Dear Friend,
An estimated $150 billion of stolen money has been smuggled out of Iraq in corrupt deals since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iraqi President Barham Salih said Sunday.
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$150 billion of oil money has been stolen from Iraq since the US-led invasion of 2003
by Countercurrents Collective
An estimated $150 billion of stolen money has been smuggled out of Iraq in corrupt
deals since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iraqi President Barham Salih said Sunday.
An estimated $150 billion of stolen money has been smuggled out of Iraq in corrupt deals since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iraqi President Barham Salih said Sunday.
CNN and The New Arab reports said:
“Of the close to a thousand billion dollars made from oil since 2003, an estimated $150 billion of stolen money has been smuggled out of Iraq,” Salih said in a televised speech.
The statement came as the Iraqi President submitted a draft Corrupt Funds Recovery Act to the Iraqi Parliament.
“The draft law seeks to strengthen the powers of Iraqi nation in order to recover money stolen in corrupt deals, to hold corrupt people accountable and bring them to justice,” according to Salih.
He urged Iraqi lawmakers to discuss and approve the proposed legislation “to help curb this dangerous scourge that has deprived our people of enjoying the wealth of their country for many years.”
Salih said the stolen money would be enough to significantly improve Iraq’s finances.
According to Salih, the legislation would seek to recover the misappropriated funds through the cooperation of other governments and in partnership with international bodies.
“Here I reiterate Iraq’s call, which we have previously issued at the United Nations General Assembly, for the formation of an international coalition to fight corruption along the lines of the international coalition against ISIS,” Salih said.
Salih said the challenge of corruption is no less dangerous than terrorism.
“Terrorism can only be eliminated by draining its sources of funding based on corruption money as a political economy of violent,” Salih added.
Since 2019, hundreds of people have died in violent protests across Iraq against government corruption, unemployment and a lack of basic services, including electricity and clean water, as the country has failed to achieve stability following decades of sanctions and war.
The Biden administration is eying an eventual withdrawal of US troops from Iraq as the country’s security forces grow more capable and the threat of ISIS wanes, the two countries announced in a joint statement in April.
The US currently has some 2,500 troops in Iraq focused on the mission to defeat ISIS as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the global coalition to defeat what remains of the ISIS caliphate that controlled parts of Iraq and Syria.
The troops have now shifted to training and advisory tasks, “thereby allowing the for the redeployment of any remaining forces from Iraq,” the joint US-Iraq statement said.
Salih presented the draft law to parliament to fight corruption, recover stolen funds and hold perpetrators to account, a statement read.
He called “on parliament to adopt this crucial piece of legislation, in order to curb this pervasive practice that has plagued our great nation.”
Transparency International ranks the country 21st from bottom in its Corruption Perceptions Index.
Endemic corruption was one of the drivers of protests that shook Iraq from October 2019 to June 2020.
“Corruption is an impediment to any nation’s economic and social development,” the Iraqi head of state said, whose powers are limited under the constitution.
Salih said violence and terrorism, which have plagued Iraq for years, “are deeply intertwined with the phenomenon of corruption.”
The draft law targets those who have held positions of director general and above in both government and public companies since the establishment of a new regime in 2004.
Under the law, transactions over $500,000 would be scrutinized as well as bank accounts, particularly those that held over $1 million, and contracts or investments obtained through corruption would be cancelled.
But security and politics expert Fadel Abo Ragheef was skeptical the law would be passed.
“It’s certainly one of the best pieces of legislation proposed by the executive branch since 2003. But will it be adopted? I doubt it,” he told AFP.
“The political parties the lawmakers belong to will act to sabotage it, so it doesn’t pass,” he said.
“In public they will support it, but behind the scenes, they will do everything to prevent its adoption, because many of the politicians are involved in this racket.”
An Iraqi banking source said politicians have smuggled $60 billion out of the country.
However, much of that was via Lebanon, a move now likely to their detriment, as the country is mired in a severe economic crisis, and it is almost impossible to get money out of its banks.
