|
Dear Reader,
More often than not, in the struggle between development and the environment, it is the poor and the marginalised who come out last. The latest such instance comes from Kerala, where the building of a new dam threatens a community of tribals.
Keraleeyam Masika reports from Pulpally and Mullankolly panchayats in the Wayanad district, where a dam proposed on the tributary of the Kabini River, Kadamanthode, has set off intense debate on the aftermath of the project, and the tribal community's eventual evacuation.
Yesterday, on December 18, the Union government tabled the new telecom bill in the Lok Sabha. The bill provides that the spectrum allocation for satellite communication be through the 'administrative' route rather than the traditional auction method. In a sense, this has applied closure to the 'auction vs allocation' debate raging in the industry.
It has been asserted by players in the space-communication segment that an auction of spectrum leads to cartelisation, militates against new services being introduced, and thwarts the quest for 'connecting the unconnected.' The government now seems to have agreed with them. MediaNama brings you the debate and explains the positions of the larger set of players.
Unable to find remunerative local employment and lured by the considerably higher wages on foreign shores, India's labour migration to distant lands is a long and continuing saga. However, not all of these tales have had happy endings.
Mojo Story relates one such case, where a group of 45 labourers from three districts of Jharkhand -- Giridih, Hazaribagh, and Bokaro -- who went to work in Saudi Arabia have been stranded there since May. Deprived of shelter and wages, with no one to pay heed to their plight, they have now implored the Indian government to get them back home.
And, egovernance has been touted as the way forward for delivering government services in a transparent, accessible and accountable format to the citizen. Jammu & Kashmir tops the country in terms of the number of services provided digitally. However, Kashmir Observer finds that the promises remain primarily on paper, and the ground reality is far from the aspirations.
For more such stories from the grantees this week, please read on.
Warmly,
Sunil Rajshekhar
IPSMF
|
