Greenpeace India on Thursday launched a new donation drive citing the IB report to the Prime Minister’s Office alleging that Greenpeace was a threat to the nation’s economy.
Greenpeace India on Thursday launched a new donation drive citing the IB report to the Prime Minister’s Office alleging that Greenpeace was a threat to the nation’s economy.
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Citing the IB report, the advocacy group said fighting to save forests and livelihood of thousand of forest dependent communities from coal mining was considered “anti-development”.
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“This is where I ask you to pick a side,” the email sent to individuals for raising funds said, asking people to choose between being bullied to silence by the government or stand for the cause of development that is sustainable.
Samit Aich, executive director of Greenpeace India, tried to downplay the fund-raising campaign saying they have been raising funds to run its campaign against allocation of coal blocks on Mahan forest in the Central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
Himanshu Thakkar of South Asian Network for Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) termed the IB report as strange. “Advocacy or raising an alternative voice to the government in a democratic setup cannot be branded as anti-national. If it is, please book us for sedition,” he said.
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Other civil society groups had similarly angry reactions. Nikhil Dey of NCPRI said the report showed that the IB considered curtailing ‘freedom of speech’ as a way forward for economic growth.
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Other civil society groups had similarly angry reactions. Nikhil Dey of NCPRI said the report showed that the IB considered curtailing ‘freedom of speech’ as a way forward for economic growth.
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Meanwhile, home minister Rajnath Singh, to whom the IB reports, feigned ignorance about the report. His colleague and environment minister Prakash Javadekar too had a similar reply. “I have not seen the report. I will react only after I study it,” he said.
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.