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The Social Responsibility of Scientists
by John Scales Avery
We must educate our scientists in such a way that the acquisition of a sense of social responsibility will be part of their education. The latest book by John Scales Avery.
Australian ABC Airs Former US Ambassador Adumbrating Total Expulsion Of Occupied Palestinians
by Dr Gideon Polya
The Australian ABC (the taxpayer-funded Australian equivalent of the UK BBC) has recently aired a former US ambassador to Apartheid Israel and the UN rejecting all present Palestine-Israel peace proposals as too hard, and his foreshadowing of a total expulsion of all the Occupied Palestinians from Palestine in coming years. No dissent
was offered by the ABC nor any Help Line referral for genocide-impacted people. What has the Zionist-subverted West come to?
The Australian ABC (the taxpayer-funded Australian equivalent of the UK BBC) has recently aired a former US ambassador to Apartheid Israel and the UN rejecting all present Palestine-Israel peace proposals as too hard, and his foreshadowing of a total expulsion of all the Occupied Palestinians from Palestine in coming years. No dissent was offered by the ABC nor any Help Line referral for genocide-impacted people. What has the Zionist-subverted West come to?
I have made a formal complaint to the ABC in a detailed Letter that is reproduced below. My letter is being copied to Australian MPs and to Australian and world-wide journalists, scholars and humanitarian activists. Please inform everyone you can. Only global exposure and resolute global action can address this ever-worsening human rights atrocity in Palestine. The world must insist on Palestinian human rights and “Free Palestine”, and back that insistence with Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against genocidally racist Apartheid Israel and all its supporters.
LETTER. Complaints, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
Dear Sir/Madam,
Complaint: Australian ABC airs US-adumbrated Palestinian Genocide
Coverage by the Australian ABC of the latest Gaza Massacre by US-backed Apartheid Israel is appalling, racist and dishonest but reached a new low with the ABC airing of a former US ambassador’s rejection of all present proposals as too hard, and his foreshadowing of an expulsion of all the Occupied Palestinians. The various elements of my complaint are numbered for your convenience. This continuing, highly offensive reportage by the ABC requires immediate acknowledgment. comprehensive apology and profound institutional rectification.
(1). Tom Pickering (a former US Ambassador to Apartheid Israel and the UN) adumbrating total genocide by expulsion of Occupied Palestinians when asked by the Australian ABC interviewer about the future of Palestine-Israel and the 2-state solution (2021): “The Palestinians who clearly suffered a 20 to 1 death rate and who clearly are vastly overwhelmed by the Israelis in terms of military power… I think it is an extremely high mountain to cross… It doesn’t appear there is a 1 state solution to this problem and there is no multiple state outcome to this problem… Israel for a very long period of time under Netanyahu has kind of narrowed down the goal for the Palestinians to something like 20% of what is currently believed to have been the Palestinian state under the 2 state solution [i.e. to 4.4% of Palestine] … And if in fact there is no agreement and the status quo is continued with interruptions for violence as we have seen, it is quite possible that over years – and I am talking about a long time – you will see a removal of Palestinians from the West Bank and quite possibly Gaza to other parts of the world and a no-state solution if I can put it that way. Israel triumphant covering it all” (“Israel-Palestine conflict: eyes on peace options as Gaza truce holds”, ABC Radio National Breakfast, 24 May 2021: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/eyes-on-peace-options-as-gaza-truce-holds/13356188 ).
(2). Wikipedia on the genocidal Nazi Madagascar Plan for the expulsion and relocation of the Jews of Europe: “[Franz] Rademacher [head of the Jewish Department of the German Foreign Office] recommended on 3 June 1940 that Madagascar should be made available as a destination for the Jews of Europe. With Adolf Hitler’s approval, Adolf Eichmann released a memorandum on 15 August 1940 calling for the resettlement of a million Jews per year for four years, with the island being governed as a police state under the SS. They assumed that many Jews would succumb to its harsh conditions should the plan be implemented. The plan was not viable due to the British naval blockade. It was postponed after the Nazis lost the Battle of Britain in September 1940, and it was permanently shelved in 1942 with the commencement of the Final Solution, the policy of systematic genocide of Jews, towards which it had functioned as an important psychological step” (“Madagascar Plan”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar_Plan ).
