Protest brewing in Red zone as another project proposed in the tribal land

By PAVAN DAHAT

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/protest-brewing-in-red-zone-as-another-project-proposed-in-the-tribal-land/article4727711.ece#.UZfNROTWEuE.gmail

Suklal Baldir Topo, a Tribal of Jhajawandi village in Etapalli tehsil of Gadchiroli district, is a concerned man these days.

Suklal is concerned about the proposed JSW ISPAT Iron Ore Mining project in Damkodvadavi hills, hardly a few kilometers from his village.

“I have seen my son grow up here and then his sons and daughters. Where would we go if this project comes here” asks Suklal.

Almost all the villagers of 17 villages in Gatta and Gardewada Gram Panchayats in Etapalli tehsil of Gadchiroli district share Suklal’s concern.

The JSW ISPAT Steel Limited has proposed an iron ore mining unit over 751.04 hectares of land on Damkodvadavi hills to produce 5.5 MTPA (Maximum Rated Capacity) of Iron Ore for which crushing and screening plant (3 x 250 TPH) will be installed in the mine lease area.

The JSW has been given mining lease for a period of 20 years. The produce of this unit will be used to meet the iron ore requirements of JSW Steel plant in Dolvi, Maharashtra.

A public hearing related to the environment impact of this iron ore mine project was held in Allapalli town on May 8 in the absence of the villagers from all 17 villages.

The Public hearing took place despite the Gatta Gram Sabha passing a resolution against the proposed project on May 1.

“The company or the government officials did not make available any information about the effects of this project directly or indirectly to all 17 villages in Madia language. The company carried out study of the area from the census document of 2001.But the proposed project requires approval of the concerned villages Gram Sabhas which was never taken. Forest is the mainstay of Adivasis living near the proposed project site and mining will badly damage water, soil, forest and air resulting in danger to our lives. Which measures will the company take to prevent this damage? The project will endanger the lives of birds and animals in this area and destruction of forest will result in the imbalance of environment. This area does not have skilled people to be given employment in this project. We don’t trust the company and the government to keep their promises. This Gram Sabha passes a resolution that we oppose the proposed public hearing of the project and the government should not give permission for this project and if it has given the permission, then it should be cancelled ” reads the resolution passed by Gatta Gram Sabha, a copy of which is available with The Hindu.

Etapalli and Gatta are known to be Naxal zone and the Naxal’s writ runs large in the area after Gatta village.

The public hearing of the project was conducted 70 km away in Allapalli town for “security reasons”, according to Gadchiroli District Collector Abhishek Krishna.

But Mr. Krishna refused to comment when asked how the project will be put up if even a public hearing has to be conducted 70 km away.

“The District administration’s job was to help the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board in conducting the public hearing and to send the proceedings to the government. The government will decide on the next course of action” said the Collector.

Hardly anyone in these villages knew about the proposed project until May 1, says Ravi Atram of Gatta village.

“There is something that this government is trying to hide. The advertisement of the public hearing was published in one English and one Marathi newspaper which hardly come to these interior areas” says activist Anand Dahagavkar.

“But the district authorities ignored the pleas of activists to postpone the public hearing in the absence of project affected people” said Amol Marakwar, the Zilla Parishad member of Gadchiroli who was present in the public hearing.

“The tribals depend on forest for their livelihood and this project, if granted permission, will destroy the tribal culture and life here. Everyone knows how much pollution an iron ore mine project causes” added Mr. Marakwar.

The Naxals have also jumped into the bandwagon and have made their opposition to the project clear.

According to some reliable sources, three days before the public hearing in Allapalli, the Naxals called a meeting of all the project affected villages and assured them the “CPI(Maoist)’s complete support against the Jindal project”.

Almost all the affected villages visited by this reporter in this area, do not want this project to come.

“We are happy with our life now. We will not leave this place even if they offer us Rs. 10 lakhs” says Madi Danu Hido of Kowanvarsi village.

According to activists, the JSW and the government have not said anything about the number villagers to be rehabilitated due to this project.

Rajan Malani of the JSW Ispat said “No village will be relocated. Everything is at an initial stage now. Just a public hearing has happened. And the public hearing was the administration’s lookout. They could have taken it in Nagpur. Our company is very strict about its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and we will do everything that can be done to help all these villages”.

“Mining does not cause much pollution. Our company and the government is very strict regarding this and all the environmental regulations will be followed strictly. And as far as security is concerned, again it’s administration’s responsibility. The government’s help will be taken for security” added Mr. Malani.

But Mr. Malani refused to comment on the resolution passed by Gatta Gram Sabha against the project.

The local MLA Deepak Atram who staged a token protest in Etapalli in protest of public hearing taking place in Allapalli says, “Whether we want it or not this project will come because the Jindal group is a strong group and they have government with them. They will put up CRPF camps if they decide to go ahead with the project”.

Mr. Atram does not have objection to the project but he expressed his displeasure over the way it is being brought.

“It will provide job opportunities to the educated youth of our region” says the MLA but has no answer when asked about the possible destruction of Tribal livelihood dependent on forest in this area.

But Mr. Atram as well as activists working in this area, are concerned about the possibility of an intensified conflict between the Naxals and security forces if the government remains adamant on bringing the project here “because the project’s proposed location is almost a Liberated Zone”.

Anti-Posco stir: angry women protesters strip during clash with police

India's rice revolution

By Joe Vidal

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2013/feb/16/india-rice-farmers-revolution

Sumant Kumar was overjoyed when he harvested his rice last year. There had been good rains in his village of Darveshpura in north-eastIndia and he knew he could improve on the four or five tonnes per hectare that he usually managed. But every stalk he cut on his paddy field near the bank of the Sakri river seemed to weigh heavier than usual, every grain of rice was bigger and when his crop was weighed on the old village scales, even Kumar was shocked.

This was not six or even 10 or 20 tonnes. Kumar, a shy young farmer in Nalanda district of India's poorest state Bihar, had – using only farmyard manure and without any herbicides – grown an astonishing 22.4 tonnes of rice on one hectare of land. This was a world record and with rice the staple food of more than half the world's population of seven billion, big news.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/video/2013/mar/05/rice-farming-india-food-video

It beat not just the 19.4 tonnes achieved by the "father of rice", the Chinese agricultural scientist Yuan Longping, but the World Bank-funded scientists at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, and anything achieved by the biggest European and American seed and GM companies. And it was not just Sumant Kumar. Krishna, Nitish, Sanjay and Bijay, his friends and rivals in Darveshpura, all recorded over 17 tonnes, and many others in the villages around claimed to have more than doubled their usual yields.

