Dear Reader,

On the first day of February this year, the military staged a coup in Myanmar, arresting all lawmakers, including state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. Since then, the military has embarked upon a reign of terror with hundreds reported killed in the violent crackdown on peaceful protestors and civilians.

This repression has resulted in a flood of refugees into India from Myanmar. As EastMojo reports from the Indo-Myanmar border in Mizoram, most are low-ranking officials from Myanmar security forces fleeing for their lives. Their crime was that they refused to obey orders to shoot at peaceful protestors and their only plea is to be provided refugee status and political asylum in India. But the Indian government is far from moved.

Last year when Covid struck and India declared a dramatic lockdown with the shortest of notices, the hardest hit were urban labourers. Without a safety net at their workplace in the cities, they were forced to walk thousands of kilometres to their villages and towns without food or water. Memories that have been etched on our national consciousness.

As Covid returns with a vengeance and potential lockdowns loom, The Wire explains why it is important to learn from the past and understand urban labour’s relationship with the city. The nature of the vagaries of the market on labour would have to be better catered for and social and financial security nets constructed, if we are not to repeat last year’s tragedy.

Most projects in India are a chronicle of massive delays, cost-overruns and governmental inertia, the Polavaram irrigation project on the Godavari is an extreme and current example of this truism. ThePrint dives deep into the malaise plaguing the project and concludes that what was touted as Andhra’s lifeline is now itself on life support.

Access to water is a basic and fundamental need. However, as EPW discusses, the policies on water usage in India has shifted from a ‘welfare-based, free-supply mode’ to a market-oriented one and has warped into a process which has further entrenched the historically unequal social hierarchy in accessing it.

And, Down To Earth brings you the story of how forest officials in Odisha’s Keonjhar district have used some ‘jugaad’ to keep rampaging elephants at bay in the villages – recordings of tiger growls which have deterred the pachyderms. In 2019-20 alone, Odisha recorded 115 human casualties and 132 injuries due to man-elephant conflict.

For a selection of stories from our grantees this week, please take a read.

Warmly,

Sunil Rajshekhar
IPSMF