Vehicle asked from SAIL for its Odisha mining site inspection is minister Prakash Javadekar's luxury ride in Delhi

The Indian Express, 22 December, 2015

In February this year, the Ministry of Environment and Forests, while granting forest clearance to Steel Authority of India Ltd’s Barsua iron mines in Odisha, asked the public sector undertaking for a vehicle that the Ministry’s Bhubaneswar staff could use for field inspections.

Official records show that within four months, SAIL bought a Rs 20-lakh Toyota Fortuner for the Ministry. But this SUV was not sent to the field office. It was delivered in New Delhi where it was being used, until recently, by Minister Prakash Javadekar.

It is not unusual for the Ministry’s regional offices or state forest departments to ask for vehicles from project proponents for site inspection. SAIL’s Barsua iron mines itself has delivered six vehicles (five Boleros and a Scorpio) to the Odisha forest department since 2011. But never before had it supplied a high-end SUV like the Fortuner and, that too, to New Delhi rather than the field office.

The Indian Express contacted H Bara who was General Manager of Barsua mines when the Fortuner was purchased but is now retired.
“As per the forest clearance condition, the proposal for the SUV sought from SAIL for Odisha mine inspection used by Javadekar in Delhi
car was sent to our E&L (Environment and Lease) division in the Kolkata headquarters,” Bara said.

Asked why a Fortuner had been chosen and why was it delivered to Delhi given that it was meant to be used in Barsua, Bara declined comment.

Beginning December 15, The Indian Express made several phone calls, sent email questionnaires and text messages to the Ministry and SAIL. Last Saturday, Minister Javadekar, in an email, said he was in Bangalore and had asked the Director General (Forest) to “cooperate” and reply on Monday. But there was no response.

For days, the Fortuner had a red beacon. And on December 16, a day after the questionnaire was sent, it was parked with other staff vehicles in the basement of the Ministry headquarters. The red beacon atop had been removed.

Records show that the Ministry’s clearance letter, dated February 10, 2015, did not specify any make or model of the car sought.
But barely a week later, SAIL’s Deputy General Manager (Liaison) wrote to the Ministry asking “by when a vehicle Toyota Fortuner model 4×2 MT, 3.0 litre white is to be delivered keeping in view, the conditions. (imposed) in the in-principle approval may take approximately two years to be complied with”.

On June 17, as per records, a Fortuner was purchased and delivered in Delhi. With licence plate DL3C CC 8068, it was registered on June 26 in the name of an Under Secretary in the General Administration Division of the Ministry and was used by Javadekar.

According to an August 2014 regulation of the Department of Expenditure under the Finance Ministry, a Minister can spend up to Rs 4.75 lakh on purchase of an official vehicle. Like his colleagues in the Cabinet, Javadekar has a Maruti SX4 (DL1 CQ 6208, bought in 2014) for official use.

When contacted, Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests Tejinder Singh, head of the Ministry’s Bhubaneswar regional office which was meant to use the car, said no vehicle had been received from SAIL. Asked about the Fortuner delivered to New Delhi, he declined comment.

Records show that on May 30, 2014 — barely days after this government was sworn in — the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) of the Ministry recommended Stage-I clearance for SAIL’s Barsua mines, along with a series of penalties for alleged violation of the Forest Conservation Act. These included penal compensatory afforestation, disciplinary proceedings against officials and legal proceedings against SAIL.

Clearance could only be issued this February after the Supreme Court eased its stand on iron mining.

Incidentally, a car for inspections was not among the conditions set by the FAC when it recommended clearance. Records show that this condition was added in the clearance letter issued on February 10: “User agency (SAIL) will provide permanent vehicular mobility to the (Ministry’s) regional office, Bhubaneswar, for periodic monitoring of the project already existing and those coming up in the area.”

Neither S S Negi, Director General (Forest), nor H C Chaudhary, the Director who issued the forest clearance, responded to emails and messages asking how and why this condition was included. Under the rules, only the Minister has the authority to add to conditions set by the FAC.

Looking behind the numbers on India’s ‘stable’ forest cover

The Indian Express, 21 December, 2015

The first time the Forest Survey of India (FSI) measured the country’s forest cover was in 1987, using satellite data captured during 1981-83. Its latest biennial report released recently shows that India has gained 60,854 sq km of forests over the past three decades, 43,907 sq km having been added under the dense forest category.

In the last two years, while the gain in overall forest cover has been an impressive 3,775 sq km, our dense forests have shrunk by only 654 sq km. These figures were highlighted by the government to claim an overall stability in India’s forest cover.