(3). Article 2 of the UN Convention on the Crime and Punishment of Genocide (the UN Genocide Convention) states: “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” (“UN Convention on the Crime and Punishment of Genocide”, 1948: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ).
(4). The ongoing Palestinian Genocide by Zionists and Apartheid Israel has been associated so far with 2.2 million Palestinian deaths from violence, 0.1 million, and from imposed deprivation, 2.1 million, since the British with Australian assistance invaded the Middle East in 1914 for oil and imperial hegemony. The ongoing Palestinian Genocide and the ongoing Australian Aboriginal Genocide are similar in terms of perpetrator “intent” , the overall death toll, and the ratio of violent deaths to non-violent, avoidable deaths from deprivation and disease. Indeed the present life expectancy gap between Occupied Palestinians and their Israeli Occupiers is about 10 years, the same as between Indigenous Australians and non-Indigenous Australians (“Palestinian Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/ ; “Aboriginal Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/aboriginalgenocide/ ; and Chapter 16, Gideon Polya, “US-imposed Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide”, 400 pages, Korsgaard Publishing Germany, 2020: https://www.amazon.com.au/US-Imposed-Post-9-Muslim-Holocaust-Genocide/dp/8793987048 ).
(5). Humanitarian and Palestinian perspectives on a peaceful solution for Palestine-Israel: While Tom Pickering sees no solution to the Palestine-Israel “problem”, for anti-racist humanitarians and Palestinians the solutions are obvious and readily achievable (full Palestinian human rights, end the Occupation, and full observance of International Law notably in relation to the Return of 8 million Exiled Palestinians). However humane and just solutions are prevented by the intractable genocidal racism of the Zionist colonizers who want all the land of Palestine (plus more) but not the Indigenous Palestinian inhabitants. The ethnic cleansing of 90% of Palestine means that a 2 state solution is dead. The present vile situation is a one-state Apartheid reality as perceived recently by both Human Rights Watch and the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem (but not reported by the Zionist-subverted ABC). The Subjects of Apartheid Israel total 14.3 million comprising 6.8 million Jewish Israelis (48%), 7.1 million Indigenous Palestinians (50%), 0.4 million non-Arab non-Jewish Israelis, 1.9 million Palestinian Israelis (Third Class citizens under over 60 race-based, Nazi-style discriminatory laws), and 5.2 million Occupied Palestinians (73% of Apartheid Israel’s Indigenous Palestinian Subjects, with zero human rights and excluded from voting for the government ruling them i.e. subject to egregious Apartheid). There are also 8 million mostly impoverished Exiled Palestinians excluded on pain of death from the multi-millennial homeland continuously inhabited by their forebears until the genocidal Zionist invasion, ethnic cleansing and colonization. The per capita GDP is a deadly $3,400 for Occupied Palestinians as compared to $46,400 for Israelis. The ABC falsely reports on The Drum that applying the term “Apartheid” to Israel is “inflammatory” (Friday 21 May 2021: https://iview.abc.net.au/show/drum ). Numerous humane opinions indicate that secular democracy and human rights for all is eminently possible in Palestine as in post-Apartheid South Africa ( “One-state solution, unitary state, bi-national state for a democratic, equal rights, post-apartheid Palestine: https://sites.google.com/site/boycottapartheidisrael/one-state-solution ) e.g.
Mai Saif (Palestinian Australian activist) (2021): “Unfortunately, the way things are pitched is just as a very complicated issue. It is not. We live under Occupation. We have the powerful and the powerless, and they control the story”.
Yassmin Abdel-Magied (Australian Muslim journalist nationally vilified, censored, sacked by the ABC and driven out of Australia for posting the following 7 words on Facebook) (2017): “Lest we forget (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine)” (for a detailed and documented amplification see Gideon Polya, “Yassmin Abdel-Magied censored on Anzac Day – jingoists trash Australian free speech” , Countercurrents, 28 April 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/04/yassmin-abdel-magied-censored-on-anzac-day-jingoists-trash-australian-free-speech/ ).