The villagers, at the mercy of erratic weather and used to going without food in bad years, celebrated. But the Bihar state agricultural universities didn't believe them at first, while India's leading rice scientists muttered about freak results. The Nalanda farmers were accused of cheating. Only when the state's head of agriculture, a rice farmer himself, came to the village with his own men and personally verified Sumant's crop, was the record confirmed.

The rhythm of Nalanda village life was shattered. Here bullocks still pull ploughs as they have always done, their dung is still dried on the walls of houses and used to cook food. Electricity has still not reached most people. Sumant became a local hero, mentioned in the Indian parliament and asked to attend conferences. The state's chief minister came to Darveshpura to congratulate him, and the village was rewarded with electric power, a bank and a new concrete bridge.

That might have been the end of the story had Sumant's friend Nitish not smashed the world record for growing potatoes six months later. Shortly after Ravindra Kumar, a small farmer from a nearby Bihari village, broke the Indian record for growing wheat. Darveshpura became known as India's "miracle village", Nalanda became famous and teams of scientists, development groups, farmers, civil servants and politicians all descended to discover its secret.

When I meet the young farmers, all in their early 30s, they still seem slightly dazed by their fame. They've become unlikely heroes in a state where nearly half the families live below the Indian poverty line and 93% of the 100 million population depend on growing rice and potatoes. Nitish Kumar speaks quietly of his success and says he is determined to improve on the record. "In previous years, farming has not been very profitable," he says. "Now I realise that it can be. My whole life has changed. I can send my children to school and spend more on health. My income has increased a lot."

What happened in Darveshpura has divided scientists and is exciting governments and development experts. Tests on the soil show it is particularly rich in silicon but the reason for the "super yields" is entirely down to a method of growing crops called System of Rice (or root) Intensification (SRI). It has dramatically increased yields with wheat, potatoes, sugar cane, yams, tomatoes, garlic, aubergine and many other crops and is being hailed as one of the most significant developments of the past 50 years for the world's 500 million small-scale farmers and the two billion people who depend on them.

Instead of planting three-week-old rice seedlings in clumps of three or four in waterlogged fields, as rice farmers around the world traditionally do, the Darveshpura farmers carefully nurture only half as many seeds, and then transplant the young plants into fields, one by one, when much younger. Additionally, they space them at 25cm intervals in a grid pattern, keep the soil much drier and carefully weed around the plants to allow air to their roots. The premise that "less is more" was taught by Rajiv Kumar, a young Bihar state government extension worker who had been trained in turn by Anil Verma of a small Indian NGO called Pran (Preservation and
Proliferation of Rural Resources and Nature), which has introduced the SRI method to hundreds of villages in the past three years.

While the "green revolution" that averted Indian famine in the 1970s relied on improved crop varieties, expensive pesticides and chemical fertilisers, SRI appears to offer a long-term, sustainable future for no extra cost. With more than one in seven of the global population going hungry and demand for rice expected to outstrip supply within 20 years, it appears to offer real hope. Even a 30% increase in the yields of the world's small farmers would go a long way to alleviating poverty.

"Farmers use less seeds, less water and less chemicals but they get more without having to invest more. This is revolutionary," said Dr Surendra Chaurassa from Bihar's agriculture ministry. "I did not believe it to start with, but now I think it can potentially change the way everyone farms. I would want every state to promote it. If we get 30-40% increase in yields, that is more than enough to recommend it."

The results in Bihar have exceeded Chaurassa's hopes. Sudama Mahto, an agriculture officer in Nalanda, says a small investment in training a few hundred people to teach SRI methods has resulted in a 45% increase in the region's yields. Veerapandi Arumugam, the former agriculture minister of Tamil Nadu state, hailed the system as "revolutionising" farming.

SRI's origins go back to the 1980s in Madagascar where Henri de Laulanie, a French Jesuit priest and agronomist, observed how villagers grew rice in the uplands. He developed the method but it was an American, professor Norman Uphoff, director of the International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development at Cornell University, who was largely responsible for spreading the word about De Laulanie's work.

Given $15m by an anonymous billionaire to research sustainable development, Uphoff went to Madagascar in 1983 and saw the success of SRI for himself: farmers whose previous yields averaged two tonnes per hectare were harvesting eight tonnes. In 1997 he started to actively promote SRI in Asia, where more than 600 million people are malnourished.

"It is a set of ideas, the absolute opposite to the first green revolution [of the 60s] which said that you had to change the genes and the soil nutrients to improve yields. That came at a tremendous ecological cost," says Uphoff. "Agriculture in the 21st century must be practised differently. Land and water resources are becoming scarcer, of poorer quality, or less reliable. Climatic conditions are in many places more adverse. SRI offers millions of disadvantaged households far better opportunities. Nobody is benefiting from this except the farmers; there are no patents, royalties or licensing fees."\

For 40 years now, says Uphoff, science has been obsessed with improving seeds and using artificial fertilisers: "It's been genes, genes, genes. There has never been talk of managing crops. Corporations say 'we will breed you a better plant' and breeders work hard to get 5-10% increase in yields. We have tried to make agriculture an industrial enterprise and have forgotten its biological roots."

Not everyone agrees. Some scientists complain there is not enough peer-reviewed evidence around SRI and that it is impossible to get such returns. "SRI is a set of management practices and nothing else, many of which have been known for a long time and are best recommended practice," says Achim Dobermann, deputy director for research at the International Rice Research Institute. "Scientifically speaking I don't believe there is any miracle. When people independently have evaluated SRI principles then the result has usually been quite different from what has been reported on farm evaluations conducted by NGOs and others who are promoting it. Most scientists have had difficulty replicating the observations."

Dominic Glover, a British researcher working with Wageningen University in the Netherlands, has spent years analysing the introduction of GM crops in developing countries. He is now following how SRI is being adopted in India and believes there has been a "turf war".

"There are experts in their fields defending their knowledge," he says. "But in many areas, growers have tried SRI methods and abandoned them. People are unwilling to investigate this. SRI is good for small farmers who rely on their own families for labour, but not necessarily for larger operations. Rather than any magical theory, it is good husbandry, skill and attention which results in the super yields. Clearly in certain circumstances, it is an efficient resource for farmers. But it is labour intensive and nobody has come up with the technology to transplant single seedlings yet."

