Tribal women from Chattisgarh in India record a message. Credit: Purushottam Thakur/IPS.

By Keya Acharya
RAIPUR, India, Nov 23 2013 (IPS)

Deep in the forests of central India live the Gond tribals, an almost forgotten lot, neglected as much by the state as by mainstream media. Many cannot read or write. But thanks to a new technology, and the rapid spread of mobile phones through India, they are now picking up their cell phone and making their voice heard.

A tele-news platform called CGNet Swara is helping change their world.

Ask Naresh Bunkar, a 38-year-old tribal in Chhattisgarh state who has used it time and again. “Computer mein chhappa jata hai” (“It gets typed on the computer”), he tells IPS proudly in Hindi, pointing out how CGNet Swara helps news spread through the Internet.

Through it, tribals air their grievances, share news and get administrative work done – all for free.

“I don’t need to pay one paisa for it,” says Bunkar, a field leader of sorts for tribals in the area.“It’s going to sound very strange for a computer nerd to tell you that technology is not the secret ingredient here.” - Bill Thies

It was through CGNet Swara that he first reported how a forest ranger had taken a bribe of 99,000 rupees (1,000 dollars) from 33 tribal families while promising them land deeds under India’s Forest Rights Act (2006). The news was circulated, and two months later he called again to say that the official had returned the money and apologised.

In another example of CGNet Swara’s influence, a teacher who had stolen school money, classroom furniture and food grains given by the government for tribal children was suspended after a report on his misdeeds was aired on the network.

Encouraged by such success stories, tribals have swiftly embraced CGNet Swara, which literally means ‘Chhattisgarh’s voice’ through the Internet. Started for the central Indian state, where 32.5 percent of the population is tribal, it is fast spreading to other parts of this vast country to reach out to areas that were beyond the pale of modern communication.

“While Indian states got divided on linguistic lines, the Gonds of central India were forgotten,” Shubhranshu Choudhary, a former BBC journalist, told IPS.

“They don’t have a newspaper in their native Gondi language, but the only new thing I have found on my return here is that most people now have cell phones,” he says.

Choudhary used that cell phone knowledge to set up CGNet Swara in 2010. The system operates in a region beset with Maoist insurgency. Its inhabitants often find themselves caught in the crossfire between the guerrillas and state forces.

A native of Chhattisgarh, he says the ferment in the region stems from years of neglect.

“We are trying to create another ‘development’ paradigm,” says Choudhary. “This communication system could well become the Google of the poor.”

Here’s how it works. When a tribal dials the number +91 80 500 68000, the message goes to a server in Bangalore. The caller disconnects and waits. Within seconds he receives a call and a recorded voice tells him to speak after the beep.

The server has been set up by Bill Thies, a self-confessed geek from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) working at Microsoft’s Research Laboratory in India’s IT capital Bangalore.

Using a simple desktop and modem, Thies used a freely available software called Asterisk to build 10 lines that automatically call back ‘missed call’ numbers and then record a two-minute message from the caller.

“But,” says Thies, “it’s going to sound very strange for a computer nerd to tell you that technology is not the secret ingredient here.”

The ‘secret ingredient’ is the unique media networking system set up by Choudhary, whose community interests aligned with Thies in user-generated technology.

‘Swara’ now has 400 callers daily, dialling Thies’ server in Bangalore to either listen to or record their own news.

Each message goes to the moderator, Choudhary, and through him to about 50 strategically located volunteer sub-editors for cross-checking of facts and local follow-up.

The volunteers are educated Indians, well-versed in their spheres of work and residence, coming from a web-based Yahoo group called CGNet, set up in 2004 by Choudhary and journalist Frederick Noronha of Goa.

For instance, Bunkar’s message on the forest official’s bribe demand was first checked by CGNet’s locally based editorial volunteers for accuracy. It was then sent to the principal chief conservator of forests who found the allegation to be true and suspended the official.

The network – with the website – has even helped people access a popular rural job guarantee scheme.

The state government, however, seems reluctant to acknowledge its potential as a parallel system of governance.

“I personally find it an effective source of feedback and grievance redressal from the grassroots. I do make use of it off and on,” Chhatttisgarh Chief Secretary Sunil Kumar, the state’s top bureacrat,  told IPS, taking care to emphasise the non-official nature of the way he uses it.

Choudhary calls the network a kind of ‘citizen journalism’ wherein there is local news for local residents who are otherwise neglected by the mainstream media.

CGNet Swara now covers all of Chhattisgarh. It’s also popular in the nearby states of Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand. The news system has spread by word of mouth to the tribal belt across Gujarat, Rajasthan, Odisha, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh – an area Choudhary calls the ‘media dark zone’.

Ironically, the region’s ultra-left Maoist radicals, who claim to fight for the marginalised, have issued threats to Choudhary, asking him to close down CGNet Swara.

Choudhary, who divides his time between Delhi and Bhopal, says the Maoists are threatened by the concept of self-empowerment that the news system has brought to its users.

CGNet Swara is evolving into a radio system using a free medium-wave bandwidth, and Choudhary believes users will pay a small amount for subscribing. Running on a UN Democracy Fund and Knight Fellowship finances so far, the system is now looking for financial independence.

