Vinod Anand

A poor state born from the womb of a financially-wrecked mother, Uttaranchal will have to carry the burden of some of the hefty liabilities of its mother state. Loans taken by the UP government from the World Bank under the Joint Forest Management are being passed on to Uttaranchal’s most of the forests of UP happen to be in this hill region. The new state will not be able to bear the burden of these heavy loans and is sure to crumble under the weight.

To make Uttaranchal viable, ground-level development will have to be stepped up. This requires a very different and innovative type of developmental model; sadly, the UP government seems to be treating the new state as a colony, by sending an army of lAS, IPS and IFS officers to manage its affairs. In a state which lacks even basic development parameters like roads and communication network, the need of the hour is to focus on these vital developmental issues. Corrupt, ignorant and arrogant bureaucrats from Lucknow, with their fixed ideas of development, are coming in, trying to build Uttaranchal on the Lucknow model. That model is not required here.

Uttaranchal is perhaps one of the richest state of the country in terms of biodiversity — with s 60-70 per cent of its area under forests, and nearly 70 per cent of its population dependent on it. The mad rush of forest officials to this new state is understandable, but the conflict between local people trying to get their traditional rights over the forests and the bureaucracy with their ‘known’ interests, could well become a major political, economic and social issue.

Uttaranchal has an added disadvantage: if the criteria of loans and grants are population, it will always be the loser.

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‘J&K government has buried the report on unmarked graves’

SAP Bureau

CALLOUSNESS of the government continues vis-à-vis victims of human rights abuses and in particular against the family members of those who have disappeared in the last two decades in Jammu and Kashmir, said Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons, Kashmir (APDP). In a press release issued on December 28, the APDP said that the relatives of more than 8000 persons continue to wait for the government to probe all the cases of disappearances, deliver justice to the families of the disappeared and punish the perpetrators.

More than three months have passed since the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC), after endorsing our findings on unmarked graves and mass graves, passed a judgment in which it asked the government to constitute an Independent Commission for probing the identity of those buried in unmarked graves, investigating the circumstances in which they were killed and identifying the perpetrators involved, Yaseen Hassan Malik, spokesperson of APDP said.

He alleged that the government as usual has buried the SHRC judgment through delaying tactics to continue obfuscation. Obviously for the family members of the disappeared knowing the truth regarding the whereabouts of their loved ones is the priority, but successive governments through their actions have expressed that justice and human rights is not their priority.

From 23rd October 2011 till now, he said, the government has not appointed the new chairperson of the SHRC, which of course is impeding its inquiry into unmarked graves and mass graves in the Poonch and Rajouri districts.

By not appointing the SHRC chairperson the only impression which we as APDP can gather is that government wants to delay the inquiry of unmarked graves and also the constitution of an Independent Commission on unmarked graves and disappearances in Jammu and Kashmir, which again is an example of how human rights and justice is not a government priority, he said.

He said that enforced disappearance is not an issue of the past. Even this year a 21 year old young man, Susheel Raina, disappeared mysteriously in the month of April 2011. Till now the government has done nothing to probe his disappearance.

He said that if the killing of Haji Mohammad Yousuf, an NC activist, merits a commission of inquiry, then certainly disappearances of 8000 persons should also be probed by a credible and capable inquiry commission, he said.

Significantly since 1998 APDP has been demanding the appointment of an independent inquiry commission for probing the phenomenon of the enforced disappearances in Jammu and Kashmir but successive governments have never paid any heed to this demand.

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