Indeed, this is a remarkable feat considering the intense pressure on forest land for the agricultural, industrial and infrastructural needs of a rapidly growing population. But before celebrating the achievement, there is need to look behind the numbers.

The FSI uses satellite images to identify green cover, and does not discriminate between natural forests, plantations, thickets of weeds such as juliflora and lantana, and longstanding commercial crops such as palm, coconut, coffee or even sugarcane. In the 1980s, satellite imagery mapped forests at a 1:1 million scale, missing details of land units smaller than 4 sq km. Now, the refined 1:50,000 scale can scan patches as small as 1 hectare (100 metres x 100 metres), and any unit showing 10 per cent canopy density is considered forest. So millions of these tiny plots that earlier went unnoticed, now contribute to India’s official forest cover. This can throw up very interesting results. Take Delhi, for example. The first FSI report recorded only 15 sq km of forests in the capital. The latest report found 189 sq km — an over 12-fold increase in three decades. Nearly a third of this is recorded under the ‘dense’ category. So how come oxygen-starved Delhiites do not have a guide map to take a breather in these ‘forests’?

Similarly, the highly agricultural Punjab and Haryana have managed to add more than 1,000 sq km each of forests since the 1980s. Arid Rajasthan has gained as much as 30%. A third of Tamil Nadu’s forests are on private land that also has a fifth of the state’s dense forests.

Even as invasive weeds and commercial plantations masqueraded as ‘forests’ across the country, India kept losing its vital dense forest cover (canopy density of 40% or above). For example, dense forests have shrunk by 2,254 sq km in Gujarat, and by 1,887 sq km in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana since the first FSI report. 

What’s worse, the net loss, or gain, in dense forests does not show how much is actually being lost. A dense forest can deteriorate to open forest (10%-40% canopy density), or can be wiped out altogether to become non-forest. On the other hand, open forests can improve in density, and even non-forests can grow into open and, subsequently, dense forests over a length of time. Since 2003 (see chart), 9,513 sq km of India’s dense forests have been wiped out, and have become non-forest areas. What offsets this loss in the forest reports is the conversion of non-forest areas to dense forest every two years. Since 2003, a total of 4,809 sq km of non-forest have become dense forest. In the last two years alone, this has added 1,135 sq km under the best forest category. The secret: these are all fast-growing plantations — not detected by satellites in the early stages, but considered dense forests when they ultimately show up. Planting mixed native species is perhaps the best means to create new forests. But they cannot compensate, certainly not overnight, for the loss of old-growth natural forests. For three decades, our net dense forest cover has remained stable on paper. There is nothing in the FSI reports until 2005 to show how much of these prime forests were actually lost, and compensated for, by plantations. But the data in the last 10 years reveal that we are destroying around 1,000 sq km of dense forest every year, and compensating for nearly half of this with plantations. Depending on where one stands, one can be smug that we are losing only this much and not more, or worry that so much is being lost. Either way, this realisation — and not the jugglery of marginal net gains or losses — is the real takeaway from our forest reports. 

Forest Report: Behind net gain, 2,500 sq km of best forests wiped out in two years

The Indian Express, 6 Dec 2015

The Forest Survey of India’s biennial report released on Friday showcased how India has added 3,775 sq km to its green cover since 2013. It also reported an increase of 2,402 sq km in the very dense forest category that had remained static since 2007.

Behind these happy figures, the report recorded a loss of 2,511 sq km of very dense and mid-dense forests that have been completely wiped out, and become non-forest areas since 2013.

While an area of at least 1 hectare (0.01 sq km) with a canopy density of 10% is considered forest, prime forests are classified as very dense and mid-dense with canopy densities of at least 70% and 40% respectively.

Figures extrapolated from the 2015 report show that while 2,511 sq km of prime forests have disappeared altogether, 1,135 sq km of non-forest areas have become either very dense or mid-dense forests during that time.

But this can hardly offset the loss, because these new forests are mostly plantations or areas that were already forests, but had not been recorded until now.
“Yes, it is impossible for a non-forest area to become a dense forest in two years. Some of these are plantations that have grown enough to be identified in satellite images. And there were certain existing forest areas that were not clearly identifiable from the images earlier,” said Dr Anmol Kumar, director general, Forest Survey of India.

Even accounting for the non-forest areas now recorded as dense and mid-dense forests, the net loss of forests in these prime categories works out to be 1,376 sq km — more than twice the area of Mumbai — in two years. The states of J&K, Uttarakhand, Meghalaya, Kerala, Arunachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana and Manipur, and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands took major hits.

