Articles by Kannan Srinivasan

MAHARASHTRA An Unlawful Law Kannan Srinivasan ON June 6, the Governor of Maharashtra promulgated an Ordinance which amended the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act. The Statement of Objects and Reasoas said that the Government was "not sufficiently aimed" to deal with "unauthorised development". The result: "large scale formation of slums, on both public and private lands", What is required, according to the Statement, are "deterrent penalties and to give speedy powers for demolition, discontinuance and removal". The penalty for "unauthorised development", so-culled, has been increased from a fine to a three- year term of imprisonment: it is therefore automatically in the Second Schedule of the Criminal Procedure Code as a cognizable criminal offence. Any policeman may arrest without a warrant, and the offence is non-bailable. Obstructing demolitions in any way will now carry a one-year term of imprisonment and a thou sand-rupee fine.

Points toward a Debate Kannan Srinivasan Vinod Vyasulu S Rajagopalan The financial viability and the foreign exchange earnings of the public sector Orissa aluminium pro- ject depend crucially on alumina prices and the interest rate on the Eurocurrency loan. Given that present interest rates are substantially higher than assumed by the Government of India and given that we do not possess any leverage to make the alumina price reflect the cost of money or the cost of production, the project seems viable only on the most optimistic assumptions about alumina prices and money and production costs.

Revolution from Above and Intervention from Outside Kannan Srinivasan THE history ol the Afghan state is the history of failed attempts at economic rationalisation and administrative control The attempt at an etatist transformation of Afghanistan, seen most recently with Daoud Khan and Hafi- zullah Amin, began with King Amanullah. Inspired by the Attaturk, he undertook massive change in his own country immediately after the First World War: large civil works, the beginning of a railway, an airline and a telephone system. Attempting the eradication of conservative Muslim social customs he insisted on the removal of the veil and on compulsory co-educational schooling. Amanullah's government was perceived as a threat by the British because of his frequent needling of their government in India and his provocative exploitation of his connections with Turkey, France, Germany and the USSR. There was resentment among the tribal leadership

Organising Tribals in Thane Kannan srinivasan KASHTAKARI SANGHATANA is an organisation of adivasi and non-adivasi activists which has been working for about two years among adivasis in the northern part of Thane district in Maharashtra. According to the Sanghatana, its activities have included campaigns against alienation of land from adivasis, loss of forest land, corruption of government officials, exorbitant interest charged by moneylenders, and the witch-craze which has been sweeping Thane district recently. Godavari Parulekar, president of the Maharashtra Kisan Sabha and member of the Central Committee of the CPI (M), has recently charged that the Sanghatana is a Christian missionary organisation and that it receives "foreign and church funds". According to one newspaper report, she has even sought the intervention of the Maharashtra government to curb the Sanghatana's activities.


Reply Kannan Srinivasan FIRST of all, I would note that Bombay Bachao have chosen not to deny their involvement with bungalow- owning families in Alibag taluka. They have not, for instance, denied that the president of their organisation is of the largest landowning family in the taluka. Neither have they disclosed the source of their financing.