Medha Patkar....has been in the news for a very long time....Narmada Bachao was the first one that I started admiring her work for the people who are affected by the height of the dam.However was not very pleased with the other protest activities that she was involved with...the nandhigram episode..where in she was part of the protest for WB govt giving away farm lands for industrial developments. Now who is at loss? West Bengal Govt or the people of the state who lost a huge chunk of job ? Now from yesterday's newspaper I hear that she is now in chennai joining the protest against the govt of TN asking them to stop the airport expansion!!! Does she realise that airports are needed for a countries growth ? We speak about international airports...where as we expand existing shabby airports to accomodate the growth in passenger traffic and we have protestors for them as well ? Well, agreeded that this comes with cost of people losing land and houses and tons of sentiments with them....however I am sure that the govt would have compensated them. Protest should have some value and lot of thought needs to go behind it. Admired personalities need to think many a times before they join a protest and not just for the fame! Kerala is one example....anything and everything we have a protest and strike comes complementary , and this is one of the reason where we dont see much of economic growth in Kerala! And we talk about India being the economic super power!
1 comment:
- Nandhigram issue, why should people give away their farm land, farming job that their families have been practicing for many decades for "NEW" industrial developments. Only small percentage of jobs would have gone to WB state people. The big MNCs and government could have requested for non-farming land for their developments. Don't you see the problem?
- The government never compensate people properly (many cases Narmada, Bhopal etc ) , you are displacing people for sake of so called "development". Why cannot the government maintain properly even the small airports that exist currently? Then, why do we need bigger ones.
- I suppose the governments and MNCs should also put in some time and effort to do background work on what are the implications of their project in a given area (environmental damage, etc) and not just bride people to get the required reports.
- I agree admired personalities cannot oppose everything, having said that wrong repeated 10 times doesn't make it correct.
- Kerala is a special issue... :) no comments
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