Few friends of mine ping me by saying, what authority do I have to question and talk about such disparities in blogs and social networking sites ? I want to question, do I need an authority to tell people around me that my fellow human being is crying in darkness ? Do I need an accreditation from some of the world's top universities that I am eligible to speak on the conditions of poor and downtrodden around me ? What authority ? I do not believe in any authority that prevents me to speak boldly about my fellow human beings.
Let us assume a small anecdote. Imagine the whole continent of Australia, its friendly people,its wonderful infrastructure. Let us assume for a second that whole Australian population is thrown out from their homes. Each and every Australian citizen is pushed out of his livelihood and cities are devastated and people are lying on streets. Cynical imagination isn't it ?
You call this development ? Shouted Naganna, an 80 year old fisherman of Toorputhallu village, Narasapuram Mandal, West Godavari District, Andhra. He says "We have no livelihood thanks to the O.N.G.C oil refinery in the Krishna-Godavari Basin (K.G.Basin). Whole live stock of 200 species of fishes moved out of this region due to pollution and increase in temperature, our farm lands are snatched to feed the corporations like ONGC, our children have no schools and hospitals and you call this development ? You so called educated people live in cities and what is the use of your education and prosperity to us ? For you a degree and job is life and death. Get lost, we have seen thousands like you shedding crocodile tears."
I could clearly see agony and dispassion in his eyes. These villages near Narasapuram share similar story and some of them have tonnes and tonnes of complaints with the irregularities followed in allocating farm lands to corporations.
Development, Infrastructure, Socio economic growth, Corporate Social Responsibilities are some of the ultra modern management strategies employed by the corporations in India to hide their greed for profit. The same village of Toorputhallu was once a lush green village with a beautiful coastline always inhabited by fish stock pertaining to more than 200 species says one school teacher Vani. Now we see dry,barren land slashed with salty waves. Hundreds of acres of coconut farms stopped yielding the famous Ganga Variety of coconuts,thanks to drastic increase in the salinity.
More than 80 percent of the population of Toorputhallu village are now working as migrant labors in various parts of the state. Some of them are even stranded in UAE and are literally starving there, thanks to the blessing of one corporation. School has four rooms with one table and one headmaster, waving for air with his daily newspaper. There is no P.H.C or any such center. Mothers have to go all the way to Narasapuram or Bhimavaram for delivery.
An acre of paddy field is today costing here more than 3 lakh rupees here but the ONGC corporation paid not less than 5000 rupees per acre with public-private partnership says a villager. Isn't it insane ? Government statistics say that compensation was paid duly with current market price but that has been only on paper. River Godavari which was a blessing to this region is today seen a dried mass of sand dunes, thanks to the pollution by a bunch of industries.
Imagine the situation, one fine morning revenue officials come to your place and ask you to vacate the premises of your home and fields because they were allotted to some international corporation, which would provide you employment and compensation.This is only in theory. An officer of one corporation in K.G.Basin says that 90 percent of the employees are chosen based on written examinations and interviews from various colleges across the country and majority of them are from other states, depriving the locals their due share in jobs. The locals have only one option, to work as Grade 4 staff in these corporations and their children as disguised bonded labor.
A family is deprived of its only livelihood and we call it development.
The government does not have money to give minimum support price to paddy, government does not have money to feed the little stomachs of these people, we do not have anything to change the state of these affairs except volumes and volumes of recommendations designed in air conditioned halls in state capitals.
The irony which is happening in this country is that people coming out of prestigious London School of Economics or JNU or IIM or MIT etc sit in air-conditioned halls as policy makers and plan policies for those people whose lives they neither saw nor they tried to understand. This is the bane of this country. We take authority on everybody, just because we are educated.
There are thousands of villages in and around Hyderabad, where in the name of development and infrastructure raising up, villagers are deprived of their valuable land. In its place we are seeing golf courses, villas, multiplexes, race courses etc only to feed a bunch of useless,egoistic rich classes of the society.
One of the biggest private international bank is paying just 1 RUPEE per square foot in a prime locality of Hyderabad because of Incentives by the Government. Biggest corporate hospitals are given lands at throw away prices to give luxurious health care facilities to the rich. We snatch lands from the poor and give it as an offering to the corporate guys, to fill their pockets.
Until and unless we understand the real nature of every human being around us, so long, there can not be a solace to our wealth and prosperity. May God save us from such cries of modernity.