But some larger farmers in Bihar say it is not labour intensive and can actually reduce time spent in fields. "When a farmer does SRI the first time, yes it is more labour intensive," says Santosh Kumar, who grows 15 hectares of rice and vegetables in Nalanda. "Then it gets easier and new innovations are taking place now."

In its early days, SRI was dismissed or vilified by donors and scientists but in the past few years it has gained credibility. Uphoff estimates there are now 4-5 million farmers using SRI worldwide, with governments in China, India, Indonesia, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam promoting it.

Sumant, Nitish and as many as 100,000 other SRI farmers in Bihar are now preparing their next rice crop. It's back-breaking work transplanting the young rice shoots from the nursery beds to the paddy fields but buoyed by recognition and results, their confidence and optimism in the future is sky high.

Last month Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz visited Nalanda district and recognised the potential of this kind of organic farming, telling the villagers they were "better than scientists". "It was amazing to see their success in organic farming," said Stiglitz, who called for more research. "Agriculture scientists from across the world should visit and learn and be inspired by them."

Bihar, from being India's poorest state, is now at the centre of what is being called a "new green grassroots revolution" with farming villages, research groups and NGOs all beginning to experiment with different crops using SRI. The state will invest $50m in SRI next year but western governments and foundations are holding back, preferring to invest in hi-tech research. The agronomist Anil Verma does not understand why: "The farmers know SRI works, but help is needed to train them. We know it works differently in different soils but the principles are solid," he says. "The biggest problem we have is that people want to do it but we do not have enough trainers.

"If any scientist or a company came up with a technology that almost guaranteed a 50% increase in yields at no extra cost they would get a Nobel prize. But when young Biharian farmers do that they get nothing. I only want to see the poor farmers have enough to eat."

Bihar farmer sets new world record, harvests 108.8 tonnes of potato per hecrtare

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/bihar-farmer-sets-new-world-record-harvests-1088-tonnes-of-potato-per-hecrtare/373609-3-232.html

Patna: Bihar's farmers have done it again. A farmer from Sohdih village of Bihar's Nalanda district has set a new world record in potato production through organic farming this year. The potato farmer, Rakesh Kumar, has harvested 108.8 tonnes of potato per hecrtare and set a new world record in potato production, Nalanda district magistrate Sanjay Kumar Agrawal said on February 18.

Last year, a farmer of Darveshpura village in Nalanda had set a world record in potato production through organic farming.

"Rakesh Kumar has created a new world record in potato production through organic farming. It was verified by experts, scientists and officials," Agrawal said.

He said several officials and agricultural experts were present in the field at harvest time to verify the claim and record it. According to him, last March, a potato farmer, Nitish Kumar, harvested 72.9 tonnes of potato per hectare and set a world record.

Till then, the world record was 45 tonnes per hectare, held by farmers in the Netherlands. Earlier, farmers of the village in Nalanda had created a world record by producing 224 quintals of paddy per hectare.

Rakesh Kumar, who is also chairman of the Nalanda Organic Vegetable Growers' Federation, said he used his learning, inquisitiveness and innovation to deploy high density plantation technique, used for enhancing mango, litchi and guava production, for growing the kufri pukhraj variety of potato to lift the old benchmark to an entirely new level.

"The big-sized potato also helped to make a difference," an upbeat Rakesh said.

District horticulture officer DN Mahto said the achievement occurred because of the use of organic methods. "Once again, the organic method of farming proved superior to other methods of farming," he said.

Mahto said the loam soil of the village is suitable for several crops, including potato. "The new record will certainly go a long way in removing doubts about low production associated with organic farming and encourage other farmers to adopt it," he said.

Nalanda, the home district of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, is already the leading potato producing district in Bihar, with farmers growing the crop on over 27,000 hectares.

Bihar is the third-largest potato producing state, after Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Last year, five farmers here created a world record, producing 224 quintals of paddy per hectare.

The state government has decided to promote organic farming in at least one village in each of the state's 37 districts. It launched an "organic farming promotion programme" over a year ago, intended to develop organic 'grams' (villages).

Agriculture is the backbone of Bihar's economy, employing 81 per cent of its workforce and generating nearly 42 per cent of the state's domestic product, according to the state government.

Consumer grievance redressal forum stays water privatisation in Khandwa

URL: http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/consumer-grievance-redressal-forum-stays-water-privatisation-khandwa

The decision of the municipal authorities of Khandwa, a medium-sized town in Madhya Pradesh, to hand over water supply services to a private company, has been stalled. The Consumer Forum of Khandwa stayed the notification for water supply privatisation on December 31 and asked the city’s civic body to address all the objections raised by residents against the privatisation project. The next date of hearing has been fixed for January 22.

Water supply in Khandwa was handed over to Vishwa Utilities Pvt Ltd, a Hyderabad-based company, under the Urban Infrastructure Development Scheme for Small and Medium Towns (UIDSSMT), a Government of India scheme, through a public-private participation (PPP) project. The Khandwa Municipal Corporation (KMC) published its notification on December 3, 2012.

The Khandwa water supply augmentation project was awarded to the private company for augmenting water supply to the town for the next 25 years. The project has been under execution since October 2009. The private party would supply water to the town at the rate of Rs 11.95 per kilolitre. Raw water for this would be pumped from a reservoir 51 km from the town.

Local residents have been actively campaigning against privatisation of water services for some time. More than 10,000 Khandwa residents have submitted their complaints against the PPP project for 24/7 water supply.

PPP favours private company

A study by non-profit Manthan Adhyayan Kendra—Private Water Supply Augmentation Project in Khandwa - A study of the impacts of the project—says the contract is greatly skewed in favour of the private company and through this PPP concession, the water supply and security of the town has been compromised. The project has been showcased in various circles, including at the Planning Commission, as being a successful model of executing PPPs in the water sector.

The Consumer Forum of Khandwa gave the stay on a plea filed by resident Laxmi Narayan Bhargav. KMC commissioner Shobharam Sholanki argued before the forum that the applicant is not a consumer as he pays water tax and not water charges, and hence could not be treated as an aggrieved person. Tarun Mandaloi, who represented the applicant asserted that services provided by a municipal corporation are within the purview of Consumer Protection Act, 1986.

