Scrap Yettinahole River Diversion Project

Gundia river formed of Headwaters of Yettinahole

Today, Yettinahole Project to divert the west flowing rivers in the Western Ghats towards the Eastern Plains of Karnataka is on the table. Karnataka Neeravari Nigam Limited (KNNL) is ushering it purportedly as a drinking water supply scheme to supply 24 TMC water to Kolar and Chikkaballapur Districts. The scheme involves 8 dams in the Western Ghats submerging pristine forests and 2 villages for its 250 kms long canals. Two canals 80 and 50 kms long, raise the mains a reservoir that will submerge 1200 hectares of land will require a huge 370 MW of electricity to pump the water.

Following misleading claims by KNNL, the Project has escaped environmental impact assessment, environmental management plan, public hearing, environment clearance and environmental monitoring, in short appraisal by the Expert Appraisal Committee of the MoEF on River Valley Projects, which wrongly concluded that it is a drinking water scheme. The EAC expressed inability of appraising this scheme since as per current EIA notification of Sept 2006, drinking water schemes do not require appraisal, which by itself is wrong and shows how poor is our environmental governance. This means a scheme with huge socio ecological costs will not need even an Environmental Impact Assessment! 

It is nothing short of a stab in the back by the leaders of the region. The Yettinahole project, nothing but the  Netravathi diversion project, the name changed to hoodwink people, was given clearance in July 2012 when a man from the district, DV Sadananda Gowda was the chief minister Later, in February 2013, the Union Government as well as the Central Water commission cleared the project. In this case too, Karkala man M Veerappa Moily who holds the vital petroleum ministry, made no effort to stall the project but in fact supported it for the sole reason that it benefits his home constituency of Chikkaballapur, at the cost of his home district.

The project will be disastrous for the last remaining biodiversity rich forests of Western Ghats and in any case it is not the most optimum or the least cost solution for the water problem of Kolar and Chikkaballapur Districts. The project documents reveal that less than a tenth of the water to be transferred from Netrawathi basin is meant for these drought prone areas even on paper. In reality, it is seriously doubtful if any water will reach these areas. There is need for a participatory decision making process involving all those impacted and those in whose name this project is meant to decide indeed if such a project should go ahead.

A detailed analysis of the official 5 volume Project report from KNNL indicates that the MoEF has taken a wrong decision. With the support of politicians across party lines such disastrous schemes take off in this country. Who runs this clout? The role play of the kids lingers in the back of my memory and the kids who put the display were thoroughly clear in it.

While any sane person would support long term and sustainable solutions to legitimate drinking water demands of drought affected regions in Karnataka. The letter clarifies; Yettinahole Diversion Project does not seem to be in line with that.

It is said that Water conservationists Laxman and Rajender Singh have been requested to prepare a plan to rejuvenate the Lakes of Kolar and Chikkaballapur. Their methods can bring life back to the tanks within six to ten years while it takes 20 years to implement this project at a whooping cost.

Artists of Mangalore expressing their protest

Are Children more aware of Politics than Environment?

More than ten years ago when at a Nature camp in Muthodi or now known as the Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary we had assigned a role play for children. The theme was about diverting the forest stream Somavahini that flows through the sanctuary to the eastern plains to provide drinking water to Chiturdurga. The project conceived by Chief Engineer Sadashiviah had made noise and fizzled out after some time. We had felt it was a contemporary issue to be debated and took it up for the role play.

 The children belonged to High schools but had one or two from the lower primary. The elders eagerly took up the roles of an activist, journalist, politician, industrialists and stake holders. Nobody wanted to be the Chief Minister or a by stander. I had realized that all other characters were vibrant and interactive in their young minds. A girl of about six years was made the Chief Minister. The little girl had accepted the role without choice and the elders had dumped it on her as they felt it was not much of an important character in the play. As the role play began, the phone bell rings and the Chief Minister picks up the call and will answer the call of the boss of a construction company. After all the pleading in a crafty lingo to get permission to go ahead with the diversion project, the chief minister very reluctantly asked “What is my percentage?” We were all astonished. Till date I have been discussing the matter with child psychologists to know whether corruption is a learned trait or survival instinct.

Further on many occasions with children down the Western Ghats on the other side, when asked about diversion of rivers they had expressed extreme generosity and said “we can always spare all the water that flows into the sea”. Such statements used to set up a fantastic foundation to start discussion about the importance of freshwater flowing into the sea.

 All through the ages about ten rivers such as Kali, Sharavathi, Chakra, Nethravathi, Varahi, Mahadayi, Bedthi, Aghanashini, and Barapole and their catchments contributing to total 2,000 tmcft of water washes into the sea annually.  Hydro Engineers look at it as a colossal waste. Engineers in Tamil nadu, especially on the Cauvery panel are even more critical about the issue. They feel it a distinct possibility to evolve an amicable solution if both the States were to cooperate and utilize all the 13 west-flowing rivers in Karnataka that run off into the Arabian Sea !