Professor Rima Najjar (a Palestinian activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, Occupied West Bank) (2018): “As Dr Gideon Polya eloquently put it in “Palestinian Me Too: 140 Alphabetically-listed Zionist Crimes Expose Appalling Western Complicity & Hypocrisy”: “A peaceful , humane solution that would be of enormous benefit to all the world, to all the Jewish Israelis and to all the Indigenous Palestinians, would be a unitary state in Palestine with return of all refugees, zero tolerance for racism, equal rights for all, all human rights for all, one-person-one-vote, justice, goodwill, reconciliation, airport-level security, nuclear weapons removal, internationally-guaranteed national security initially based on the present armed forces, and untrammelled access for all citizens to all of the Holy Land. It can and should happen tomorrow””.
(6). Anti-racist Jewish and non-Jewish Australian perspectives on the ongoing Palestinian Genocide: I come from one of Hungary’s most famous Jewish families (ask any mathematician or surgeon). To my knowledge only a dozen of my wider family survived the WW2 Jewish Holocaust in Hungary in 1944-1945. In both ethnically cleansed Palestine after the Nakba (800,000 Indigenous Palestinians expelled and over 500 villages emptied), and in post-war Hungary after liberation by the heroic Russians (200,000 out of 700,000 Jewish Hungarians killed by the Nazis), the property of the killed and exiled was seized by the state.
Lest we forget the core moral messages of the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million killed), the “forgotten” WW2 European Holocaust of which it was a part (30 million Slavs, Jews and Gypsies killed), the “forgotten” WW2 Chinese Holocaust (35-40 million Chinese perished under the Japanese in 1937-1945) , and the “forgotten” WW2 Bengali Holocaust ( 6-7 million Indians deliberately starved to death by the British with Australian complicity for strategic reasons in Bengal, Odisha, Bihar and Assam in 1942-1945) – specifically, “zero tolerance for racism”, “bear witness”, “zero tolerance for lying” and “never again to anyone”.
I am a scientist, writer, author, artist, Humanist and humanitarian activist, an academic teacher for 4 decades, and the author of over 100 scientific papers, about 20 chapters in books, and of 8 huge, science- and humanity-informed books (the latest being presently edited by the commissioning European publisher). Yet as a result of my sole allegiance to the land of my birth, Australia, and my inescapable obligation to “zero tolerance for racism”, “bear witness”, “zero tolerance for lying” and “never again to anyone”, for the last dozen years I have been rendered effectively “invisible” in Australia through false defamation by racist and traitorous Zionists (documented) and very likely through Zionist US-beholden Australian Intelligence and Mainstream media gate-keepers.
I am not alone. Anti-racist Jewish and non-Jewish Australians with a sole allegiance to Australia and critical of racist Zionism, and Apartheid Israel’s ongoing Palestinian Genocide are routinely falsely defamed as “racist” and “anti-Semites” by traitorous Zionists with a fervent allegiance to a nuclear terrorist, racist Zionist-run, genocidally racist, serial war criminal, grossly human rights-abusing and democracy-by-genocide Apartheid Israel. Anti-racist Jewish Australians critical of Apartheid Israel and the ongoing Palestinian Genocide also attract the additional false defamations that they are “self-hating Jews” or “self-loathing Jews” (with this false obscenity being disgracefully aired by the Zionist-infested, Zionist-perverted and Zionist-subverted ABC).