KMC commissioner Sholanki further contended that the scheme has not yet been implemented, so at present there is no question of lack of service. But Shailendra Shukla, who presided the hearing along with forum members Maya Rathore and Nirmal Bajaj, cited section 2(G) of Consumer Protection Act, 1986 and maintained that any person claiming responsibility for providing a specific service, even if it seems that there is any irregularity, lack or inadequacy in services provided, it could be treated as lack of service.

The applicant mentioned several errors in the notification which could possibly hurt consumer interests and urged the Consumer Forum to stay the notification till the consumer complaints are redressed. Sholanki said that a proposal has been sent to the government of Madhya Pradesh to look into the objections received till 30 December, last year. The notification will be published only after redressing these objections.

The Consumer Forum ordered KMC to redress all the complaints received by it on the notification and then publish it. Citizens not satisfied by this shall be free to file a petition before the Consumer Forum or any other appropriate court.

As the project construction nears completion now, more and more people, citizen groups and local organisations are become aware of the possible disadvantages of water supply privatisation. The project's construction phase was expected to be completed by September 2012.

Gaurav Dwivedi of Manthan Adhyayan Kendra said that the Consumer Forum's order is an important development concerning privatization of water services and might prove useful in other places where privatisation is proposed. Several activists are concerned that the National Water Policy considers water as an economic good. Treating water as a commodity could lead to privatisation of water supply, they say.

Hazare praises work of Modi, Nitish

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Hazare-praises-work-of-Modi-Nitish/articleshow/7935282.cms

NEW DELHI: Chief ministers Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar were praised by anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare for their efforts on rural development, with the Gandhian saying that their counterparts in other states should emulate them.

"The work of chief ministers of Gujarat and Bihar in their states should be adopted by other chief ministers," 73-year-old Hazare, who successfully led the agitation on Lokpal Bill issue, told reporters here on Sunday.

Hazare, though, was quick to add that he was not viewing their performance from any partisan angle but only highlighting the focus of development work at the grassroots level.

When a reporter referred to the 2002 riots in Gujarat when Modi was in power, the Gandhian said that he was only talking about the work of a chief minister and does not want to get into politics.

"I do not support communal politics, riots or any such thing. I am only talking about decentralisation of power," Hazare said.

When pointed out that Modi has not appointed a Lokayukta for the past nine years in Gujarat, he said, "I will accept Modi as 100 per cent ideal when he brings Lokayukta in his state."

Congress MP Rashid Alvi reacted sharply to Hazare's comments saying "no secular person in the country can support Modi.

"If you support Modi, you are supporting the massacre of 2002," he said,

BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain, however, praised Hazare for appreciating the work done in the party-ruled state.

"These are NDA-ruled states. Concrete steps are being taken there against corruption. This is good that he cited both the states as examples.

"There are many other NDA-ruled states where good work is being done against corruption. We appreciate that he has praised us," he said.

At the press conference, Hazare also denied any "personal" animosity with agriculture minister Sharad Pawar.

"There is no rift with Pawar. Six Ministers had to go on corruption charges. Why only name Pawar. My fight is against the trend and not against one Pawar. It is the deed not the person that I object to and fight against," he said.

Activist Arvind Kejriwal dismissed suggestions that Hazare had invited Pawar to be part of his agitation for Lokpal Bill saying the "question does not arise".


Hazare backs Raj's tirade against Non-Marathis

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Hazare-backs-Raj-s-tirade-against-Non-Marathis/Article1-368036.aspx

Veteran social activist Anna Hazare backs Maharashtra Navnirmaan Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray's campaign against non-Marathi 'Dadagiri' (dominance) in Maharashtra, but opposes the violent means being used to achieve the purpose. The 71-year-old social activist expressed support for MNS's programme, while talking to journalists Saturday night after addressing students of the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) on 'Gram Swaraj and Experience in Ralegan', his native village in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra which he transformed into a model village through persistent efforts.

"Some ideas of Raj Thackeray were correct, but damaging public and national property was not right," Hazare said.

When asked which ideas of the MNS chief were correct, Hazare noted people from many states live in Maharashtra, but "outsiders trying to prove their dominance in the state was not at all acceptable".

In a reference to North India-based political parties like Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Janata Dal trying to show their strength in Maharashtra by holding rallies and other programmes in the state, he said such activities were not acceptable.

"They have ample space in their states to hold such programmes," he noted.

When asked to comment on attacks by MNS activists on students from Bihar who had gone to Mumbai to appear in railway recruitment exams, Hazare said: "I do not support everything Raj Thackeray does. If violent means are adopted by MNS, it will not be in interest of a united India."

"We need to work for unity of the country and not for its disintegration through violence against innocents," he added.

Mallika Sarabhai's Response to Hazare

http://www.facebook.com/soumik.dee#!/notes/shabnam-hashmi/mallika-sarabha-writes-to-anna-hazare/10150209532322597

Dear Annaji

We are deeply shocked by your endorsement of Narendra Modi's rural development. There has been little or no rural development in ths state. In fact gauchar lands and irrigated farmlands have been stealthily taken by the government and sold off at ridiculous prices to a small club of industrialists. There has been no Lokayukta in Gujarat for nearly seven years so hundreds of complaints against corruption are lying unheard. From the Sujalam Sufalam scam of 1700 crores to the NREGS boribund scam of 109 crores, the fisheries scam of 600 crores, every department is involved in thousands of crores of scams. The poor and rural peoiple are being sold to Modiu's friends the industrialists. The state is in terrible debt because of his largess to industry while 21 lakh farmers wait for compensation.

Your endorsement is apalling and we will be forced to distance ourselves from the Lokpal movement unless it is irrevocably retracted.

Sincerely

Mallika Sarabhai

11.4.2011

8.23am

Ethiopia at centre of global farmland rush

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/21/ethiopia-centre-global-farmland-rush

It's the deal of the century: £150 a week to lease more than 2,500 sq km (1,000 sq miles) of virgin, fertile land – an area the size of Dorset – for 50 years. Bangalore-based food company Karuturi Global says it had not even seen the land when it was offered by the Ethiopian government with tax breaks thrown in.

Karuturi snapped it up, and next year the company, one of the world's top 25 agri-businesses, will export palm oil, sugar, rice and other foods from Gambella province – a remote region near the Sudan border – to world markets.

