The Unreported News from India

There is still such an incredible institution called United Nations. Its processes are frustrating, not only because 200 countries need to reach a consensus in order to do something but mostly because if a very few oppose the actions of others the "it" is blamed for disfunction. Never the governments that make the decisions that lead to dysfunction...The idealistic United Nations system also continues to have its specialized agencies such as the one with the ambitious yet underminded mandate to fight hunger and promote rural development... It is called FAO and it continues to attempt to sometimes try to fulfill its mandate...against all of the gossip that you have no right to decide what to grow or what to eat...

Last week FAO had two Committees...one on the commodities (probably not a blog word..) and another on agriculture... Do you remember the mandate?

So here is the NEWS from India...The one of greatest importance to me. This one makes me want to work to help people understand that these non immediate processes in our immediate media culture can make a difference.

Hardworking women hungry for change

As Sharad Pawar, India’s minister for agriculture, sits down in Rome this week, ActionAid hopes that women like Kamala and Rambati will be at the forefront of their minds. Kamala and Rambati are making determined steps towards ending hunger by ensuring women in their villages have land titles and a say in decisions which affect their lives. But they need support from Mr Pawar and his counterparts if this is to translate into widespread and enduring change.

As the main food producers, women’s access to land and natural resources is a key factor in eradicating hunger and rural poverty, but progress on this front remains erratic and inadequate. Decades of discrimination have also placed women firmly amongst the poorest of the poor. By adopting recommendations from numerous international forums since the 1996 World Food Summit, the 20th session of the Food and Agriculture Organisation Committee on Agriculture in Rome this week could be a crucial step towards concerted governmental action on the issue.

In India the need for action is clear. Some 70% of the female workforce is engaged in agriculture yet only 10% of women farmers own land. At the same time one in four Indians go to bed hungry.
India’s Land Reform Act passed in 1954 shortly after independence, addresses land rights for dalits and other marginalised groups. But it makes scant mention of women and anyway has not been implemented. Since the mid-70s, calls for women’s land rights gained strength with social movements such as Bodhgaya in Bihar at the forefront. In 1977, mass mobilization and judicial intervention led to a landmark ruling paving the way for joint pattas (land titles) in the name of both men and women. Currently India has a patchwork of Acts guiding women’s property and land rights in line with different religious and customary practices. Laws vary from state to state and between caste, religion and ethnic group. Yet none of them succeed in meeting women’s constitutional right to equal and non-discriminatory access to these means.As a result, women and children are being left destitute or at best in highly unequal bargaining positions within the family and wider community.

The situation is compounded by neo-liberal growth model which has widened the gap between haves and have-nots and put women and men in the firing line. Nandigram where at least 14 people lost their lives threw a stark spotlight on community struggles to protect land from being grabbed for Special Economic Zones. Women in Jagatsingpur district of Orissa are still guarding barricades to prevent government officials from taking over their villages for South Korean steel giant POSCO.

Meanwhile in the village of Nuaput, in Koraput district of Orissa, Adivasi women are taking their own small steps towards land ownership. Supported by ActionAid through local organisation SPREAD, villagers have applied for joint pattas so that both husband and wife have a legal claim on the land they use. Kamala Matan explains the significance: “This patta gives us strength. We don’t fear the men now – they can’t threaten us with throwing us out (of the home) now,” she says.
“Other people can learn from us… When we get the patta we can claim land and after us, our children will inherit.”

In the Shivpuri district of Madhya Pradesh, 35-year-old Rambati an emerging leader in the poverty-stricken Sahariya community (a primitive tribal group in which men typically marry twice) shares her concerns: “If the government doesn’t give ownership of land to women, what will happen to the first wife? How will she manage her and her children’s lives? In 1995 the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh announced pattas for tribals and landless labourers in the state. Since then, partly due to persistent demands from local women, joint land titles are slowly increasing. Despite this favourable legislation, many Sahariyas are still struggling for their land entitlements. Nandigram where at least 14 people lost their lives highlighted women’s part in ongoing community struggles to protect land from being grabbed for Special Economic Zones. Women in Jagatsingpur district of Orissa are still guarding barricades to prevent government officials from taking over their villages for South Korean steel giant POSCO. While local women’s groups are having some success in securing land titles and national level dialogue between concerned citizens is underway – including an innovative initiative Consult for Women and Land Rights which encourages women to mobilize around land issues – this needs to be matched by further action at regional and international levels.

