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Janta Parliament calls on urgent action for ecological security

Read more about Civil society bodies, academicians to hold virtual Janta Parliament on Business Standard. Several civil society organisations and academicians have come together to hold a week-long virtual Janta parliament to highlight the issues faced by vulnerable. Janta Parliament - Special Kisan Session. People's Agenda 2019 /ज़न सरोकार 2019. 623 views December 19, 2020. Janta Parliament - Special Kisan Session. People's Agenda 2019 /ज़न सरोकार 2019. 2.1K views December 18, 2020. Janta Parliament (जनता संसद) was envisioned as a simulated virtual people's Parliament session to discuss urgent Covid related policy issues. In view of the ongoing farmer agitations at various sites on state borders with Delhi, Special Kisan Sessions of the Janta Parliament were held. Jantaparliament.wordpress.com The Janta Parliament is a virtual peoples' Parliament. It is being organized jointly by several civil society initiatives and grassroots movements, to discuss urgent governance, policy and rights-based issues that have arisen during the Covid-19 pandemic, and to put forward policy suggestions to the government. Session 5: Technology and Surveillance 18 August 2020 For further information: https://jantaparliament.wordpress.com/.

Given the inability or unwillingness of the government to convene a monsoon session of parliament in time, people's movements and groups are organizing an online Janta Parliament with 11 thematic sessions various public interest issues from 16-21st August.

Today, in the Environment session of the Janta Parliament, about 30 speakers from various parts of India presented their views on the state of India's environment. This session was organised by Kalpavriksh, National Alliance of People's Movements, Environment Support Group, Greenpeace India, Veditum, Fridays for Future India, Extinction Rebellion India, Let India Breathe, Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti, Vikalp Sangam, and Yugma.

In the backdrop of the realization that pandemics like COVID19 are a result of the destruction of natural ecosystems, and the recent countrywide uproar on the proposed EIA notification for ‘ease of doing business', the session highlighted several key issues:

(i) India's environment has been rapidly deteriorating, and its environmental regulatory regime weakened in the name of ‘ease of doing business';

(ii) Steps taken by the government in the last 5 months, such as clearances of many mining, hydro and highway projects in ecologically sensitive areas, have further worsened the situation;

(iii) Several proposals or decisions with major environmental impacts are being taken in a period in which effective public participation has been impossible, such as the proposed EIA notification;

(iv) These steps have also violated the country's environmental commitments under international agreements, e.g. the 2015 Paris Agreement, Sustainable Development Goals, Convention on Biological Diversity;

(v) The government's ‘self-reliance' package is oriented more towards corporatisation than towards the interests and self-reliance of farmers, fishers, pastoralists, craftspersons, and other sections of society most closely dependent on nature and natural resources;

(vi) The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has become a mere rubber stamp for destructive development and corporate profiteering.

In view of the above, the People's House passed the following resolutions, amongst others:

(i) Withdraw clearances given to mining, industrial, and infrastructural projects in the last 5 months; withdraw coal block auctions;

(ii) Withdraw the draft EIA notification 2020, and begin widespread consultation to draft a comprehensive environmental regulatory regime;

My macbook pro is restarting on its own. (iii) Revise the draft National Fisheries Policy 2020 and the PM-MSY scheme, currently oriented towards culture fisheries and big investment, in a manner that will ensure food security and livelihoods of traditional fishing communities;

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(iv) Put a moratorium on diversion of natural ecosystems for projects (except very small ones for community basic needs), till such a regulatory regime is in place;

(v) Revive quality of air, water and soil to safe levels; for this, substantially revise the National Clean Air Plan, amend the Water and Air Acts, and notifications under the Environment Protection Act, increasing the autonomy of all pollution control and monitoring institutions and participation of citizens;

(vi) Revise the national climate action plan, with widespread participation of communities most affected, with substantial upward revision of goals for mitigation and adaptation;

(vii) Reorient national energy policy away from fossil fuels, large hydro and nuclear,as also from mega-solar/wind parks, towards decentralised renewable energy that is both ecologically sustainable and democratic; Ufc twitch live stream.

(viii) Initiate dialogue and collaboration with neighbouring countries for regional climate and environmental action;

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(ix) Regenerate and conserve natural ecosystems across India, including forests, coastal & marine, grassland, wetland, desert and mountain areas;

(x) Empower local self-governance bodies (gram sabhas, area sabhas, etc) to govern surrounding nature and natural resources, and to be mandatory part of all planning, budgeting, and policy-making;

(xi) Bring in a comprehensive legal regime toensure ecologically sensitive areas are permanently conserved, and provide governance and management rights to local communities;

(xii) Put maximum resources in a green recovery packagetowards generating tens of millions of ecologically sustainable and dignified livelihoods, including organic agriculture, assistance to pastoralists, fishers and forest-dwellers, decentralized renewable energy and water harvesting, cottage industries including crafts, and regeneration of degraded land and water systems;

(xiii) Fundamentally re-orient the Atmanirbharbharat packages, which currently favour corporatisation and big players, to the above approach;

(xiv) Frame comprehensive urban decentralisation and sustainability policy and framework law, including central participation of urban local bodies in all matters of land, water, budgeting, nature conservation, energy, and so on;

(xv) In all of the above, ensure participation and rights of women, youth, and other socially or economically marginalised sections of society.

Overall, members of the Janta Parliament resolved to continue acting towards, and pressurising the government to act on, the above recommendations.

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WATCH RECORDING OF THE ENTIRE JANTA PARLIAMENT: SESSION ON ENVIRONMENT

For nearly five months, in the midst of a pandemic that has claimed more than 50,000 lives in India, the Parliament and state assemblies have not been in session. Policies have been framed and decisions made by the Cabinet without parliamentary debates, discussions or legislative scrutiny that define the country's democracy.

To highlight this absence of checks and balances, several civil rights organisations across the country have organised a 'Janta Parliament' – a series of virtual discussions on policy measures addressing problems triggered by Covid-19 and the lockdown.

Hosted by Jan Sarokar, a collective of civil rights campaigns, Janta Parliament meetings began on August 16 and will continue till August 21, with more than 200 speakers discussing the fallout of Covid-related policies in 10 different sectors. These include health, the economy, agriculture, food security, education, environment, labour, vulnerable communities and civil liberties.

Each session is attended by select members of Parliament and state assemblies. The discussions are streamed live on multiple platforms, including Jan Sarokar and the social media pages of various campaign organisations.

In the sessions, grassroots activists and citizens' representatives highlight the impact of the Covid-19 lockdown in their respective districts and propose a set of demands from the government, which all speakers and session participants then vote on. Each session has a small group of parliamentarians

'The Parliament should have convened during these Covid times but it did not,' said Nancy Pathak, a member of Jan Sarokar's secretariat. 'One of our objectives was to show the government that if we ordinary people, with less resources, can convene like this, surely they can too.'

In his speech during the inaugural session of the Janta Parliament on Sunday, Justice AP Shah, a former chief justice of the Delhi High Court, pointed out that the Parliament was always intended to function as a body that keeps the executive in check. 'It exercises this form of accountability on behalf of the people it represents. Tools and instruments such as questions and debates are used for this purpose,' he said. Airflow sendgrid email.

'But what happens when Parliament itself stops working?' Shah added. 'Besides failing to provide leadership to the people in a time of crisis, like the pandemic, it compounds the problem of representation and accountability by granting the executive a free rein to do as it pleases.'

Adivasi rights activist Soni Sori, who also spoke at the inaugural session, highlighted the key role of opposition parties in this process. 'If the Parliament is not allowed to have sessions and the Opposition is not allowed to criticise or raise questions, what will happen to the country?' she said.

Lack of food security

A Janta Parliament session on Monday focused on one of the biggest fallouts of the lockdown – hunger and food insecurity among millions of vulnerable Indians because of mismanagement of the public distribution system.

The session was led by the Right to Food Campaign, with speakers from several states highlighting the same problems: inadequate ration distribution to people who needed food the most. In May, for instance, the Centre announced that migrant workers without ration cards would be entitled to 5 kg of grains under the Atmanirbhar Bharat economic package.

'But in most of our villages in Chhattisgarh, the government order reached only on paper – the grains did not reach,' said Gangaram Paikra, the all-India convener of the Right to Food Campaign, based in Chhattisgarh. 'Panchayats were told to distribute rice to people, but panchayats themselves were not provided with the rice. The government is not fulfilling its responsibilities.'

In Karnataka's Belgavi district, Right to Food activist Sharada Gopal pointed out that the state government had offered 5 kg of rice to ration card holders in April itself, but did not begin providing the rice to people till May. Even then, she said, grains were given only after ration card holders were verified through a one-time password system that excluded many people who did not have access to functional mobile phones. 'After people protested, the state government had issued an order to remove the OTP system, but many ration shops are still using it,' said Gopal.

The key demand from participants of the food security session was that food distribution should be universalised – a long-standing demand from food rights activists that has not been accepted by any government so far.

No Parliamentary oversight

In a Janta Parliament session on health, led by the Jan Swasthya Abhiyan group on Sunday, demands were made to universalise the right to good quality healthcare and increase public investment on healthcare to at least 3.5% of the GDP.

The session also focused on the need to ensure the safety of health workers fighting Covid-19 and to regularise the employment of contractual frontline health workers – the women who serve as ASHAs, auxiliary nurses and anganwadi workers – who have only been regarded as honorary workers so far.

At the inaugural Janta Parliament session on Sunday, social activist Aruna Roy emphasised that these online sessions are an effort to highlight the need for government accountability in the time of a nationwide crisis.

'There has been no Parliamentary oversight in the last five months, and it is shocking that this is happening in the middle of a pandemic,' said Roy. 'A pandemic needs to be addressed at multiple levels, you need to get feedback from people and talk to them through their representatives. It is unthinkable that policy should be framed by a handful of people and not be vetted through Parliament or the state governments. Without this, how can we ensure that Constitutional rights are not violated?'