This false defamation of anti-racist Jewish and non-Jewish Australians has stepped up with the adoption by both the governing Coalition and the Labor Opposition of the false, anti-Arab anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, anti-Jewish anti-Semitic, genocide- and holocaust- ignoring and genocide- and holocaust-denying International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Definition of Anti-Semitism. The IHRA Definition slimily and falsely suggests that Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, anti-racist Jews and indeed all anti-racists critical of racist Zionism, Apartheid Israel and the ongoing Palestinian Genocide are anti-Semitic. The IHRA Definition was used to destroy outstanding, anti-racist UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, emasculated the British Labour Party, and has been condemned by over 40 anti-racist Jewish groups around the world. The countries of the IHRA are overwhelmingly European pro-nuclear holocaust states including those of the genocidally racist Anglosphere (the US, UK, Canada and Australia) and NATO countries (with many complicit in the WW2 Jewish Holocaust) (Gideon Polya, “US-backed IHRA Definition Of Antisemitism Is Anti-Arab Anti-Semitic & Anti-Jewish Anti-Semitic”, Boycott Apartheid Israel, 9 March 2021: https://sites.google.com/site/boycottapartheidisrael/2021-03-09 ).
This false and vile defamation of anti-racist Jewish and non-Jewish Australians by traitorous racist Zionists and by their US-beholden Coalition and Labor supporters is in gross violation of the spirit of Section 44 of the Australian Constitution that states (my emphasis in bold): “44. Any person who – (i.) Is under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or citizen of a foreign power: or…shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives”.
Under an extreme right-wing, war criminal and climate criminal Coalition Government, US lackey Australia is second only to the US as a fervent supporter of Apartheid Israel and hence of Apartheid that is condemned as a crime against Humanity by the UN Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. Indeed eminent Australian human rights lawyer Professor Gillian Triggs has observed that the Coalition “is ideologically opposed to human rights”. Politicians and their followers who support Apartheid Israel and hence the utterly evil crime of Apartheid are unfit for public life in a one-person-one-vote democracy like Australia. Decent Australians have no choice but to utterly reject the pro-Apartheid Coalition, vote 1 Green and put the Coalition last.
Zionism was always genocidally racist by frank admission from Zionist leaders from its racist psychopath founder Theodor Herzl (related to my non-Zionist Jewish Hungarian great-great grandmother) to the serial war criminal, genocidally racist and present Apartheid Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu who stated (1989): “Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in China, when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories” (“Zionist quotes re racism and Palestinian Genocide”, Palestinian Genocide : https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/zionist-quotes ).
Zionism is genocidal racism and Nazism without gas chambers, and one can argue that the Zionist-subverted Australian Coalition, Labor, Mainstream media and the taxpayer-funded ABC urgently need de-Nazification. Silence is complicity, and lying by omission is far, far worse than repugnant lying by commission because the latter at least permits public refutation and public debate. Indeed the ABC coverage of the latest Gaza Massacre has been so biased, cowardly, racist and remorselessly untruthful that the ABC foreign affairs reportage and associated budget should be immediately transferred to the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) which has vastly better foreign affairs reportage.
The massive ABC support for the genocidally racist Zionist agenda soils the ABC, decent ABC journalists, anti-racist Jewish Australians, Australia, and indeed the whole world. It also has the potential for massive harm to Australia as decent people throughout the world increasingly adopt Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Apartheid Israel and all people, politicians, parties, collectives, companies and countries complicit in this vile and genocidally racist aberration (“Boycott Apartheid Israel”: https://sites.google.com/site/boycottapartheidisrael/ ).
(7). Reductio ad absurdum re the latest Gaza Massacre and ABC lying by omission: It is estimated from Israeli homicide data that on average some 11 Israelis are murdered by fellow Israelis each month (a very low rate on an international comparative basis) and in the last month Gaza rockets have killed 12 Israelis, but the Israeli air force is not bombing Tel Aviv in reprisals. Instead the serial war criminal and Orwellianly-named Israel Defence Force (IDF) has killed 248 Palestinians , including 66 children, with more than 1,900 people wounded from Israeli air and artillery attacks on the densely populated Gaza Concentration Camp; 58,000 Palestinians have been rendered homeless; and goodness knows how many will die avoidably in coming months and years from their injuries and from deadly deprivation due to massive damage to homes, hospitals, clinics and other key infrastructure.