Ethiopia is one of the world's largest recipients of humanitarian food and development assistance, last year receiving more than 700,000 tonnes of food and £1.8bn in aid, but it has offered three million hectares (7.4 million acres) of virgin land to foreign corporations such as Karuturi.

"It's very good land. It's quite cheap. In fact it is very cheap. We have no land like this in India," says Karmjeet Sekhon, project manager for what is expected to be one of Africa's largest farms. "There you are lucky to get 1% of organic matter in the soil. Here it is more than 5%. We don't need fertiliser or herbicides. There is absolutely nothing that will not grow on it.

"To start with there will be 20,000 hectares of oil palm, 15,000 hectares of sugar cane and 40,000 hectares of rice, edible oils and maize and cotton. We are building reservoirs, dykes, roads, towns of 15,000 people. "This is phase one. In three years time we will have 300,000 hectares cultivated and maybe 60,000 workers. We could feed a nation here."

Sparsely-populated Gambella is at the centre of the global rush for cheap land, precipitated by the oil price rise in 2007/2008, when many countries racked by food riots encouraged their farmers to invest abroad to grow food.

The lowest prices are in Africa, where, says the World Bank, at least 35 million hectares of land has been bought or leased. Other groups, including Friends of the Earth International, say the figure is higher. The Ethiopian government says 36 countries including India, China, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have leased farm land there.

Gambella has offered investors 1.1 million hectares, nearly a quarter of its best farmland, and 896 companies have come to the region in the last three years. They range from Saudi billionaire Al Amoudi, who is constructing a 20-mile canal to irrigate 10,000 hectares to grow rice, to Ethiopian businessmen who have plots of less than 200 hectares.

This month the concessions are being worked at a breakneck pace, with giant tractors and heavy machinery clearing trees, draining swamps and ploughing the land in time to catch the next growing season.

Forests across hundreds of square km are being clear-felled and burned to the dismay of locals and environmentalists concerned about the fate of the region's rich wildlife.

Local government officers have denied claims that people are being forcibly moved to make way for foreign companies.

"This year we will relocate 15,000 people to give them better access to water, schools and transport. [But] it is a coincidence that the investors are coming at the same time as the villages are being relocated," said Kassahun Zerrfu from Gambella's department for investment.

"We are not relocating people to give land to the investors. The problem is there is no infrastructure where they have lived. It's all voluntary."

Under the government's "villagisation" programme, three or four villages at a time are being moved closer to roads and services, but many people say they are not being compensated and are having to wait. "We were promised a school, a health clinic and fresh water eight months ago. We only have one water pump so far," said Udul Ujulu, chief of Karmi village, a new village of 250 people nine miles outside Gambella town.

Others displaced by new farms said they were scared for their lives if they complained. "What power do we have to stop them? We just stay silent," said one farmer told to move off his land.

"There is no movement of population. It's their choice to have these basic services. But they have to abandon their previous way of life," said farm minister Wondirad Mandefro.

Dr Abhay Bang: the revolutionary paediatrician

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2011/mar/20/dr-abhay-bang-revolutionary-paediatrician

Dr Abhay Bang does not look like a pioneer. He sits across the table in a London conference room, his posture slight and upright, his beard neatly trimmed. He is wearing a grey suit and tie, his hair brushed precisely to the right. And yet despite the conventional appearance, this is the man who has revolutionised healthcare for the poorest people in India and who has overseen a programme that has sent infant mortality rates plummeting in one of the most poverty-stricken areas of the world. Medical experts now believe that Dr Bang's radical beliefs hold the key to tackling the myriad endemic health problems that blight the developing word.

"I suppose my name might have something to do with the path I chose," he explains in rapid, accented English. "Abhay in Sanskrit means 'No fear.'" Dr Bang smiles. "'No fear of death.'"

It is a particularly fitting moniker for a man who has dedicated his life to turning medical orthodoxy on its head. Instead of accepting the traditional hospital-based treatment model, Dr Bang has spent the last 26 years training up local volunteers in Gadchiroli, one of the most deprived districts in the Indian state of Maharashtra, to treat simple maladies at home. The World Health Organisation and Unicef have recently endorsed his approach to treating newborn babies and the programme is currently being rolled out to parts of Africa.

But success has been a long time coming. When Dr Bang and his wife, Rani, set up the charity Search (Society for Education, Action and Research in Community Health) in Gadchiroli in 1985, their mission was simple. "We wanted to listen to the people," says Dr Bang. "What kind of healthcare did they want?"

Dr Bang, who had just graduated with a masters in public health at Johns Hopkins University in the US, started holding regular People's Health Assemblies were the local inhabitants could voice their concerns. Infant mortality emerged as one of the most pressing problems. In 1988, 121 newborn babies were dying out of every 1,000 births in the area. Dr Bang's solution was simple: he trained a group of local women in the basics of neonatal care.

They were taught how to diagnose pneumonia (using an abacus to count breaths), how to resuscitate children and how to administer some basic antibiotics. Instead of villagers having to walk for miles to get to the nearest hospital, these health visitors (called arogyadoots, which means "health messengers") went to where they were most needed, carrying a small health pack on their back. As more women were trained, they passed on their knowledge to others and, according to Dr Bang, entire communities became "empowered".

Anjana Uikey, 40, who was one of the first arogyadoots to be trained, says that the experience has been one of "enormous [personal] growth". "I'm being useful to the village and on a daily basis I have people who are grateful to me," she explains. "Now I get a lot of respect. Earlier, I was nobody and today the whole village knows my name."

The newborn death rate in Gadchiroli has now fallen to 30 per 1,000 live births. In 1988, the death rate here among children who developed pneumonia was 13%. With Dr Bang's intervention, it has come down to 0.8%. The figures have had an extraordinary impact on ordinary women such as Meena Dhit, 28, who delivered her second child – a daughter – at home with the help of health visitors. "It was very well done," says Meena. "These women handled it so well. There is a lot of difference from the old days. Now I feel there is the support for young mothers that my mother did not have. There is someone to take care of me. I have more confidence now and less to worry about."

"We are very MUCH part of the community," says Dr Bang, when we meet in London at the launch of No Child Born to Die, a global initiative by Save the Children to achieve a two-thirds reduction in child mortality. "I really can't say where the line of separation is between them and me. It is research with the people, not on the people."