 But all these “wasted waters” have carried large quantities of humus from up the Ghats into the sea. Scientist s working at Project Sea Bird off the coast of Karwar, on observing the accumulation of silt could estimate their height while they were formed some hundred million years ago.  Western Ghats stood up nearly twice their present height when they broke away from Madagascar due to continental drift. This floating mass of land had its own fresh water streams even before the Himalayas were formed. The organic content and the minerals washed away by these waters have kept the marine ecosystem going.  The run off nourishes the microbes and they supplement the growth of invertebrates. These lower forms are the food base of the fish that the costal communities live upon. Some of the sea fish breed in the mouth of the rivers. Also, during monsoon the fishermen wouldn’t get into the sea due to high tides. In such lean periods the fresh water in the streams are the only source of fish for the people in the coast.

The Forests in the Western Ghats that brings rains also has a great dependence upon the rains. They too need some service charges which they make use to keep all the rich diverse forms of life to perpetuate their own life cycles.

How could such pieces of vital information be mis-understood and materialistically interpreted by the society? 

BON Voyage Samad bhai

We are pleased to inform you about the selection of ‘The Real Jungle book Bear’, a documentary of the real life of the Rudyard Kippling’s Jungle Book character Baloo the Bear for the film festival at Baikal in Russia. 

Samad Kottur with Teachers

The film was shot in Karnataka and a vast majority of it Daroji Sloth Bear Sanctuary near Hampi.  The film had bagged the Green Oscar at Bristol last year.  A member of this successful team, Mr. Samad Kottur is representing the film at the XII Baikal International Festival held at Irkutus from the 26th to the 30th of September 2013.  The Hasiru Hejje team wishes him the heartiest congratulations and success in his journey to Baikal. ‘I never thought that the Russian language lessons learnt on Radio Moscow in the early eighties would come to use in a real sense’ exclaimed joyous Samad. We are sure your presentation about your  passionate work will impress the volgas and gain new friends for yourself and the Sloth bears.

Collecting Data with the Local Community

 The theme "People and Environment" is conceived by the organizers to get-together, film makers to develop concern about the relationships between people and environment.  More than 150 films from 36 countries were received for the festival of which 13 films were selected for final screening. The films are produced by Germany, USA, Hungary, Great Britain, France, Russia, South Korea, Austria and Switzerland.

The jury of the festival will choose the "The Best Documentary Film", "The Best Popular-Science Film", "The Best Camera Operator's Work", "The Best Director's Work", "The Best Amateur Film", the prize "Baikal" , Grand Prix. Apart from the competition section there film screening upon films made on Baikal Lake, Sacred Lands, Some investigative and daring films and an exclusive selection for school children.

Also in the festival are discussions and meetings with films directors and producers, work-shops by eminent cinematographers and photo exhibitions are also arranged.

‘Radical Ecological Democracy (RED)’ for freedom, equity and sustainability

 Nirantara Foundation is a long standing theatre group that has kept Mysore culturally alive and active. The band of enthusiastic youngsters are kept on their toe through involving them in  several constructive activities such as conducting workshops, publishing books, making documentaries and voicing for the needy. They have actively participated in many of the people’s struggles in the region, like the fight against the Coal based Thermal Power Plant at Chamalapura, near Mysore.
The founders, Mr. Prasad Kundur and Mr. Suguna stand behind so many budding talents form the city. They call workshops to identify young talents and help them recognize their own capacities. Nirantara has been a stepping stone for a number of visual and performing artists who have flourished in their carriers.

Brain storming on defining "freedom"

 For the past eight years they have been organizing this month long workshop for the college students of Mysore under the name Sahajaranga.   The aim is to draw youth into pragmatic consciousness about the changing world we live in.  The work shop, though branded as a theatre course tries to expose the participants to a number of contemporary issues through thought-provoking lecture-demonstrations by eminent people from various fields.  About 40 students are enrolled every year and would including students from professional and post graduation courses. The workshops are based on different theme every year and “freedom and equality" was the theme for this year.

Activity for sensitising about environmental issues

A theatre production follows the workshop as an essential outcome which is socially relevant.  They are converted to street plays and intimate theatre mode for convenience to be performed more than once and travel through various colleges across the state. While the exercise helps the participants gain confidence in themselves, a social message trickles down the community.

 Luckily enough the foundation has great concern for Nature and concepts of sustainable management of resources and Manu K will be given a whole day to spend with the participants. He of took on the issue by making every one express what freedom to them meant. The definitions crystallized the socio-cultural and economical background of the individual. Every body had a struggle- some for an access to mobile phone, some for getting home late and some to pick up a suitable course for their own carrier.   He made very clear that we live as hypocrites when it comes to enjoying freedom and controlling others for our gains. The youngsters figured out that freedom of expression was the greatest form of freedom. He then tried interpolating freedom at individual levels upon that of the community or the state which was more or less same to every one in a broad sense. 