(8). Formal complaint to the Australian ABC: The taxpayer-funded Australian ABC has widely aired (without honesty, sensitivity, respect, dissociation, distancing, query, contradiction, balance, refutation, apology or even a Help Line referral to genocide-impacted people) a former US Ambassador to Apartheid Israel and the UN dismissing as too hard 1-, 2- or multiple-state solutions for Palestine-Israel, and adumbrating total genocide of the Occupied Palestinians through mass expulsion in a “no state solution”. This grossly defective and highly offensive reportage by the ABC requires immediate acknowledgment, comprehensive apology and profound rectification by the ABC and the Federal Government.
Yours sincerely, Dr Gideon Polya, Melbourne, Australia, 26 May 2021.
CC. Australian MPs and Australian and world-wide journalists, scholars and humanitarian activists. END LETTER.
Dr Gideon Polya taught science students at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia over 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, notably a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds”. He has also published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” and “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History”. He has recently published “US-imposed Post-9-11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide” (2020) and “Climate Crisis, Climate Genocide & Solutions” (2021). For images of Gideon Polya’s huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/ .
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The Hell of the Same: Capitalism Breaks Down and Homogenizes Life, Disconnects the Past, Present and Future
by John Stanton
Capitalism has little time for sub-surface thought, for depth. It is all about how fast one can consume, as Han indicates in his book. One is trained in the capitalist system and subsequently pushed into the ruthless routine of consumption and competition with all humans beings encountered through life’s assembly line.
Reflections On Women And Race During The Year Of The Pandemic
by Delia D Aguilar
I think it is safe to say that what the corona virus has done is spotlight the ways in
which it is women’s work that allows society to function. It is true that men face a higher mortality rate from the virus (Black women as well), but it is women performing the work of care who have been put at the very center.
Conversations in Shroud
by Prof Shah Alam Khan
There is crackling of fire. A fire, as orange as the fading evening.
“Body not handed to family. Protocols followed”
The weirdly dressed nurse noted in her blue long register and flipped the page.
Core Constituency of Dalit Vote is the New Political Determiner
by Dr Rehnamol Raveendran
Dalits in West Bengal have opened the eyes of all political parties to the core constituency of Dalit vote as a political determiner in the Indian electoral game. It has now descended late on the political parties across the hue, that it was Dalits in Bengal
who ensured Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s entry into the Constituent Assembly, when Sardar Patel was famously quoted to have said that ‘not only the doors but also the windows of the Constituent assembly are closed for Ambedkar’. The nation should be indebted to Dalits in Bengal, led by Jogendernath Mandal, who ensured Babasaheb’s arrival to Constituent Assembly. Rest is history and we have in our hands the most celebrated rights-document, The Constitution of India.
Open Letter to the 74th World Health Assembly
Press Release
Civil Society from India seeks global support towards systemic changes in India and rest of the world committed to public health, social equity and justice in the times of COVID-19
CDRO Supports Farmers Call To Observe Black Day On 26th May
by Coordination of Democratic Rights Organisation (CDRO)
CDRO stands in solidarity with the Samyukta Kisan Morcha’s call for observing 26th May 2021 as a Black Day. The second half of 2020 saw protests against the Farm Bills passed by the BJP-led government. It is now well-known that the central government had refused to pay due attention to the initial petitions raised by the farmers’ groups. The prime minister and other Union Ministers thought that no mass movement could be staged due to the prevailing pandemic situation.
Vimla and Sunderlal Bahuguna—Seven Decades of Together Serving Forests, Rivers and People
by Bharat Dogra
Sunderlal Bahuguna , the famous environmentalist of India who passed away on May 21 recently at the age of 94, is being widely remembered for his great contributions to protecting
forests and rivers as well contributions to human welfare at several levels. However it is well to also remember at this juncture that for close to seven decades Vimla, his wife, had contributed greatly to all these efforts , and in struggles and achievements, enormous difficulties and big accomplishments, they were always together.
