{"id":3762,"date":"2010-07-23T19:14:12","date_gmt":"2010-07-23T23:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.orissalinks.com\/orissagrowth\/?p=3762"},"modified":"2010-07-23T20:51:10","modified_gmt":"2010-07-24T00:51:10","slug":"the-educated-tribal-view-of-niyamgiri-and-its-mining","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orissalinks.com\/orissagrowth\/archives\/3762","title":{"rendered":"The educated tribal view of Niyamgiri and its mining?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are tons of news items alleging how mining in the Niyamgiri hills will destroy the way of living of the Dongria Kondh people. Reputed organizations such as Action Aid and Survival International have strongly campaigned against the mining there and have castigated the state government of Odisha and Vedanta Resources for intending to mine Bauxite in the Niyamgiri hills. The following report from Telegraph gives a different viewpoint<\/a> that one also needs to read and think about.<\/p>\n

\n

From the remote Dongria Kondh village in Sakata to the capital’s Aryan School of Management Information and Technology, Jitu Jakesia has come a long way.<\/p>\n

The first from the Dongria Kondh tribe to clear the Class X board examination, the firebrand tribal leader from Muniguda block in Jakesia, is now concentrating on his studies.<\/p>\n

He believes that without education, the Primitive Tribal Groups (PTGs) cannot succeed in its mission.<\/p>\n

Representing his community before the joint committee of the ministry of environment and forests and ministry of tribal affairs, Jakesia put forward the problems faced by the Dongria community and what should be done to remedy them as per the provisions of the Forest Rights Act.<\/p>\n

…“After passing the matriculation examination, I started began attending high school in Muniguda College. I pursued studies in the Arts stream. I completed my graduation from the same college. During my three years in college, I worked as an activist, fighting against industrialisation<\/u>. I thought that this would make a difference, as I was inspired by NGOs and political parties<\/u>,” he said.<\/p>\n

Jakesia was, however, disillusioned by political parties and voluntary organisations<\/u>.<\/p>\n

“At the end of the day, resources really matter. During my student days, I received no help from voluntary organisation or political party. The members of my family were alcoholics. All these problems forced me to focus on my career as a student and not an activist. I ended up continuing my studies,” he said.<\/p>\n

…Regarding industrialisation and its effects on Niyamgiri, Jakesia said: “I realised that for bauxite excavation, only the surface level of the rock is used.<\/p>\n

This is unlike iron ore and coal mining, where one has to go below the surface. Thus, the process is fairly smooth. You will be surprised to know that puja offered to Niyam Raja was never performed there. Now, after the spread of awareness, the puja is performed on top of the hill.<\/u>”<\/p>\n

He said that there was a time when no one was aware of Niyamgiri.<\/u><\/p>\n

“If you search on the internet now, you will find thousands of results. The industrial development has given Kalahandi many things. It’s quite visible in the economy and development. So, I do not think development is unnecessary’’ he told The Telegraph<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

During submission of his grievances regarding the Forest Rights Act, Jakesia had said: “The revenue officials have made many blunders by marketing forest land as hill land.”<\/p>\n

There are many instances where there is no scope for individuals or communities to derive benefits from the Act, as the officials don’t understand the problem.<\/p>\n

With so many loopholes, requisite amendments should be made, Jakesia had told the joint committee.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

See also the article at http:\/\/kalahandia.blogspot.com\/2010\/07\/mining-project-will-bring-development.html<\/a> and the following youtube video for more on this young man’s views.<\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

The Telegraph article spells the name of the young man incorrectly. His correct name is Jitu Jakasika. If one googles his name one will read many old article where Jitu is fighting against mining. See for example this article at http:\/\/www.survivalinternational.org\/news\/3294<\/a> in the pages of Survival International.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are tons of news items alleging how mining in the Niyamgiri hills will destroy the way of living of the Dongria Kondh people. Reputed organizations such as Action Aid and Survival International have strongly campaigned against the mining there and have castigated the state government of Odisha and Vedanta Resources for intending to mine […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,285,214,632,35,790,161],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-industry-aluminium","category-anil-agarwal","category-bauxite","category-exposing-anti-orissa-schemes","category-district-kalahandi","category-telegraph","category-vedanta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orissalinks.com\/orissagrowth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orissalinks.com\/orissagrowth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orissalinks.com\/orissagrowth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orissalinks.com\/orissagrowth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orissalinks.com\/orissagrowth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orissalinks.com\/orissagrowth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3762\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orissalinks.com\/orissagrowth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orissalinks.com\/orissagrowth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orissalinks.com\/orissagrowth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}