On the other hand, the overall gain of 2,402 sq km of very dense forests since 2013 is largely due to positive results from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The archipelago has gained a remarkable 1,932 sq km of very dense forests, putting 5,686 sq km — or 84% — of its entire forest cover of 6,751 sq km under the top category. Uttar Pradesh added 572 sq km of very dense forest — a jump of 35% since 2013. Tamil Nadu reported a net gain of 100 sq km of very dense forest.

“We have planted a lot of mangroves since the tsunami. Under the forest improvement scheme, we also do regular plantations in the gap areas inside mid-density forests. And timber extraction was reduced to one-eighth of the one lakh tonne quota in 2002. All these efforts are now showing results,” said Omkar Singh, principal chief conservator of forests, A&N Islands.

Asked if the report’s emphasis on net gain is deceptive since it over-compensates the loss of prime forests with plantations, Dr Kumar underlined the “overall stability” of the country’s forest cover.

“What is wrong with plantations? Other than old root stocks coming up, that is the only way forests can be created. Private commercial monoculture plantations are there but the (forest) department plants only mixed native species. The net gain, however small, indicates we have stability,” he said.

Loss Of Prime Forests (2013-2015)*

Very dense forest to non-forest 257

Non-forest to very dense forest 157

Net loss of very dense forest 100

Mid-dense to non-forest 2,254

Non-forest to mid-dense forest 978

Net loss of mid-dense forest 1,276

Total loss of prime forest 1,376

*In sq km

The real outrage

The Indian Express, 4 Dec 2015

When the decibel is deafening, silence can be a survival instinct. Besides, there is no debate to join or win. One can’t argue against incantations meant to rouse lynch mob soundalikes. Yet, the absurdity screaming at us demands a response, if only for the record.

The whining intellectuals, we are told, are hypocrites because they consider incidents such as the Dadri lynching as signs of growing intolerance but not the killing of an army officer by terrorists in Kashmir. Aamir Khan was asked the question by a member of the audience during the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism awards evening, and thousands of times on social media thereafter.

From the stage, Aamir replied that all acts of violence should be condemned. Modest of him to not point out that the question was outright meaningless. Terrorists did not kill that particular soldier because he offended them. They killed him like they kill many other soldiers and civilians of all faiths because that is what terrorists do.

Calling terrorism a form of intolerance, however extreme, stretches the limits of euphemism. So when we compare the two killings, do we imply that the Dadri villagers acted like terrorists? That acute intolerance made a bunch of regular people find an excuse to take out a neighbour of a different faith? Much like terrorists seeking opportunities to target anyone on the other side?

Besides, the outrage over the murders of Mohammad Akhlaq, Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and M.M. Kalburgi is primarily against a section of political leadership busy playing down the incidents and a government lax in punishing the culprits. Likewise, the country would have erupted in anger had the establishment come across as soft on terror. Or, do the Hindutva apologists demanding parity in outrage believe that is actually the case?

Then, those harangues over selective protest. What happened in Delhi in 1984 or in Mumbai in 1992-93 or in Gujarat in 2002 deserved every bit of outrage that India in 2015 is drawing. A number of those outraged today might well have had incentives for acting far less sensitively on earlier occasions. But to claim that everyone protesting now is beholden to some political camp is to testify for the very intolerance charge they seek to dismiss.

In a long-cynical world, our reaction to almost anything depends on the scale, proximity and immediacy of it. In a decidedly corrupt country, it took the scale of a Bofors scandal to bring a government down. In a society scarred by daylight rapes doled out as punishment, we took to the streets only when one of us was brutally raped in the busy evening hours in the capital.

Unfortunate though it is, we are tempted to rationalise killings during a riot as an aberration — perpetrated by faceless mobs and possible only in such a lawless frenzy. These things, we tend to believe, can’t happen to us in our kinds of neighbourhoods, certainly not in normal times.

The killers in Dadri did not require any riot. The murderers of Dabholkar, Pansare and Kalburgi did not have to hide behind any lynch mob. They hit brazenly and with an apparent sense of impunity. The victims are defenceless elderly citizens who had probably never felt so physically vulnerable for their views, scholarship or household menu. That is the difference in 2015.

Aamir’s recollection of a family conversation was as rhetorical as his wife wondering if they would have to leave the country. He could well have made his point without offering that anecdote. But even the tolerant verdict, that he should have weighed every word lest he provoked many and made some feel insecure, is a comment more on us and our bizarre times than on Aamir himself. Today, anguish over violence shames India way more than violence does.