Rivers Ravaged by Sand-Mining Mafias
by Bharat Dogra
Disturbing reports have been appearing from several parts of the country of rivers ravaged by sand-mining mafias to the extent that the very survival of some of the smaller rivers serious harmed in this way has been threatened. Much of this mining is clearly illegal and controlled by powerful local mafias who do not hesitate to confront and even attack even the few honest and courageous officials who dare to check them. Generally this situation does not arise as things are managed more conveniently by means of corruption
.
Disturbing reports have been appearing from several parts of the country of rivers ravaged by sand-mining mafias to the extent that the very survival of some of the smaller rivers serious harmed in this way has been threatened. Much of this mining is clearly illegal and controlled by powerful local mafias who do not hesitate to confront and even attack even the few honest and courageous officials who dare to check them. Generally this situation does not arise as things are managed more conveniently by means of corruption .
In Sirmaur district of Himachal Pradesh local newspapers very recently reported a strange case in which even in lockdown conditions of deserted roads tractors which could be identified clearly were allowed to proceed hindered to river mining sites. Forest officials who finally caught the illegal miners red-handed expressed great surprise at the fact that when all entry points had been barricaded in lockdown conditions by the police still these tractors had no difficulty in covering a long distance to reach the mining site without being stopped and questioned regarding their destination and motive.
The recent fasts at Matra Sadan in Hardwar by saints were aimed at least partly at checking sand mining. Movements of people to check sand mining have been reported from time to time from several other areas including Bundelkhand. The Ken river which is a lifeline for Bundelkhand has been badly ravaged by sand mining mafias but recently there was also an inspiring instance of people rising against this in one village—Kolawalpur , locaed in Mahuwa block of Banda district. At a time and in a place where sand mining mafias spell terror for most people, ordinary villagers had somehow summoned the courage to guard and protect the river . Women were in the forefront of the struggle. They were standing in river water and shouting slogans and singing prayers to save the Ken river. Later they were joined by other people in a bigger march and the administration had to take protective actions at least at one mining site.
While the villagers were certainly trying to protect the river, they were also motivated partly by resisting the injustice and harm caused to local workers and workers. This is another aspect of these ruthless mining mafias.
Here as well in several other places sand mining had been taking place at much beyond sustainable levels. Almost all the rules and precautions of relatively safer mining have been violated at most sites with ruthlessness, heavy machinery has been taken to the riverbed and those who question or challenge this have been threatened with violence.
Instead of confining to river-bank or flood-plain area the heavy machinery digs deep into the river-bed and for this temporary bunding is done to check the flow of water. This has several impacts which can deplete the water in the dry season while at the same time increasing the threat of erosion and floods at the time of rains. The capacity of the river to absorb and retain water and also to link with the groundwater aquifers and to replenish them when these need water is adversely affected.
The increasing turbidity created by machinery, the bunding , removal of sediments are all bad for diversity of aquatic life and fish as well as other species may perish in large numbers or suffer a gradual decline. Needless to add the satisfaction of the water needs of human beings, farm and domesticated animals as well as wild life around the vast area around river banks is also very adversely affected .
Clearly there is need for fixing and enforcing careful regulations as per local needs so that only very limited mining which is not harmful for river is allowed. Otherwise the costs in terms of permanent damage to river, increasing water scarcity for people as well as animals and increasing threats of droughts and floods will be very heavy.
Bharat Dogra is a journalist and author. His recent books include Man over Machine and Protecting Earth for Children.
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PM Cares or Hot Air?
by K P Sasi
A cartoon on India's COVID situation
ormally, I do not pay a lot of attention to Sub-Left’nant Blimp of the National Review, but I figure that his sources on the Right are better than mine, so I present without comment the latest installment of The Adventures of Captain Crazypants and His Howling Morons.
n Wednesday, I depart for Europe on the first foreign travel of my presidency. It is a trip stacked with meetings with many of our closest democratic partners — including the Group of Seven nations, our NATO allies and the leadership of the European Union — before concluding by meeting with Vladimir Putin. In this moment of global uncertainty, as the world still grapples with a once-in-a-century pandemic, this trip is about realizing America’s renewed commitment to our allies and partners, and demonstrating the capacity of democracies to both meet the challenges and deter the threats of this new age.
