Articles by V R Krishna Iyer

A project that proposes to give every resident a “unique identity number” is a matter of great concern for those working on issues of food security, NREGA, migration, technology, decentralisation, constitutionalism, civil liberties and human rights.

Nature-Friendly Planning of Humanity's Future Dialectics and Dynamics of Development Management V R Krishna Iyer SOMETIME back I participated in an international seminar on environmental planning and management, I have been feeling very unhappy about the grave dangers of callous technology intoxicated with epicurean appetites tempting men and women into inevitable doom. My thoughts are pertinent only to the extent that I, a sombre and sensitive inhabitant of the Earth, am in anguish as I behold the lethal prospect of hi-tech corporate power, inflicting on unforgiving Nature, mortal wounds, leading to the Fifth Act of the Shakespearean tragedy of humanity. Karl Marx once made a poignant remark: "Human projects that ignore the great laws of nature bring only disaster". How I wish Marxists remembered the pregnant meaning of this observation when in some Indian stales, they disdain green movements and environmentalist campaigns, drugged by an ignorant craving for industrialism, oblivious of the new dialectic, in our hi-tech world, of the switchover from 'industrialise or perish' to 'industrialise and perish' since, in the myopic perception and insatiable hunger for maximum profit, the MNCs mayhem Nature in their gold rush. To be addicted to the religion of money, rejecting the long-term needs of humanity and its well-being in the biosphere is to gamble with the delicate balance between life and the rest of Creation. The biosphere is a supreme value and so too is the 'noosphere' which is an expression meaning developmental operation guided by sense and sensibility. Biosphere, so obvious a concept foryou. embraces the Earth's surface and atmosphere in which living organisms are found and with which interaction occurs to form the global ecosystem. It is what may be termed biogeochemistry and allied matters. The sphere of life which is the biosphere includes all parts of our planet where life has 'asserted' itself the atmosphere, the ocean and all land surface where life formsexist. Life is the link between the cosmos and the earth and transforms dead matter, using energy, so as to create the material world. Living organisms in the process of evolution continually change. It is in the rapid march of such changes that Homo sapiens emerged amidst forests and beasts. The extraordinary phenomenon of humans with hrains became a marvellous landmark in the story of creation. The ability to use reason was pari of this development of anthropogenesis.

The Nagas are integral to the Indian union, but respect for political pluralism is alien to the Delhi bureaucracy and its political mentors, As a nation we have been inept in handling the north-east and our leadership has been unimaginative in 'mainstreaming' the Nagas.

Case for Crisis Management Jurisprudence V R Krishna Iyer An industrial society which handles hazardous processes must evolve a jurisprudence which will functionally transform itself into a controlterate of dangerous operations. The law must keep its promise and its pledge is to preserve life. Notwithstanding the Bhopal case, three important recent rulings of the Supreme Court are examined here as the starting point of a burgeoning humanist jurisprudence with precisely drawn substantive boundaries.

Panchayati Perestroika?
V R Krishna Iyer The lack of the required majority in the Rajya Sabha has forced the prime minister to stage a strategic retreat until the next session of parliament in October. This interval may be the time for a dissection of the much bruited panchayat and nagarapalika bills which are of common genetic code, structural mould and political goal THE sound and fury of the panchayati controversy has abated for a while. The euphoric clap-trap by the prime minister's claques in parliament, aided by the command performance of the electronic media and other engines of publicity, about the uniqueness of Rajiv Gandhi's eureka of panchayati raj, on the one side, and the epileptic opposition challenging, with dubious unity, the claim of 'Power-to the People' as histrionic, not historic, as baloney, not bona fide, and screaming with alarm that state autonomy would be shot down by the central Czar using democratic decentralism as a deadly stratagem, on the other, leave the masses dazed and dumb. Because the prime minister's brute majority is short of the constitutional minimum by a few who Lave yet to be magneted into his fold ae has staged a strategic retreat until at October session. This lucid interval ruiy be time for an autopsy of the anatomy of the much bruited panchayat and nagarapalika bills which are of common genetic code, structural mould and political goal.