ActionAid has written to G77 agriculture ministers - the largest group of developing countries in the United Nations – urging them to use their voice in Rome and beyond to support specific measures including convening intergovernmental regional roundtables on women’s rights to land and natural resources and establishing an database system on land tenure and agrarian reforms to capture the global picture and monitor progress. In India activists are also calling for a review of laws related to women’s land and property rights and collective land ownership, accompanied by affirmative action to implement policies and practices that will help women tackle hunger and poverty.

Notes to editor
1. The Government of India has acknowledged that improved access to land and natural resources, especially by women, is a key factor in eradicating hunger and rural poverty in the framework of international commitments at World Food Summit 1996 and its Plan of Action; in the Voluntary Guidelines on the Implementation of the Right to Food unanimously adopted by FAO Council; and most recently at the FAOs International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD) that was hosted by Brazil in March 2006.



2. The 20th session of the FAO Committee on Agriculture meets in Rome 25-28 April 2007.

Returning to Botswana

I came back to Botswana after little less then 2 years since my first vist in June 2005. I came back two years later maybe a little calmer, a little older, a little wiser (?) and most definitely much much more sober. I was begging Gina to please take me back to the land near Mokolodi where during one cold African night in the bush we have turned liver-destruction into pure art form and a movement... Unfortunately, the original "EAPS" founding group is slightly dispersed at the moment. Goddess bless our Chairman whose 2 year long failure in establishing a proper website for the group is fully excused by his current work with MSF in Chad helping Darfur's refugees. http://www.hodder.whereareyou.net/

Jokes apart, it is not only about being in Botswana but about being in Botswana with Gina. I adore her because she is smart, fun, honest, real...She is my true co-conspirator, my Thelma and my Louise, but most importantly a good friend with whom I can discuss the Economic Partnership Agreements, relationship woes, and who above all understands the importance of a good pedicure before a walking safari.

What I also adore about the idea of living in Gabarone is arriving at the airport 20 minutes before the plane leaves and not being the least troubled by the possibility of missing it. So yes, after late night Friday mini-EAPS celebrations, we departed on Saturday at 8 am to Maun in Okavango Delta.

Here is the luxurious tent where we slept:


And here are some pictures... Can you locate the elephant?

The hidden Diva within

I am really not Mina nor youtube obsessed but...

Watching her sing makes it alright to be dramatic, emotional, proud..

She is stunning, powerful, authentic, dramatic, diva.

Viva Mina. You make heartache feel grande. You are THE DIVA.

back on my motorino

It was an emotionally difficult landing after a great trip to Botswana and Johannesburg. The stories are all stored within me and are just waiting for a better moment to be published...

Overwhelmed with this constant lack of certainty with regard to my future. No, not scared or afraid of uncertaintly but perhaps enjoying the certainty of the things I love. Such as driving my motorino being one of the most healing experiences.
Driving with my mp3 player on.

Today, driving through Garbatella...thinking of Nanni Moretti on his vespa.. Laughing to myself at the lines of the film I used to watch several times many, many years ago before I even knew where Garbatella was.

And you can't understand this because the person i want to take on the ride doesn't have dsl. Yes, my colleagues from India don't believe that there are places in the heart of Tuscany without dsl connection.

My disoriented Tuesday night back home realizing I don't even have any coffee in my cupboards and then my neighbours open up their windows and sing out laud "Grazie Roma". This was their reaction to loosing to Manchester United. I didn't know about the game, I just heard them sing and couldn't help but to smile to myself and say "Thank God am back in Rome".

So here is the ride through Garbatella... wishing to find my man to take him on the ride...again..

And maybe just like Nanni we could also enter one of the houses, just to see, tell them we are making a film...And when they ask what the film is about, then we'll say it is about a Marxist owner of local pasticceria living in the conformist 1950's, in Garbatella... A musical.. Where is my partner in crime??? Yes, I know everyone in Garbatella knows this line.. but what has happened with being a little crazy?