Trip to Sedona

Ryan, Aquene and I talked about Bhopal till late on Sunday night. What I can do, how much time I have. Then Aquene and I decided to try to steal some time on Monday from the conference and run away into the hills in Sedona. We also heard others were going. I think I barely slept this entire weekend. I slept a few hours and woke up, got dressed and got to Aquene's place near the conference venue about half hour late. We got on the road and then started to call people for directions on how to get to Sedona. The drive was beautiful. The couple of quaint restaurants we stopped at were closed. Too early I guess for Arizona. In Sedona we hiked up to this rock called chicken point and just lay sprawled on it staring at the sky and the passing tourist planes and helicopters... talking talking talking. Pretty soon our 2 hours budgeted time at that place was up. Aquene scared a few lizards along the way. I was having so much fun in Arizona that I didnt want to leave. I guess a part of me was glad when we hit traffic due to construction. Getting to the airport I got a different flight. We ran into Shekhar and the three of us spent the next few hours talking till it was finally time to go. The security lines were long and I had to make a dash for the gate. But when I got there the plane hadnt yet arrived. Aquene walked to my gate since I was still around. We talked some more. Soon it was time to end the fun weekend and say goodbyes. We promised to meet up again in a couple of weeks when she'd come to Dallas for a conference. I invited her to an AID Dallas CSH to talk to all the volunteers about Bhopal. Sleep finally engulfed me the moment I sat down in the plane and I slept.

What an AID Conference!!! A message from Ravi Kuchimanchi

Dear AIDers,The conference was incredible.... the talent and enthusiasm from all chapters on display was really a joy to see. AID-Tempe folk put up such a magnificent effort and handled so many tasks so calmly including the crisis situation at the end of day 2 when campus police informed there was a prowler on loose possibly with a gun, and everyone should be on guard. I hope the energy at the conference and unity amongst all of us and the causes we are a part of, goes a long way in rising to the challenge of ending exploitation and oppression of people by people. I hope we begin to relate to the hard working poor of India and the world as people who need to get a fairer deal from the rest of us, and not only as people who need our sympathy and help. I hope we have begun to see how we are make concrete progress by standing up for rights of people of Narmada and Bhopal, by using RTI, by exposing implementation problems of NREGA and digesting threats from corrupt officials, by using our skills to impact children's education on a large scale achieving greater equity in the schooling system and by seeing that in how we spend money and in what we wear and buy, the Jivika of others is impacted, I hope the "can do" spirit in AID continues for ever!!--Ravi

My Voice Counts: Bhopal, Nandigram, Singur, Cudallore, Narmada and so many more

Pragya:
Trip report on visit to sabhavna clinic
-lodging- rallies & protests
Something was always going on-numbers are in 100s-preparations-strategic things to discuss and plan for
DharnaDaily updatesBeing in Bhopal was very inspiring and up close and personal -this is their reality - only a glimpse
Lots of media attention
Black holi
Constant police presence - threats to pickup
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Aquene:
What you can do for the Bhopal campaign as an individual or a chapter
-leaking ponds resulting in groundwater contamination- Presentation on what we can do
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Deepthi
Lived in India and worked with Medha Patkar since 2002
Current situation - Protests - SEZs (Nandigram, Singur) - Mass displacements are expected
The Govt is just not willing to give in. You can struggle for 20 years but you are not going to win.
How can we connect these issues: Displacement as a whole.
Medha's fast - to challenge the figures of the electricity production that the engineers were projecting from Narmada. In singure the car factory was being done for 990 acres where as in Europe it is 350 acres. Volunteering opportunity: Visit Medha and help and volunteer to work along with her. write articles, write to editors Getting saathis together Sign up

Fighting Corruption: Vijay Anand

While I couldnt capture the entire presentation. He talked about an organization called 5th pillar championing the fight against corruption, the use of RTI for this and the use of "Zero Rupee" notes for as a symbol of fight against bribes.
August is designated by AID as the corruption free month with road trips planned to various schools and colleges on this in Tamilnadu.

Dr. Bhagat said that we need to focus on people and children and teach them never to take bribe. So if no one takes a bribe... there will be no bribery.

