Civil Society Magazine - June 2019

In this issue

In this magazine we prefer to keep ourselves out of politics. Of course, as journalists, there would be no question of a political agenda on our part. Often, such stories tell us more about political realities than the cut and thrust of politics itself. An election is a good time to see how all the concerns and aspirations add up. Modi’s appeal to voters, particularly the poor, doesn’t surprise us. He’s been seen as a doer who delivered real benefits to people. But the size of the mandate and the seemingly untrammelled power that goes with it sends out a message that needs to be better understood. The verdict is as much about Modi as the comprehensive rejection of the opposition. Flawed as our democracy might well be) the mandate given to Modi comes at the end of a full five-year term. To offer a perspective on the results, we asked Sanjaya Baru, our columnist and a keen political observer, to write the cover story this month. We have a story from Maharashtra on solar dryers being used to dehydrate and package vegetables. Getting a good price for their perishable produce is a problem farmers face nationally. When there is oversupply farmers are at the mercy of the market. A farmer producer organisation near Nashik has been alerting its members about a glut and helping them dehydrate vegetables like bitter gourd so as to be able to reach a new range of customers. Environmental disputes indicate how poorly regulation is working. In Goa, a new airport has been cleared but a public effort has revealed that the environment impact assessment (EIA) report had ignored the need for cutting thousands of trees and jeopardizing forest cover and water bodies. Through Supreme Court intervention, the EIA was annulled. A new EIA is in the making but shouldn’t there also have been better scrutiny of the EIA in the Union Ministry of Environment. If regulators fail to do their duty, people step in as has happened in this case. The Rainbow Warriors in Goa deserve special praise.