"constructive freedom of expression"

He set the participants into a game ‘Tiger and the deer’ to explain certain inequities in Nature, which is caused by the limitations of an individual animal and how animals coins upon them for survival. Yet they have some norms and principals in their ‘animal-ness’. On the other hand it is we in the name of compassion and for the sake of profits change those value systems and rules of the game to meet our selfish end. Issues such as food distribution and food security world wide were discussed at great length.

 In the post lunch session the participants were introduced to evolution of Social democracy and its practice world wide. The current economic struggles world wide was compared with that of the Indian economy with since globalization. The reforms had down sides since the growth created more jobless.

He mentioned that the northern countries achieved their living standards by exploiting their erstwhile colonies. India like China can never achieve those standards. The only alternative to achieve ecological sustainability and equity in India is to instill the value of Radical Ecological Democracy- which respects cultural diversity, cooperation rather than competition as the basis of human relations and all forms of life. We quoted noted environmentalist and writer Mr. Ashish Kothari and expressed the need to evolve a society that has dignity of labor and seek happiness and satisfaction through social and cultural interaction rather than only material interaction.

At one point the participants were felt getting over loaded with information and issues. They were taken out for a small energizing exercise. They were broken into small teams and asked to put up a collage on the ground with material picked up from the premises.  Being in the clutches of hard held debates the youngsters were free to express their inner feelings.

Film show

In the evening there was a screening of Philippe Diaz’s ‘The End of Poverty’ a long documentary that is produced with a great concern about the future of the hungry populations of the Southern countries.

Photo courtesy: Nirantara Foundation

CURRICULUM WITH MUSEUM: ENVIROMMENT EDUCATION THROUGH ORIGAMI

AN INNOVATIVE WAY OF LARNING

- S J Srinivasa

Regional Museum of Natural History, Siddhartha Nagara, Mysore a -570011 and De Paul International Residential School, Mysore jointly well thought-out an innovative learning excises through ORIGAMI. This programme was expected to ease the formal learning skills all the way through non formal techniques. The constituted target group was the students aged 12-14 years. 

This two day workshop was held at the museum premises on 14^th & 15^th September 2013.

The students were taken for a gallery tour under the guidance of Smt. Mujeeba Khanum, EA of museum, accompanied by the teaching faculty of the school Ms.Mamatha Satyanarayana and Ms. Komala. They had a glance of the exhibits provided with guidance in detail.  Students held discussions among themselves comparing the prescribed school syllabus and presented exhibits in the museum.

 Session – II Introduction to ORIGAMI - the art of crafting a piece of paper in to fascinating models.

The much awaited session began with an introduction to paper, the only raw material the students would experiment with. The history of making paper, its chemistry, the unbelievable dependence on paper and types of paper - created a story line for the next event.

Mr. Muralidhara.H.V.,an exponent of this art form, and Mr. S.J.Srinivasa MEP of the museum revealed the story of ORIGAMI. Students were taught simple techniques of paper folding and making them into amazing 3 –D profile.

They exercised the origami with full liberty filled with imagination. Slowly they came to know the essence of the craft, paper transforming into animal, Insects and birds, following the principles of geometry and life forms. Each participant skillfully put on show various shapes so as to run out of pieces of paper.

Meanwhile, Mr. Manu Krishnamurthy, a long time associate of museum and the Secretary of Mysore Amateur Naturalists put his effort to enlighten the participants with a taxidermy mount of a mute swan,  to learn the life of  birds.

 This activity enhanced their participation and scores of bird models flew in. There were swans, Peafowl, ducks, Talking crows, small unknown bird forms, Pigeons and what not! 

The pouncing enthusiasm leads to different verities too. They learnt how to fold a piece of rough paper and pull it in to a hopping toad, shimmering fish, and blooming flower. All precaution was taken that they are learning the prescribed science lessons through this exercise. By the end of the day they were able to understand why they had come over here.   The following day, children constructively participated in making more models with ORIGAMI which they put up for an exhibition.

Origami workshop link Curriculum with museum

For two days the children of 6^th grade of the DePaul International School had the privilege of learning without reading or writing. They were at the Regional Museum of Natural History trying to fold papers with their nimble fingers to find out patterns in them. First they experimented with newspaper, tore them into bits, squeezed, squashed and rolled them to a ball and felt the properties of paper.

 S J Srinivasa who had designed this workshop introduced the origin of paper and the art the art of folding it into models by the people of the Oriental region. His conception of this trial to ‘perk up learning process’ as he calls it would enhance the art of learning, experiencing and exhibiting.

