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Articles by Dunu RoySubscribe to Dunu Roy

Eco-labour’s Challenge to the Neo-liberal Understanding of Nature

A conversation is constructed around three themes that mediate the encounter between labour and nature. The first is external pollution and internal hazards, that workers know it is the same toxins affecting their workplace that are responsible for the impact on the environment. The second is collective labour and cumulative nature, that as workers collectivise at work to press their demands for justice, they become conscious of the cumulative impact of labour on ecosystems. The third is externalities and exertions, that the invisible costs of production immanent in waste streams are similar to the invisible appropriation of labour’s surplus. These three streams are brought together to show how labour’s alienation from nature is not rooted in the nature of labour, but is a construct of capitalism that can be overcome only when industrial society is challenged and transformed.

A Subaltern View of Climate Change

In the context of the ongoing debate on climate change and the policies that nation states need to adopt to limit the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the author poses a relevant question: instead of asking what would happen to the world if everyone were to consume energy at the level of the rich "developed" American, we can now enquire why everyone is not consuming at the level of the above-poor "developing" Indian? He also suggests that the way the poor adapt, migrate and progress provides not just a sustainable approach to climate change but also one that addresses resource use.

Car Sewa

Knowing full well that the private motor car is more a bane than a boon in terms of the various costs it entails, the time for policymakers in India to encourage greater use of public transport and non-motorised modes is past. Illustrating the politics of privileging car users over the vast majority that uses public transport like buses, this paper points to the vicissitudes the bus rapid transit system in Delhi has gone through from its introduction in 2005 to the present. Given that there is already little space and energy for more cars in India's cities, and the social and political problems they engender, the vicious cycle within which the system is trapped has to be broken. But that is easier said than done.

Hydropower in Uttarakhand: Is 'Development' the Real Objective?

A perusal of environment impact assessments for hydel projects in Uttarakhand brings out various deficiencies in the reports, and the unstudied manner in which such projects have been embarked upon. That many more of such projects have been proposed points to the muddled direction adopted for energy supply, reminding us of the hydropower story in the United States.

From Promises to Performance

The Common Minimum Programme is clearly a document that reconciles contradictory pressures and demands while providing a 'human face' to governance. But the budget indicates that much of this may be a mask that hides the real intentions of proceeding further with cutting back on state investment in essential areas.

Operating on Three Wheels

Increasingly the poor are being pushed to the edges of 'illegality' and 'invisibility'. Nothing describes this better than the plight of the auto-rickshaw drivers of Delhi who are facing a concerted attack by the administration and the media for their supposed 'venality'. Findings of a study undertaken to get a better understanding of the perspectives of both the commuter and the auto-rickshaw driver and to move towards policies that will benefit both parties.

A Sporting Chance for Wildlife

India's Wildlife History by Mahesh Rangarajan; Permanent Black, Delhi, 2001; Delhi,

The Season of Unreason

The abandonment of reason appears to be part of the nation's drive towards 'modernisation'. All dissent is dismissed as 'anti-national' or 'pseudo-secular'. Democracy is not to be governed any more by the scientific temper that provides work for the idle and food for the hungry but by the technology that puts missiles into orbit and resources into export.

Delhi: Organising for Safe Livelihoods: Feasible Options

For many decades now, the prevailing wisdom has been to organise workers at the place of work. Industry in India, however has clearly moved away from the model of the large-scale organised production process. Labour associations have found it difficult to organise the insecure and distributed workforce. The movement among workers displaced by the relocation of industry in Delhi offers some alternatives to the traditional forms of organisation

Rights of Child Labour-Ethics, Production and Nation-State

Ethics, Production and Nation-State A LOGICAL man. Three simple words put together from the English language. But there may be beguiling complexities beneath those words. Perceptive observers may note the ideological, privatised, scientific, gender, age, and class biases embodied in those words. Those perceptions, in turn, may betray the biases of the perceiver, This may be an odd way to contribute to the debate on 'rights'. Nevertheless, the right to debate is itself based on many such puzzling biases.

Large Projects For Whose Benefit

Dunu Roy For decades now large projects have been uprooting thousands of people, and little has been done to rehabilitate them.
THE Kerala Shastra Sahitya Parishat was born in a cradle of high literacy within a people eager 10 reach out for information and the emancipation that it brings. Some 20 years ago the Parishat organised a national conference at Trivandrum to spread the message of 'Science for Social Revolution'. In mid-August of this year the All India People's Science Network, a direct descendant of the Parishat, organised a consultation at New Delhi, on the Sardar Sarovar Project to discuss, among other things, whether the height of the dam could he lowered to substantially reduce the number of people to be displaced when the giant reservoir eventually gets filled.

The Legal Eye

timely and adequate release of sugar by authorities for public distribution. The edible oils prices rose by 18.3 per cent during the review period mainly due to increase in the prices of ground nut oil Rise in ground nut oil is attributed to lower crop prospects and restricted import of edible oils by State Trading Corporation on account of tight balance of payment position. Production during 1989-90 oil year has been estimated to be 42.2 lakh tonnes. Mark up in the prices of petroleum pro- The Legal Eye Dunu Roy III BHADRALWES had taken time off to ruffle through a few pages of one of the volumes on his desk, but he was now obviously ready for, he self-consciously cleared his throat.

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