As an idea, it might sound obvious, but for decades well-intentioned non-governmental organisations from the developed world had attempted to impose the western model of healthcare on rural India. In Dr Bang's eyes, that clearly wasn't working. "The villagers said they were scared to go to hospital," he says. "When we asked why, they told us something fascinating. They said: 'Your doctors and nurses drape themselves in white clothes. We wrap dead bodies in white shawls. How can you save lives if you are dressed like a dead person?' They said: 'When they admit a patient, we can only visit between 3pm and 6pm and we don't have wristwatches. We don't have anywhere to stay in town, so we go back to the village. The patient doesn't want to stay on their own."

Dr Bang's solution was to build a hospital consisting of a series of huts that looked like a tribal village so that patients could stay with their relatives. "To me, with my modern education, it looked old-fashioned," he admits. "But the people said: 'This hospital belongs to us.'"

For Dr Bang, it was the culmination of a lifelong dream. His father, a supporter of the Indian independence movement, was a devoted follower of Mahatma Gandhi and both Dr Bang and his brother Ashok grew up in Gandhi's ashram in Sabarmarti.

Dr Bang was heavily influenced by Gandhi's philosophy of "self-rule". "Gandhi had a vision of how society should be, of how India should be self-ruled," he says now. "But it was not only India that should be allowed to self-rule, it was every human being as well… I took inspiration from that and asked myself, 'How can individuals and communities become autonomous and independent with their own healthcare?'"

He remembers walking past a rural village at the age of 13 with his brother and seeing that the inhabitants didn't have enough food and were sick. "My brother said: 'I will improve agriculture when I'm older,' and I said: 'OK, I have no option but to improve their health.'" He emits a high-pitched giggle. Both brothers kept their promise – Ashok now works with farmers in central India while Dr Bang's wife, Rani, a contemporary from medical school, was swiftly co-opted to the healthcare cause.

"Her name in the Indian language means 'the Queen'," he says, eyes twinkling. "So I am an ex-officio king." Given that they live and work together under such intense conditions, do they ever argue? "Ooh don't ask me this! Now, at the age of 60, it has reduced. But when we were in our 30s, we were constantly arguing about the best way to do things."

Still, in spite of Search's impressive statistical results, the Bangs have been criticised in the past for allowing uneducated women to administer complex medical drugs. In response, Dr Bang insists that, so far, "our workers have given 15,000 injections. The rate of complication has been zero." The insistence that patients must be treated in "techno- centric" hospitals by western-trained physicians is, to his mind, simply not viable in rural India, where lack of transport and an inability to pay for treatment often mean that sick people stay away. "I think this view is, to say it mildly, impractical and to say it forcefully, it's an imperialistic way of thinking. What is do-able in Boston is not do-able in Gadchiroli… Needs are different in different societies."

But although he has saved countless lives, Dr Bang remains plagued by the memory of a single baby he could not help. "It was one of the turning points, before the hospital we constructed had been built," he recalls. "One rainy season, it was pouring outside and it was dark. I was relaxing in the evening after a day's work. Suddenly somebody knocked on my door. It was a young woman carrying a tiny child. The child was skin and bones. I held the baby up as there was no examination table and started examining him. He was malnourished and had severe dehydration and pneumonia. Within minutes of arriving at that diagnosis, the baby stopped breathing. I couldn't do anything.

"The woman had come from a village 4km away. I asked her: 'Why didn't you come earlier?'"

She replied by telling Dr Bang her story: her husband was an alcoholic and spent all his earnings on drink. During pregnancy, she had not eaten because of an ingrained tribal belief that if she did, it would make the baby too heavy to deliver. She developed malaria while pregnant, but there was no money to buy drugs to treat her. When the baby was born, she fed him diluted milk. Then when the baby fell sick, she took him to a witch doctor who sacrificed a chicken for 200 rupees. When that didn't work, she started walking to Dr Bang but a river that lay across her path had swollen and burst its banks. She could not cross because there was no bridge: the government had promised to build one, but it had been lying incomplete for months. So the woman slept rough overnight before resuming her journey the next day, when the water levels had fallen.

"I felt very miserable when she told me this story," says Dr Bang. "That baby died because of many factors: poverty, a wrong belief system, an alcoholic husband and corruption, because the bridge had not been constructed [by the government]. I felt terribly hopeless.

"But then I looked at the whole situation and asked myself: 'Do I really need to solve all the problems, all the links in the chain of this cause of death?' I started to think: 'Where is the weakest link I can attack?' and that was access to healthcare." He falls silent for a moment. "It was practical compassion, not a flash of genius."

And in a world where eight million children a year continue to die before they reach their fifth birthday, perhaps it is Dr Bang's practical compassion that offers the best hope of some kind of solution. Until then, the memory of that woman and her baby haunts him still.

bornto.savethechildren.org.uk

A Dangerous first

Nitin Sethi, TNN, Feb 3, 2011, 11.58pm IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/developmental-issues/A-Dangerous-first/articleshow/7421256.cms

The biggest casualty in giving the go-ahead to the single biggest FDI project – Posco – has been the Forest Rights Act.

Till date, the triumvirate of tigerwallahs, industry lobbies and forest bureaucracy were the only ones seen opposed to it. But Congress backed it, using it when the occasion arose in the Vedanta-Niyamgiri case to give Rahul Gandhi the pro-tribal makeover. Jairam Ramesh evoked the provisions of the act, besides other regulations, to shut down Vedanta's aluminium plant in Orissa. The Congress scion flew into the Biju Janta Dal citadel to claim the mantel of "the protector of tribals" and their voice in Delhi.

But with Posco, the UPA government has shown that beyond the political mileage it may get out of the legislation, it can also jettison forest rights out of the way when required.

The act has simple but powerful provisions intended to change the way forestlands are alienated from tribals and those who have traditionally used them. Forestlands are to be handed back to their traditional users – tribals – but also others who have used it for three generations or more. The lands cannot be taken away before their rights are ascertained and then bought by the state government. Crucial to this is the mechanism by which it occurs. The village council is given quasi-judicial powers in the process and in many ways it becomes the key authority – a first in Indian history.

To ensure that the Union environment and forests ministry's forest clearance process was in alignment with these new regulations, Ramesh passed a critical order in August 2009. The ministry would not give a forest clearance – handing the land to project developers – until the state government provided proof that the village council agreed with the takeover of its forests and that all rights had been settled in the area.

