Karnataka - Bangalore   

Medha Patkar wants ‘empowerment zones’

— Photo: Sampath Kumar G.P.

Medha Patkar

BANGALORE: Communities should call a halt to the “new imperialism” of global financial and business institutions which were really “killing the communities, destroying human, community and environmental resources” in the name of development, Narmada Bachao Andolan leader Medha Patkar said here on Sunday.

Delivering the S. Rangarajan Memorial Lecture at the Indian Institute of World Culture, Ms. Patkar said people like her were being dubbed “anti-development” while in reality, the political-corporate-development lobby nexus was using jargon, and redefining development to inflict untested, unproven policies and theories on unsuspecting communities, to rob them of their livelihoods.

Ms. Patkar, who has now turned her ire on government policies to promote Special Economic Zones (SEZs), said World Bank policies, which are now geared to ensure that economics such as India are forever tied in debt to it, were now zealously pushing for change in land use patterns and in States such as Karnataka, it had pumped in hundreds of millions of dollars as “aid” to make this happen.

While using jargon to push the cause of corporate houses which are now acting like real estate hawks, institutions such as the Planning Commission was beavering away at the foundations of the native economy, and rendering communities grounded in grassroots empowerment, powerless, she warned.

“Recently, while fighting against Nandigram, and now Karnataka’s Nandagudi, we and our supporters were arrested for protesting in front of the Planning Commission. We spent hours trying to convince Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, that the decision-making powers belong to the gram sabhas and panchayats, but it was in vain,” she said.

The Planning Commission has written to State Governments asking them to send in the financial plans of the panchayats by this month-end. “Six lakh panchayats in this country have to conform to the Planning Commission’s deadline! Is this democracy?” Ms. Patkar wondered.

The poor, whether in urban areas or rural, were in a vulnerable position now.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Seven held for mobile tower scam
Marathas want Category 2A tag
‘Government doing well’
‘Parliament is supreme’
Assumes charge
Centre’s assistance sought for upgrading infrastructure
Want to study in New Zealand
Hitch over money dogs BBMP’s IDRV plan
Helpline to prevent suicide in the offing
Youth Congress to stage demonstration
Appointed office-bearers of JD (S) faction
Short story contest
‘Narco analysis is interrogation under the influence of drugs’
BJP meetings
Protest against easy availability of acid
Quality in higher education is essential: Shankarmurthy
Cultural competition
‘The Second Sex’ in Kannada
Youths assault waiter Crime notes
‘Gowda using internal reservation bogey’
Medha Patkar wants ‘empowerment zones’
Education provides hope: Tharoor

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu