Karnataka: Odisha family rescued from bonded labour in Hassan, factory owner arrested

The News Minute | 05 July, 2024

The plight of the Putel family came to the attention of Holenarasipura officials through social media after their videos were posted by an NGO on the micro-blogging platform X.

A family of four who had been forced to work as bonded labourers at a brick factory in Hassan district in Karnataka were rescued by Revenue Department officials on July 2. The brick factory owner Sathish was arrested by the Holenarasipura police on July 4.

According to the police, the rescued family, Mokardaj Putel, 35, his wife Urmila Putel, 27, and their two children, aged 11 and 5, hail from Balangir district in Odisha. They had migrated to Mandya, Karnataka, three years ago in search of employment. Initially working in a brickmaking unit in Mandya, the family moved to Jodi Gubbi village in Holenarasipura taluk of Hassan, lured by the promise of better wages and an advance payment of Rs 17,000 from Sathish.

Read more: Karnataka: Odisha family rescued from bonded labour in Hassan, factory owner arrested

Sathish had promised the family Rs 800 for every 1,000 bricks they produced daily and provided them with shelter and cooking supplies. However, they were not paid for their work over the last three years and were not allowed to move freely or visit their native place.

The plight of the Putel family came to the attention of Holenarasipura officials through social media after their videos were posted by an NGO on the micro-blogging platform X. Tahsildar KK Krishnamurthy, along with other officials, rescued the family and relocated them to a post-metric hostel of the Social Welfare Department in Ambedkar Nagar, Holenarasipura.

According to Labour Inspector Yamuna, the family will be sent back to Odisha only after they have been registered as bonded labourers. “The Revenue Department is in the process of declaring them as bonded labourers. Once they are registered as bonded labourers, they will be rehabilitated by the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department. Their bank accounts will be opened and we will need their identity proof,” Yamuna said. She added that the family does not have any identification documents, which has slowed the process.

Sathish, the brick kiln owner, faces multiple charges under sections 143 (trafficking of a person) and 146 (unlawful compulsory labour) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, sections 16 (punishment for enforcement of bonded labour), 17 (punishment for advancement of bonded debt), and 18 (punishment for extracting bonded labour under the bonded labour system) of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, and section 3 (prohibition of employment of children in certain occupations and processes) of the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act.

According to The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976, a bonded labourer is a person who is forced to work under certain conditions. A primary condition is debt bondage, where the individual is compelled to work as a result of any pre-existing debt or obligation. This can include work without wages or for nominal wages, or work to repay an advance or loan taken by themselves or their family. Bonded labour also encompasses situations where the labour or service is given due to coercion, and the person cannot freely leave the employment.

The Act specifically addresses cases where the debtor, or any of their family members, are forced to work as a result of a debt, and their freedom to move or to seek alternative employment is restricted. It also covers conditions of labour that are exploitative or harsh, and situations where the amount of the debt is such that it is virtually impossible to repay, leading to a state of continuous bondage.

Hasdeo Forest Protest: How New Forest Rules And Dilution Of FRA Are Making Way For Mining Giants

Outlook | January 18, 2024

Over the years, the Hasdeo forest protests against the mining at PEKB have become a rallying point for environmentalists trying to protect forest lands from turning into mines or other industrial units. Much of the objection has been centred around the changes to the Forest (Conservation) Act, of 1980, introduced in 2022

In December last year, when BJP assumed power in Chhattisgarh and Vishnu Deo Singh became the first-ever tribal chief minister of the state, the biodiversity-rich Hasdeo Arand region once again began witnessing widespread deforestation. Fuelled further by the recent Forest (Conservation) Act, 2023, (FCA) the movement to protect the forest lands in the state’s tribal-dominated Surguja district is resurfacing as a key political flashpoint ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections. Activists believe that the Act, which overrules the significant Forest Rights Act, of 2006, will have an even more adverse impact on Hasdeo.

Read more: Hasdeo Forest Protest: How New Forest Rules And Dilution Of FRA Are Making Way For Mining Giants

In the last weeks of December and early this year, thousands of trees have been felled in a bid to clear massive swathes of land for the Parsa East and Kete Basan (PEKB) phase-2 extension coal mines in the Hasdeo region. Deforestation has been carried out under tight security with the police allegedly detaining local Adivasi leaders and activists, who have tried to halt mining projects undertaken by Adani Enterprises Ltd in this region since 2011 when industrialist Gautam Adani received forest clearance to carry out mining in the PEKB by then environment and forest minister Jairam Ramesh.

Over the years, the Hasdeo forest protests against the mining at PEKB have become a rallying point for environmentalists trying to protect forest lands from turning into mines or other industrial units. Much of the objection has been centred around the changes to the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, introduced in 2022, which make the process for governments and developers to acquire lands for mining and business purposes much easier, without consideration for local stakeholders.

Forest rights activists and advocates point out that the new rules will dilute the provisions meant to safeguard the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 or Forest Rights Act, (FRA), 2006, which gave forest dwelling communities agency to decide what they wanted to do with the land they inhabited and around which their lives revolved.

How has the FRA been diluted over the years?
Despite wide criticisms by activists and NGOs that carried out nationwide protests, the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha by Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav on March 27, 2022.

In the last week of July 2022, the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) notified the contentious ‘Forest (Conservation) Rules 2022’ that brought about a set of amendments to the FCA, which was enacted for the conservation of forests across the country in several ways including restricting the use of forests for non-forest purposes including mining, tourism etc.

It was cleared by Lok Sabha on July 26 and by the Rajya Sabha on August 2. The Bill received the Presidential assent shortly thereafter (August 4).

The principal thrust of the modifications to FRA is the redefinition of what a ‘forest’ is, as per Indian law. The new Act stipulates that it will apply only to those lands that were notified as ‘forest’ under the Indian Forest Act 1927, any other relevant law or those that have been officially recorded as a forest on or after October 25, 1980. However, under the new amendments, the definition of forests applies to “notified forests” only.

What is a forest?
Amid a long-standing debate about the lack of a legal definition of a forest in Indian law, the 1996 Godavarman judgment of the Supreme Court gives a somewhat comprehensive definition of a forest: the word ‘forest’ must be understood according to its dictionary meaning.

According to the judgment, ‘This description covers all statutorily recognised forests, whether designated as reserved, protected or otherwise for the purpose of Section 2(i) of the Forest Conservation Act (1980). The term forest land, occurring in Section 2, will not only include forest as understood in the dictionary sense but also any area recorded as forest in the government record irrespective of the ownership.’

“With the new forest Act, the BJP government has gone diabolically against the Godavarman judgment along with two other judgments of 1997 and 2013, all of which collectively remain crucial to India’s forest rights movements,” says advocate Colin Gonsalves, a senior Supreme Court advocate and the founder of Human Rights Law Network.

In 1997, through the Samata Judgement of 1997 (Samata vs. State of Andhra Pradesh), the court upheld that no private party can do mining in a Scheduled Area. Similarly, the Niyamgiri Judgment of 2013, (Odisha Mining Corporation vs Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change), upheld that under the FRA, allotments of lands to the tribals have to be completed first before any public project is considered, and the third is, the Godavarman judgment (Godavarman Thirumulkpad v. Union of India & Ors), which stated that “forests” means all forests naturally found and not limited to notified forests.

With the amendments, the Central government is trying to overrule all these three judgments, says Gonsalves, adding, “Imagine, with the amended FCA, that restricts the definition of forests to only notified forests, about 50 per cent to 75 per cent of the country’s forest areas will cease to be forests. I cannot fathom the amount of environmental degradation that will result from it. This will now open these areas, inhabited by dense tribal population, to mining, tourism, non-forest activities, and commercial exploitation.”

Thus, diluting the FRA also dilutes the power of the Gram Sabhas and the rights of tribals.

Gram Sabha(s) lose power
The new Rule makes no mention of the consent of the Gram Sabha before clearance is given to corporates — a consequential change — which was made mandatory in the FCA in 2017 through an amendment. The FRA also mandated that informed consent be taken from the Gram Sabha before the diversion of forest land.

Quoting a legal researcher, Down to Earth, a publication reporting on the environment and climate, noted that seeking consent from the Gram Sabha was a legal standard that the ministry itself had first upheld through a circular in 2009 and in the Rules under the FCA in 2017. “It had thus democratised the forest diversion procedure that has historically been opaque and exclusionary,” the report said.

Speaking to the media, Alok Shukla, the convenor of Chhattisgarh Bachao Andolan said that under immense pressure from Adani to conduct mining across PEKB, a series of fake Gram Sabhas have been conducted by the district administration for seven coal blocks allotted to the corporate.

Diminishing tribal rights
Gonsalves explains that all tribals and non-tribals have rights to lands and a patta under the FRA. “Tribal residents, residing in a forest area for several years, can apply for a permanent patta under this Act. In correspondence to the block they have been staying in and using it for their cultivation purpose, they get ownership of the land — a title — from the state governments. For non-tribal dwellers, they have to show a 30-year residential proof to receive the same.”

Now, with the definition of forest being changed, depending on whether the state governments choose to notify a certain forested area as “forests”, hundreds of tribal communities would lose their right to land ownership.

In September 2022, Outlook attended a press conference where several environment activists, who have been fighting Vedanta’s bauxite mining in Mali Parbat, explained how under the new Rules, the government can enter into a contract with the big corporates first and then leave it on the State governments to deal with the land rights conflicts of the tribals.

Pointing out the fallacy of putting the State governments in charge of ensuring individual and community tribal rights through the new Rule, Gonsalves says, “What is the use of such an exercise if the land has already been handed over to the corporate houses? Such amendments will effectively do away with the most important statute of the tribals, the FRA.”

Such a situation will create a “fait accompli” which will force the tribals of their lands even before the settlement of their claims is finalized.

Dispute over land claim
Much before the amendments were brought in, several cases over claims of lands by forest dwellers had been pending before the Supreme Court. As per data released in a press release, 80 percent of these claims have been rejected by the Centre in recent years.

According to a report by The Wire, the average rate of rejection has been 54 per cent since 2008, with a total of 3.8 million claims made since the implementation of FRA in the same year. Between May 2015 and April 2016, however, the average rose to 79 per cent, for 2.7 lakh claims.

A government press release, dated 14.03.2016, justified the rejections on the grounds of lack of evidence. “The major reasons for rejection of claims that have come to the notice of this Ministry are non-occupation of forest land as of 13.12.2005, claims being made on land other than forest land/revenue land, multiple claims and lack of evidence of residing on the forest land for the specified period of time (this is particularly in the case of Other Traditional Forest Dwellers)”.

Speaking at the press conference, a representative of the Mulniwasi Samajsevak Sangh, a socio-culture organisation fighting for tribal rights, said, “A perusal of the so-called rejection orders show that they are one line or cryptic orders without reasons and therefore illegal and the appeals against these orders are yet to be filed.”

Ahead of the 2024 elections, what does this mean?

Whether PEKB in Chhattisgarh or Mali Parbat in Odisha, such mining exercises are being pushed through more and more in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. “After the Central government finalizes the deals with the corporate houses, it will only bolster the funding BJP requires ahead of the general elections,” says Gonsalves.

In July 2022, over 100 former civil servants wrote to the Parliament expressing their concerns over “the content of the Bill as well as the procedure by which the Bill is being examined and passed”. The constitutional validity of the amendments has also been heavily questioned and criticised for diminishing the rights of millions of tribals who are being forced to part with their legally owned land and give them to corporate houses for mining and non-forest activities.

Rs 82,000 cr collected under District Mineral Foundation till August: Govt

Business Standard | Oct 09, 2023

DMF is a non-profit body working for people and areas affected by mining-related activities in such manner as may be prescribed by the state government

The mines ministry on Monday said Rs 82,370.79 crore has been collected under the District Mineral Foundation (DMF) till August this year.
DMF is a non-profit body working for people and areas affected by mining-related activities in such manner as may be prescribed by the state government.

“The total amount of funds collected under DMF comes to Rs 82,370.79 crore and the amount utilised stands at Rs 45,150.21 crore (August),” the Ministry of Mines said.
As of August, DMFs have been set up in 644 districts in 23 states/Union Territories, while 17 states/UTs have DMFs in each district, the ministry said.

States and UTs that have DMFs in all district include Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and Jammu & Kashmir.

Odisha: 57 people died in encounters with elephants in last 3 months

Hindustan Times | Debabrata Mohanty | July 02, 2023

Odisha has seen 50% jump in human casualties in April-June this year from the corresponding period in 2022, when 38 people were killed

Bhubaneswar: Odisha has seen a 50% increase jump in human casualties in encounters with wild elephants in the first three months of 2023-24, with 57 deaths compared to 38 deaths in the same period last year.

This year’s April, May and June, when human-elephant encounters are typically at their peak with the pachyderms raiding mango, bael and jackfruit orchards, have been the most lethal in past 10 years. The quarter also saw a 26% rise in the number of human-elephant encounters, which resulted in more injuries than ever before.

Asian elephants are attracted to food crops because they are more palatable, more nutritious and have lower secondary defences than wild plants, wildlife expert Biswajit Mohanty said. Crop damage by elephants is the root cause of human-elephant conflicts across states, he added.

“An elephant eats around 200 kg of food per day and a single elephant can destroy a hectare of crops in a very short time and a small herd can decimate a farmer’s livelihood overnight. Often, the people who suffer these attacks are already economically and nutritionally vulnerable, and the loss of crops and livestock can have grave impacts on their income and food consumption,” Mohanty said.

“The sharp rise in human deaths suggests that elephants are straying out of their habitats more often due to lack of adequate forest fodder and a marked shift towards consumption of farms crops and foodgrain stored inside villages,” he said. “Another crucial factor is the huge level of disturbance caused by quarries and crushers and night movement of trucks and tractors.”

Of the 57 human deaths in the three months, 14 took place in mango orchards, three in cashew plantations, seven when people went out to relieve themselves, seven during village raids, three during crop raids and eight when people ventured into forests to collect firewood, tendu and sal leaves, mahua fruits and mushrooms, official data show.

Dhenkanal district bore the brunt of elephant depredations, where 14 persons were killed, followed by 13 in Angul, eight in Keonjhar, five in Mayurbhanj and Sambalpur districts each. Of the 13 deaths in Angul district, villagers in Bantala Forest range faced the wrath of elephants the most in the three months, recording 12 encounters in which nine were killed and five injured.

“Palm fruits, which are a prime source of food of elephants during June and July, have become scarce due to massive felling of palm trees for interstate trade to Tamil Nadu. Dhenkanal, Angul and Deogarh districts have lost thousands of palm trees since the last three years as organized timber traders camp there and decimate the trees,” Mohanty said. “The sharp rise suggests that this year the number of human deaths could end up significantly more than 146 human deaths of last year.”

Odisha holds the dubious record of the maximum number of human deaths among all states despite being home to lower number of elephants compared to Karnataka, Assam, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, as per the last elephant census carried out in August 2017. Odisha has 1,976 elephants, compared to Karnataka’s 6,049, Assam’s 5,719, Kerala’s 3,054 and Tamil Nadu’s 2,761.

Between 2019-20 and 2021-22, 1,579 people were killed in the country by elephants, the environment ministry said in the Lok Sabha last year in response to a question. Odisha topped the list with 322 deaths, followed by Jharkhand (291), West Bengal (240), Assam (229), Chhattisgarh (183) and Tamil Nadu (152).

The rise in human deaths due to human-elephant conflict is possibly due to presence of a few elephants in a herd, according to Belinda Wright of Wildlife Protection Society of India. “A large percentage of human-elephant conflict involves tuskers. It is possible to prevent these confrontations if tuskers are identified and continuously tracked by expert trackers,” she said. “The forest department should not sit back and allow people to get killed like this.”

The state forest department has taken up several measures, including the introduction of a scheme called “Gaja Sathis” (elephant friends) in which volunteers trained by forest officials are helping mitigate human-elephant conflict, said SK Popli, chief wildlife warden of Odisha.

“More than 5,400 volunteers have been engaged in 1,177 villages. We have also rolled out the “Jana Surakhya Gaja Rakshya” (Human safety, elephant protection) scheme, under which solar fencing would be done around villages with 90% cost borne by the state,” Popli said. “We have also increased the ex-gratia amount to ₹6 lakh from ₹4 lakh in case of human deaths due to elephant attack.”

Antarctic ice melt could disrupt the world’s oceans: Study

The Straits Times | March 31, 2023

SINGAPORE – A major ocean circulation that forms around Antarctica could be headed for collapse, risking significant changes to the world’s weather, sea levels and the health of marine ecosystems, scientists say, offering a stark warning about the growing impacts of climate change.

Global warming is accelerating the melting of ice in Antarctica, and the increased amount of fresh water flooding into the ocean is disrupting the flow of the Antarctic overturning circulation, according to a study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature.

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