Orissa's administration, but not the affected village councils, claimed that it had verified and found that no one had rights in the forestland demarcated for Posco. After violence at the site and complaints from protesters, the Centre sent a committee to review the case.

The Orissa government had done little to identify people who had rights in the forests being handed over, said the four-member committee. In fact they had done much to deny rights to these claimants, said three of the four members.

The environment ministry's statutory Forest Advisory Committee too found that the Orissa government had not provided the requisite evidence under the August 2009 order to show it had met the provisions of the Act. Orissa had instead questioned the very validity of the order.

All three recommended that Posco be denied the forest clearance till the state government adheres to the regulations.

Ramesh disregarded the opinion of his appointed experts.

He instead asked Orissa to give an assurance that no one could claim rights over the forestland. Orissa had already given such an assurance a year ago. But, there is no such provision in the Forest Rights Act for an overriding assurance from the state. The village council is the only body that could have given the nod for diversion of forestland.

One may conjecture that the UPA found a greater economic trade-off in allowing the project that intends to export high-grade iron ore from the country besides producing steel. But the damage caused in pushing it through will reflect on all future cases of forest clearances – and there are hundreds in the pipeline.

Every project developer can now ask for similar favours from the government. The forest bureaucracy and industry was against the August 2009 order of the environment ministry. Now it has been dumped without being revoked. The states may never need to give evidence that they acted legally. They can get away with an assurance, even if it flies in the face of proof.

Aside: it is worthwhile to note that not many self-claimed defenders of forests – the wildlife lobbies – have stood up to oppose this either.

Posco clearance: Govt to wait & watch on mining, MoU issues Read more: Posco clearance: Govt to wait & watch on mining, MoU issues - The Times of Ind

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhubaneswar/Posco-clearance-Govt-to-wait-watch-on-mining-MoU-issues/articleshow/7400073.cms

BHUBANESWAR: Enthused over the Centre's nod to Posco's mega steel plant, the Orissa government on Monday said it would soon resume land acquisition work at the project site, but preferred a wait-and-watch approach on issues like mining and MoU renewal delaying fruition of India s biggest foreign direct investment.

"We welcome the decision and thank Union environment and forests minister Jairam Ramesh for granting approval, although the process got delayed," steel and mines minister Raghunath Mohanty said. "Posco project is important not only for Orissa but for the country as it will provide employment and spur economic activities. We will begin the land acquisition process as soon as possible," he added.

The state government was forced to halt land acquisition for the 12 billion USD project in August following a central government s stop-work order on grounds of violation of Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006.

Ramesh announced environment clearance for the South Korean company's proposed steel and captive port projects near Paradeep in Jagatsinghpur district, but sought Orissa government's assurance that those claiming dependence on or cultivating land in the project area cannot be categorized as "other traditional forest dwellers" under FRA before it can give final nod for diversion of 1253 hectares of forest land for Posco project.

Posco's bid to access the Khandadhar iron ore reserves in Sunergarh district, around 600 km from the proposed 12 million tonne per annum-capacity steel facility site, is also pending before the Supreme Court.

Possibly keeping these in mind, CM Naveen Patnaik reacted to the development with caution. "It is good news," said Naveen, hours after Ramesh declared his decision in Delhi. "We will take appropriate action," Naveen replied to queries from journalists on when the state government would renew its memorandum of understanding with the company. The state government on June 22, 2005, signed with Posco a MoU valid for five years.

Senior government officers said Ramesh gave the green signal as he did not have "much option", but sounded caution about the Posco project becoming a reality. "A positive step has been taken. But there are a few other issues, most importantly mining, which need to resolved before the project can materialize," a senior government officer said.

Paradeep MLA and minister Damodar Rout attributed the controversy over forest law violations to "wrongful recording of forest land" and said people who cultivated betel vines on government land will be adequately compensated. The administration has identified 1877 people growing betel vines for their livelihood on 304 acres of government land. It had paid compensation to 96 of the farmers and retrieved around 11 acres of land.

Posco welcomed Ramesh's decision and said it appreciated the concerns of stakeholders on sustainability of environment and livelihood of affected people. "We are committed to take sustainable green initiatives and effective measures for conserving the land and marine environment of the area. We are also committed to create sustainable livelihood opportunities for the project affected people by implementing the R&R (rehabilitation and resettlement) package sincerely," it said, adding, "We will continue to work for welfare of the local community and plough back part of our earnings for CSR (corporate social responsibility) after operations commence."


Read more: Posco clearance: Govt to wait & watch on mining, MoU issues - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhubaneswar/Posco-clearance-Govt-to-wait-watch-on-mining-MoU-issues/articleshow/7400073.cms#ixzz1Ci4lGcUV

Gazan youth issue manifesto to vent their anger with all sides in the conflict

The manifesto

"Fuck Hamas. Fuck Israel. Fuck Fatah. Fuck UN. Fuck UNWRA. Fuck USA! We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community!

"We want to scream and break this wall of silence, injustice and indifference like the Israeli F16s breaking the wall of sound; scream with all the power in our souls in order to release this immense frustration that consumes us because of this fucking situation we live in...

"We are sick of being caught in this political struggle; sick of coal-dark nights with airplanes circling above our homes; sick of innocent farmers getting shot in the buffer zone because they are taking care of their lands; sick of bearded guys walking around with their guns abusing their power, beating up or incarcerating young people demonstrating for what they believe in; sick of the wall of shame that separates us from the rest of our country and keeps us imprisoned in a stamp-sized piece of land; sick of being portrayed as terrorists, home-made fanatics with explosives in our pockets and evil in our eyes; sick of the indifference we meet from the international community, the so-called experts in expressing concerns and drafting resolutions but cowards in enforcing anything they agree on; we are sick and tired of living a shitty life, being kept in jail by Israel, beaten up by Hamas and completely ignored by the rest of the world.

"There is a revolution growing inside of us, an immense dissatisfaction and frustration that will destroy us unless we find a way of canalising this energy into something that can challenge the status quo and give us some kind of hope.

"We barely survived the Operation Cast Lead, where Israel very effectively bombed the shit out of us, destroying thousands of homes and even more lives and dreams. During the war we got the unmistakable feeling that Israel wanted to erase us from the face of the Earth. During the last years, Hamas has been doing all they can to control our thoughts, behaviour and aspirations. Here in Gaza we are scared of being incarcerated, interrogated, hit, tortured, bombed, killed. We cannot move as we want, say what we want, do what we want.