NREGA: Challenges and current issues

Ravi Kuchimanchi

• Meant to give labor for 100 days
• Primarily labor based... no machines etc.
• 50% NREGA budget not utilized last year
• People dont know that they need to apply
• Street plays and education for local poeple so they can understand what the NREGA act provides and how to utilize it
• Wages are based on daily wage rate or a piece rate. Min daily wage rate is Rs. 70 per day.
• Each state has their own emp guarantee schemes in tune with the NREGA
• Measurability of work is a big challenge and there is a lot of corruption in this area
• NREGA act and its governance can highly benefit from the RTI Act.

He showed a couple of videos of street plays on the NREGA act.

He showed a video of a bunch of people digging and carrying dirt and mud. He suggested that the Indian Govt should implement suggestions on improving implements and tools and providing shade/shelter to the workers working in the hot sun. He said its important that the govt monitors the progress on the work being done so work can be efficient and corruption can be mitigated.

Right to Information Act: Arvind Kejriwal

Arun told me on the way to the venue this morning that Arvind Kejriwal will be inducted as an AID Saathi today. The first session per agenda today is the RTI talk by Arvind Kejriwal.

• Which dept deals with the information that I need to know


• Drafting the application


• Forming the questions


• Which officer deals with this information. No one will tell you


• Submitting the application


• How to submit the Rs. 10 application fee, which account number should be used for the demand draft


• Bihar Experiment: Bihar citizens need to call the phone number and just ask for the information. Your voice becomes the RTI application. The voice is transcribed and sent. The fee is charged to your phone bill. But bureaucracy has been putting up obstacles in this process. 64 telephone exchanges exist in Bihar and not all are working or setup even 6 months after it was promised to the CM. But despite that where the exchanges work, people say things happen very fast.


• Information Commisioner: If an officer doesnt give the response in 30 days the Information commissioner needs to be informed. The officer will be penalized with a reduction in salary. There are three sets of ICs. One who have the people in their heart, one who we have to work with and one who are corrupt. It is really important to work with and encourage the first two types.


• He gave an example of a sincere and proactive IC, Vijay and two examples of how this person works and gets things done. Another person is Mr. B N Das who is a terror to the officers in the bureaucracy. Mr. O P Kejriwal is another IC who imposes strict penalties on officers that helps reforms the officers as these penalties get recorded on their career record which can really affect their career progress. But this is not without peril for such ICs. In some cases they are accused of sexual harrassment or intimidated.


• Can we encourage these information commissioners by writing to them and offering words of support? Can a movement or publicity help bring attention to the false case against Mr. O P Kejriwal?


• Next he talked about how we can engage with ICs that have a potential and who we can work with and help educate about issues and need for them to be honest, proactive and responsible.


• Central Information Commision (CIC): An experiment showed how out of 200 people who walked out of the CIC ... only 6 were satisfied with the results. He illustrated horror stories of how the CIC rejects cases with no valid reasons, how people are made to run around many many times over.


• The four questions to ask in an RTI application that are most useful: what has been done so far, who are the officers, what action is taken against the officers, when to expect my results/information?


• We need to find out which Judge is pro-RTI. 15 cases have been filed in the Delhi High Court. The first case has already been won (this was the CIC rejecting the cases with no hearing).

AID can help with

• Trying to do this across the country. One AID volunteer in various places to assess the Information Commission/ Information Commisioner in that area.


• Having a local advocate to fight cases and file cases. Even a junior advocate is fine.

The most important thing for RTI is local bodies, strengthening of local institutions. Educating local populations on what is needed. Local self governance is an important enabler for improvement of the systems. Panchayat vs other higher level of governance shows that panchayat based actions are more accountable and result oriented.

Arvind also talked about "patta" where if a person or a group of people are in a particular place for a while have a right to the land. Delhi govt. is using the divide and rule policy to raze "juggis" in various places in Delhi to prevent people from staying in those areas. Arvind extolled AID to help get all these people together and fight the unjust removal of these juggis where these people have lived for such a long time.

Recycling

This morning started with breakfast. Next to the breakfast area there were stalls on RTI, AID Tempe and Students for Bhopal. I spent some time with Keshav and Aquene looking over some Dow ADs and their "truth versions".

Keshav started off the sessions today by talking about recycling. He mentioned different grades of plastic that determine how they are recycled. He encouraged everyone to recycle and save paper with more intelligent ways of printing. "Composting is very easy to do in houses or apartments and you can do a number of different things like using compact flourescent bulbs, using hand towels instead of paper napkins, using a shopping bag rather than 'paper or plastic' at the grocery stores and many more intelligent choices have a big impact at the personal level. When many people do that it has a very big impact at a mass scale".