Let us assume a small anecdote. Imagine the whole continent of Australia, its friendly people,its wonderful infrastructure. Let us assume for a second that whole Australian population is thrown out from their homes. Each and every Australian citizen is pushed out of his livelihood and cities are devastated and people are lying on streets. Cynical imagination isn't it ?
My dear friends, such a thing happened in India. Shocked ? Eminent Journalist P.Sainath disclosed his new findings in The Hindu where he says that more than 27 million Indians (Equal to the population of Australia approximately) were displaced from their homes and livelihood in the name of development and social raising up. Of course, this data is from various government sources and census 2011.
You call this development ? Shouted Naganna, an 80 year old fisherman of Toorputhallu village, Narasapuram Mandal, West Godavari District, Andhra. He says "We have no livelihood thanks to the O.N.G.C oil refinery in the Krishna-Godavari Basin (K.G.Basin). Whole live stock of 200 species of fishes moved out of this region due to pollution and increase in temperature, our farm lands are snatched to feed the corporations like ONGC, our children have no schools and hospitals and you call this development ? You so called educated people live in cities and what is the use of your education and prosperity to us ? For you a degree and job is life and death. Get lost, we have seen thousands like you shedding crocodile tears."
I could clearly see agony and dispassion in his eyes. These villages near Narasapuram share similar story and some of them have tonnes and tonnes of complaints with the irregularities followed in allocating farm lands to corporations.
Development, Infrastructure, Socio economic growth, Corporate Social Responsibilities are some of the ultra modern management strategies employed by the corporations in India to hide their greed for profit. The same village of Toorputhallu was once a lush green village with a beautiful coastline always inhabited by fish stock pertaining to more than 200 species says one school teacher Vani. Now we see dry,barren land slashed with salty waves. Hundreds of acres of coconut farms stopped yielding the famous Ganga Variety of coconuts,thanks to drastic increase in the salinity.
More than 80 percent of the population of Toorputhallu village are now working as migrant labors in various parts of the state. Some of them are even stranded in UAE and are literally starving there, thanks to the blessing of one corporation. School has four rooms with one table and one headmaster, waving for air with his daily newspaper. There is no P.H.C or any such center. Mothers have to go all the way to Narasapuram or Bhimavaram for delivery.
An acre of paddy field is today costing here more than 3 lakh rupees here but the ONGC corporation paid not less than 5000 rupees per acre with public-private partnership says a villager. Isn't it insane ? Government statistics say that compensation was paid duly with current market price but that has been only on paper. River Godavari which was a blessing to this region is today seen a dried mass of sand dunes, thanks to the pollution by a bunch of industries.
Imagine the situation, one fine morning revenue officials come to your place and ask you to vacate the premises of your home and fields because they were allotted to some international corporation, which would provide you employment and compensation.This is only in theory. An officer of one corporation in K.G.Basin says that 90 percent of the employees are chosen based on written examinations and interviews from various colleges across the country and majority of them are from other states, depriving the locals their due share in jobs. The locals have only one option, to work as Grade 4 staff in these corporations and their children as disguised bonded labor.
A family is deprived of its only livelihood and we call it development.
The government does not have money to give minimum support price to paddy, government does not have money to feed the little stomachs of these people, we do not have anything to change the state of these affairs except volumes and volumes of recommendations designed in air conditioned halls in state capitals.
The irony which is happening in this country is that people coming out of prestigious London School of Economics or JNU or IIM or MIT etc sit in air-conditioned halls as policy makers and plan policies for those people whose lives they neither saw nor they tried to understand. This is the bane of this country. We take authority on everybody, just because we are educated.
There are thousands of villages in and around Hyderabad, where in the name of development and infrastructure raising up, villagers are deprived of their valuable land. In its place we are seeing golf courses, villas, multiplexes, race courses etc only to feed a bunch of useless,egoistic rich classes of the society.
One of the biggest private international bank is paying just 1 RUPEE per square foot in a prime locality of Hyderabad because of Incentives by the Government. Biggest corporate hospitals are given lands at throw away prices to give luxurious health care facilities to the rich. We snatch lands from the poor and give it as an offering to the corporate guys, to fill their pockets.
Until and unless we understand the real nature of every human being around us, so long, there can not be a solace to our wealth and prosperity. May God save us from such cries of modernity.