A health consultation network called Swasthya Swara is also being set up where traditional healers who make use of herbal medicines will be on air.

“We are extending our Swara system into a mobile-based voice portal,” says Choudhary. “There is no need for a newsroom now. Geography is now history.”

And, for the unempowered tribal population of India, whose numbers run into tens of millions, that’s indeed good news.

Three Adivasi women stand next to Kawardah mine in Chhattisgarh where Vedanta Aluminium Ltd is expected to receive bauxite supplies from the Bharat Aluminium Company. Credit: Nella Turkki/IPS

By Ed McKenna
NEW DELHI, Oct 23 2013 (IPS)

A nationwide enquiry into illegal mining in India was aborted before it completed its investigation into the failings of the country’s mining industry. The study had prompted the government to ban mining in two states and arrest high-ranking politicians.

The government’s Oct. 16 decision to terminate the enquiry is a worrying indicator of its commitment to ending corruption and malpractice in the mining sector, says Vijay Pratap, convener of the think tank South Asian Dialogues on Ecological Democracy.

“Our government has been overwhelmed by the corporate power of mining companies. The government had to stop this enquiry because too many uncomfortable truths were being revealed about the nexus between politics and companies,” he told IPS.

The commission, headed by Justice M B Shah, was appointed in November 2010 to investigate illegal iron ore and manganese mining practices and track the financial records of transactions in the mining industry between 2006 and 2010.

Illegal mining in resource-rich states of India spans unlicenced encroachment of forest areas, bribery, under-payment of government royalties, environmental offences and displacement of tribal communities.

Two earlier reports by the Shah Commission on illegal mining across the country led to a ban on the country’s largest iron ore mines in the states of Karnataka and Goa.

The government’s decision to end the enquiry will halt detailed hearings in three of the states listed in the commission’s terms of reference – Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.

UV Singh, a member of the Shah Commission, told IPS that the government gave no justification for its decision to end the investigation before it could conclude its study.

“There is no reason. The investigation was incomplete. Major details were missing from our study, while in three states we were unable to commence any enquiry. Justice Shah is not satisfied with this outcome,” he told IPS.

According to the report on Goa’s iron ore mining sector, 90 mines had been operational without the requisite permission from the National Board for Wildlife. In September 2010 the government declared a temporary ban on all mining activity in Goa, which is still in place, and revoked all mining licences in response to a report by the commission. The small western state of Goa accounts for more than half of India’s iron ore exports.

The commission’s latest report described the state’s failings to regulate the industry as “a deliberate omission that resulted in illegal mining and a huge loss to the exchequer.”

The commission has estimated that illegal mining in Goa has cost the state financial losses of up to six billion dollars.

High-ranking government officials flagged by the commission for their involvement in bogus mining practices include Goa’s former director of mines and geology, Arvind Lolienkar, who was suspended for his alleged involvement in illegal mining.

M E Shivalinga Murthy, former director of Karnataka’s mines and geology department, was also charged, in May 2012, for illegally issuing transferred mining permits to the Associated Mining Company (AMC). A subsequent investigation found six other officials from his department guilty of collusion.

AMC is owned by former Karnataka tourism minister Janardhana Reddy, who has been imprisoned for using fake permits.

The enquiry’s findings set a precedent for the Supreme Court to ban mining in Karnataka from July 2011 to April 2013. The ban was lifted as the investigation in the state had concluded and there was strong pressure to allow mining industry activity to resume.

“Our system and its governing elite are controlled by large corporations who use bribery and intimidation to get what they want,” Pratap told IPS.

India’s iron ore exports have been in constant decline since 2009-2010, when exports stood at 117 million tonnes. In 2010-2011 exports had slumped to 61 million tonnes. According to the Federation of Indian Mineral Industries, the ban on mining in Goa and Karnataka has cost the country 10 billion dollars.

The closure of the commission will prevent further evidence being compiled on illegal mining and will also perpetuate “the illegal violation of resource rights and forest and environmental laws by mining companies in the tribal dominated mineral rich and forested districts of the state,” Madhu Sarin, honorary fellow at the Rights and Resources Initiative, a global coalition that works to encourage forest tenure and policy reforms, told IPS.

India’s eighty million Adivasis – members of forest-dwelling traditional communities – are the major casualties of this decision, says Samantha Agarwal with Chhattisgarh Bachao Andolan, an alliance of people’s groups and mass organisations.

She told IPS that access to resources such as land and clean water will continue to be threatened by encroachment from illegal mining companies.

“Adivasis who live in areas with mining operations are the poorest by all measures, including access to electricity and drinking water,” Agarwal said.

“Their farm and forest land is taken by illegal means with particularly blatant violations of PESA (Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act) and the Forest Rights Act…then due to mining activities their ground water dries up and whatever remaining land of theirs gets destroyed by surface water effluents from the mines.”

Adivasis had their land rights curtailed earlier this year when the government overturned a key provision of the Forest Rights Act legislation to allow major linear infrastructure projects such as road building in forest habitat without consent from the affected community as previously mandated in the FRA.

In response to the decision to terminate the Shah Commission, Sanjay Basu Mallick from the All India Forum of Forest Movements told IPS: “Adivasis can no longer rely on legal process to protect their rights. Their only weapons are courage and non-violent protest.”