"ENOUGH! Enough pain, enough tears, enough suffering, enough control, limitations, unjust justifications, terror, torture, excuses, bombings, sleepless nights, dead civilians, black memories, bleak future, heart-aching present, disturbed politics, fanatic politicians, religious bullshit, enough incarceration! WE SAY STOP! This is not the future we want! We want to be free. We want to be able to live a normal life. We want peace. Is that too much to ask?"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/02/free-gaza-youth-manifesto-palestinian

Members of Hamas's security forces on escort duty. A group of young Gazans say they are fed up with Hamas and 'sick of bearded guys with guns'. Photograph: Mohammed Salem/Reuters

The meeting takes place in a bare room in a block of flats in the centre ofGaza City. No photographs, no real names – those are the conditions.

This is the first time that a group of young Palestinian cyber-activists has agreed to meet a journalist since launching what it calls Gaza Youth's Manifesto for Change. It is an incendiary document – written with courage and furious energy – that has captivated thousands of people who have come across it online, and the young university students are visibly excited, but also scared. "Not only are our lives in danger; we are also putting our families at risk," says one of them, who calls himself Abu George.

Gaza Youth's Manifesto for Change is an extraordinary, impassioned cyber-scream in which young men and women from Gaza – where more than half the 1.5 million population is under 18 – make it clear that they've had enough. "Fuck Hamas..." begins the text. "Fuck Israel. FuckFatah. Fuck UN. Fuck UNWRA. Fuck USA! We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community!"

It goes on to detail the daily humiliations and frustrations that constitute everyday life in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian slice of land that Israel and Egypt have virtually sealed off from the world since Hamas was elected to power in 2006.

"Here in Gaza we are scared of being incarcerated, interrogated, hit, tortured, bombed, killed," reads the extraordinary document. "We are afraid of living, because every single step we take has to be considered and well-thought, there are limitations everywhere, we cannot move as we want, say what we want, do what we want, sometimes we even can't think what we want because the occupation has occupied our brains and hearts so terrible that it hurts and it makes us want to shed endless tears of frustration and rage!"

The text ends with a triple demand: "We want three things. We want to be free. We want to be able to live a normal life. We want peace. Is that too much to ask?"

On Facebook, the group calls itself Gaza Youth Breaks Out. When the cyber-activists wrote the manifesto three weeks ago, they gave themselves a year to gather enough support before thinking about further steps. But their text has travelled around the world at an unexpected speed and has harvested thousands of supporters, many of them human rights activists, who say they are ready to help.

Now, the authors are dealing with the impact of a document that could be a turning point in the life of the Strip. "We did not expect this to be so big," one of them admits. Eight people – three women and five men – wrote the text. They are normal students, from the more secular elements of Gazan society. All declare themselves to be non-political and disgusted with the tensions and rivalries that divide Palestinians between Hamas, the rulers of Gaza, and Fatah, the more secular party which governs the Palestinian Authority, based in the West Bank. "Politics is bollocks, it is screwing our lives up," said one member of the group. "Politicians only care about money and about their supporters. The Israelis are the only ones benefiting from the division."

Two of the group have been detained by the Gazan authorities several times, accused among other crimes of "immoral" behaviour. They say that they have been abused in jail and claim that physical and psychological punishment is commonplace in Gaza's detention centres.

Another one obtained a scholarship to attend a workshop at an American university, but he says Israel did not issue a permit that would allow him to leave the Strip.

"We are supposed to be the engine of change in this society, but our voices are muted. In the press, at university, there is no room in our society to talk freely, out of the frame, without putting yourself and your family at risk," says one, who wants to be called Abu Yazan. He adds: "In Gaza, you feel watched at school, in the streets, everywhere. You can be thrown into jail at any time. [Hamas] will threaten you with ruining your family reputation and that would be it."

These youngsters do not represent anybody except themselves, but their call for change has resonated strongly, not only abroad but also inside Gaza. Their Facebook page already has thousands of friends – including, they say, many from the Strip.

The causes of frustration are legion. The Israeli blockade forbids Gazans to travel in and out of the Strip without a permit, which is difficult to obtain. For Gazan students who wish to study abroad, the most difficult part is not being accepted at a foreign university or getting a scholarship, but simply being able to travel.

Inside the Strip, things do not get much better. Israeli shelling which follows the launching of rockets into Israel by Palestinian militants is part of their everyday life. Power cuts and ruinous sanitary conditions are among the side-effects of the embargo suffered by Gaza's inhabitants.

With high unemployment in the Strip and little access to other job markets after graduation, many feel that they have reached a dead end. Some keep studying and accumulating degrees and foreign languages, which they learn via the internet, hoping for better days to come. Others kill their time smoking hookahs with their friends day after day. There is an increasing number who rely on drugs to cope with their conflict traumas and frustrations.

Going out, meeting friends in cafés – let alone clubs or discotheques – or attending cultural events has become an increasingly complicated task as Hamas cracks down on western "decadence".

In Gaza there are no theatres and few concerts aside from the Islamic musical performances organised by the Hamas authorities. In the places where young men and women are allowed to meet, considered an "oasis" by the less conservative youth, the police are quick to interrogate mixed couples suspected of not being married or engaged.

The "last straw" for the writers of the Gaza manifesto came a month ago, when Hamas closed Sharek, an internationally financed organisation offering training and summer activities for thousands of adolescents and young people. Sharek had also became a hang-out place for the more liberal-minded in Gaza. Human Rights Watch recently issued a statement condemning its closure. "Hamas authorities in Gaza should allow an organisation that helps children and youth to reopen, and penalise officials who have harassed its workers," it said.

According to Ihab Al Ghusain, a spokesman for the Hamas Ministry of the Interior, the problems highlighted by Gaza's disaffected youth are sometimes the result of over-zealous officials. "There are no laws prohibiting men and women sitting together in public places in Gaza," he said. "But some policemen at their own initiative interrogate the couples. Those policemen should be punished."

He says that proof of the government's commitment to Gaza's young generation is that it has declared 2011 the Year for the Youth. But the authors of the youth manifesto are unlikely to be persuaded by such symbolic initiatives. The group is currently investing most of its time and energy in debating new strategies to pursue a web-based platform for change. The new year may yet become one for the youth of the Strip, but perhaps not in the way Hamas intended.