The objective of this Workshop for Children is to reach the young minds to the optimum, through ‘Teach less- Learn more’ activities following the prescribed school syllabus. This ancient, Japanese art of folding paper is not only an art form to entertain people but a time tested, tool of learning and to constitute logical thinking in the pupil. He undergoes schematic learning through repeated actions. To be successful, the student must watch closely and listen carefully to specific instructions and then carry them out with neatness and accuracy.

The workshop had a long session that took the children round the gallery and Mrs. Mujeeba Khanoom gave them an in-depth insight into the plant and animal world. While Mr. Manu gave additional inputs on the morphological make of the animals that the children made, Mr. Murali, the head Master of the Beerihundi High School taught the students how to fold papers. 

Mr. Murali feels that this is a case where a student's success is imposed by the activity rather than the teacher. It is low a cost learning module developed by experts which helps to explore new possibilities of learning & understanding. It comes handy in the field of non formal education. The Educational Benefits of Origami are tones, especially when you handle children of heterogeneous group with various levels of learning disabilities.

On the second day, Mr. Srinivasa taught the children, some paper craft and mask making, an art never thought of by the participants. They enjoyed the experience of wielding scissors across color papers at free will but felt they needed a lot of experience to imagine and cut out shapes with bilateral symmetry that were so simple but gave such artistic profiles.

Ms. Mamatha, who accompanied the students, felt “like singing, games, and dancing, the pleasure comes in recreating the result and sharing it with others. For many students, it engenders patience, the ability to focus energy, and increased self-esteem.” She like their principal was astonished to see so many pieces of art emerging out of the two days workshop. The kids had fun, experienced a whiff of freedom from the four walls, the learnt a lot of new things pertaining to taxidermy and evolution. The exhibits will be on display for about a fortnight in the Temporary exhibits Gallery of the Museum. The other children of the school are sent to visit the museum in a beeline. What else would a museum wish for? 

Millet Mela at Mysore

I still remember those days in the nineties when two of our friends Ravi and Dinesh, fresh graduates out of Engineering college who pedaled vegetables grown without the use chemical fertilizers and pesticides on their bicycles. Except for a very few people who had known their cause nobody else respected their initiative. They had not taken it as their job but something more; their young minds were struck by the philosophy of Masunabo Fukuoka. They had read E F Schumacher's economics in ‘Small is Beautiful’ and soil science and ill effects of synthetic chemicals in ‘Tending the earth’ by Winin Pereira.

Mr. Dinesh Kumar

Entrepreneurs like A P Chandrashaker and Ramakrishna Bhat at Kallahalli had already begun to try out the natural ways of cultivation. They had given up carriers in the main stream and moved on to the country side to take on farming. In those days many people did it. Probably Dinesh and Ravi felt the need of a proper market for such products and they started to take to house holds and form buyers network in Mysore.

Mr. U.N. Ravi Kumar, Guruprasad and others tried giving a proper shape to the movement and started the first Organic shop in Mysore in 1997. It aimed at Nesara, stocking everything organic - from salt to sugar to vegetable and fruits. Through memberships they gathered from like-minded people to join hands to promote organic products besides encouraging farmers to grow organic products. Presently, it has around 230 members, including farmers and consumers.

In about fifteen years, Mysore has seen a dozen more initiatives. Not all of them are cooperatives like Nesara. Some tried adding value to the products like Ahara butti. Some stock organic products along with other items in their shops and some have a village-fair approach. They put up the shop once a week and remove it by evening. The markets grew and consciousness of the people awakened. Every shop had its own pricing and competition grew stiffer. An annual gathering to promote their common interest started occurring frequently. The networks grew wider and the melas got bigger. Today you find any thing and everything branded with an organic tag- from cooking oil to phenol, all classically packed and exorbitantly priced.

Every shop started profiting. Many regular customers started losing faith in the products. But talking organic became a fad and like religious cults there are always newer customers who become even more hard core. Our urban population is mesmerized to keep buying to help economic growth. Families found new destinations to go shopping.  

Nanjaraja Bahudar Choultry is seeing a fair on a monthly basis. It is happy to see so many products on display and to feel that the world is going greener. Millets are coming back to the market- not as an alternate food but as a remedial measure for the health of an individual. Whatever, it is definitely doing good to the environment and economy.

It is a hard fact that profit seekers surface from every possible nook in a gathering of people. It is the crowd who can afford at pay Rs 90 or 120 for a kilo of rice. They must also be people who may be interested in buying a site or exchanging a car. As a result, our Organic marketers are making a hey day always ready to showcase their unquestionably good intentions and put up a stall to recover the losses of a farmer, do good to the environment and promote health of the public. Of course all these things incur expenses and they are another unorganized sector that is fast becoming organized. They along with their customers or the organic people constitute more than 95% of the people. Alas, the remaining five are the farmers? One should not doubt how many of them are really organic and how much they are producing ?