

Of the ten deaths, six, including four members of a family were killed in wall collapse in Jagatsinghpur district and four others were swept away in floods in Ganjam district, Special Relief Commissioner, P K Mohapatra said adding two others died due to wall collapse in Ganjam.

At least five persons were missing after being swept away by flood waters in Ganjam, official sources said.

Over 5.32 lakh people in 2276 villages spread over several districts were affected by the floods, while about 1.47 lakh people were evacuated to safety. Those evacuated are provided with cooked food and dry ration, SRC said.

Three helicopters undertook rescue operation in Ganjam district where the situation was a cause of concern as rivers Rushikulya and Ghodahada were in spate, he said adding tie up with Indian Air Force was done to move NDRF battalions to different places.

Helicopters were also being used to evacuate people sheltering on rooftops in Ganjam district where above one lakh people were marooned, Revenue and Disaster Management minister S N Patro said.

All rivers in Ganjam, Gajapati, Rayagada and Nayagarh districts were overflowing, he said.

Describing the flood situation in Ganjam as grim, Patro said thousands of people were trapped by flood waters in Aska, Sorada, Hinjili, Sergarh, Belaguntha, Rangelunda blocks as also in Gajapati district.

Besides Ganjam, districts like Khurda, Jagatsinghpur, Puri, Cuttack, Nayagarh, Kendrapara, Bhadrak, Balasore, Mayurbhanj, Jajpur and Gajapati districts were also affected by floods.

As flood waters submerged railway track at many places, all trains to south India from Bhubaneswar and Puri tomorrow have been cancelled, East Coast Railway sources said.

Nine persons sheltering on a tree near Aska were rescued last night with the NDRF and ODRF on the job, Ganjam Collector Kishan Kumar said.

Many places have now become inaccessible and relief teams could only reach them after the waters receded.

The state government announced closure of schools and colleges in coastal districts in view of the floods.

Though the intensity of rain was likely to decline, there was heavy rain in the catchment areas of rivers like Rushikulya, Budhabalang and Baitarani, Director of the IMD centre here, Sarat Chandra Sahu said.

The current spell of floods deluged vast areas close on heels of the very severe cyclone of October 12 and resultant floods devastated coastal Odisha. 

United Nations rapporteurs slammed into Posco project area for alleged human rights violations

BHUBANESWAR:Here’s some superfluous counsel to Posco and its outreach supervisor in their ongoing enterprise to specifically counter allegations of human rights violations in Odisha.

They could consider toning down their superiority. And speaking certain untruths on behalf of the government of Odisha and India in order to protect its projects for a $12 billion integrated steel plant, captive iron ore mines and a captive port.

Take Posco’s response when a top team of United Nations rapporteurs slammed into it for alleged human rights violations in a statement on 1 October 2013. Among other things, the statement released by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights mentioned that “people in the project-affected area have reportedly been subjected to violence, harassment and threats, as well as arbitrary detentions and false charges, as a result of their activities to assemble peacefully and collectively defend their human rights”.

Posco said a few things well in a rebuttal issued several days later. “Posco agrees to the premise that Posco does have responsibility to respect human rights even though the government has the primary duty to protect the human rights of the people”.

Then Posco blew it.

“Posco squarely refutes the allegation that there is violation of human rights in its project area in Odisha.”

Police destroyed betel vines that day in the area of attack in the 700-acre acquisition zone, and even outside it. Men, women and children were roughed up the most recent of several such incidents. Several owners of betel farms were compelled to accept compensation on the spot.

The government of Odisha has a documented history of viciousness while acquiring or taking possession of land for industrial projects. And India’s documented human rights violations, past and ongoing, by the central government and various state governments would keep interested courts busy for years.

In Posco’s response to another scathing report earlier this year, shepherded among others by a team at New York University’s School of Law, this ironical paragraph on human rights issues leapt out. “…If the police do not act, who will protect the human rights of the local people? Their rights cannot be protected by someone seated in the UK and the USA and writing thesis on them. Posco has no role in maintaining the law and order. It is the duty and discretion of the govt.”

It is easy to understand Posco’s anxious, vehement, and sometimes contradictory, denials of any human rights wrongdoing in its Odisha projects even indirectly. The government of Odisha has done whatever it takes to facilitate the project for Posco, including violation of human rights committed by agencies of the state. By its repeated denial of such instances, and repeated, and public, shielding of the government’s actions, Posco may actually be cementing complicity in such actions. Human rights watchdogs are already snapping at the heels of several suppliers and financiers of the project. Censure by portfolio investors would surely be unwelcome.

Dalit and Adivasi have been displaced by a range of enormous infrastructure

BHUBANESWAR:A decade of enormous growth has created billionaires, a new and mushrooming middle class and a vast underclass of people living in extreme poverty. The middles class has doubled in size since 2001, from 6 per cent to 13 per cent (amounting to around 153 million people).

Yet inequality stalks the land: in the cities with their extensive, overcrowded slums sitting alongside the new high-rise shopping malls, between desperately poor rural communities and urban dwellers and within the countryside itself. There is inequality within inequality, as government definitions of what constitutes poverty are re-imagined to exclude great swathes of people in need.

India’s economic growth, neatly tied together with government corruption and neglect, has been fuelled by a toxic cocktail of 20 years of market liberalization, land grabbing and mineral extraction; the privatization of water supplies; and extensive dam building. Millions of mainly Adivasi people, who make up 9 per cent of the population, and Dalit people have been displaced by a range of enormous infrastructure projects, notably the corporate takeover of the countryside, which has seen subsidies to small holder farmers scrapped, access to credit made all but impossible, the Indian market opened up to foreign multi-nationals and a embarrassment of state incentives provided to Indian corporations.

The most sensitive sign of the community carnage being inflicted on the poor is the pestilence of farmer suicides. Drowning in debt and despair, farmers are committing suicide at the unimaginable rate of one every 30 minutes, with around 250,000 taking their own lives between 1995 and 2009 alone.

Summon as the world’s largest democracy and touted as “an emerging economic powerhouse”, India’s economy is beginning to cough and boil with the rupee trading at an all time low, and the current account showing an billions dollar deficit.

Commercialization of rural regions in India

BHUBANESWAR:The struggle for a land is occurring in many parts of the world, as multinational corporations look to expand their monopoly control on resources, production and supply. Whether building industrial sized farms as in sub-Saharan Africa, or mining in the heartland of India, the commercialization of rural regions proceeds apace, as does the murder and forced resettlement of millions of people.

It is an all too familiar story in a world where corporate interests and the state virtually coexist. Their interdependence poisons democratic ideals, leads to neglect of the most vulnerable, fuels inequality and continues the historic concentration of wealth in the hands of the few.

The notion of trickle down economics, where the elite fill to overflowing, and the poor pick up their left over, is an economic model that has been thoroughly disgraced and discredited across the world.