Investment-induced displacement in central India. A study in extractive capitalism

India’s abundant natural resources are a key feature of its new found status as ‘emerging market’ that attracts foreign investments. As India’s output of these metals and their ores increases, investments pour into India to secure deals over mineral deposits and manufacturing plants. Apart from direct funding for new projects, the new investments pay for a large increase in deployment of security forces, multi-layered ‘briberization’, and ‘protection money’ funding Maoist outfits, in yet another unending war which is fundamentally a resource war around mineral and metal production – primarily steel and aluminum as well as coal and water. In this paper, we examine the mining operations in Central India where Vedanta Resources, a corporation that has become symbolic of neoliberal capitalism in India today, elicits huge new foreign investments to exploit India’s resources under the logic of emerging markets. If a quarter of postcolonial India’s Scheduled Tribe population was displaced by ‘development’ projects, this time it is foreign investments that are causing large scale displacement of indigenous populations

Adaptive policies : seven things policymakers should know to craft better policies in today's dynamic and uncertain world; presented by IISD, hosted by Policy Research Initiative and the Rural Secretariat, February 4th, 2009

PowerPoint presentatio

Creating adaptive policies : a guide for policymaking in an uncertain world; presented by IISD and TERI, hosted by IDRC, March 19th, 2009

PowerPoint presentationThe presentation reviews how policies are made and how they can determine outcomes in sectors that face variability and change, such as in agriculture, environment, water management, and climate change scenarios. Adaptive Policy includes the ability of policy to not only adapt to anticipated scenarios, but as well to unanticipated conditions. Examples in agricultural policy are provided, noting that monitoring of key indicators can help trigger important policy adjustments. Policies need to consider existing social capital; forums that enable social networking; facilitation and sharing of good practices; and removing barriers to self-organization