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<p style="margin-bottom:0cm" align="CENTER">
<font face="Calibri"><font style="font-size:10pt">Press
Release: Bangalore: 08 April 2013</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm" align="CENTER"> <font face="Calibri"><font style="font-size:16pt" size="4"><b>World
Bank's sham 'consultation' to review of its environmental
and social
safeguards shut down in Bangalore</b></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm" align="CENTER">excerpts<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm"><font face="Calibri"><font>About
25 activist representatives, researchers, environmental
specialists,
policy analysts, lawyers and health professionals from a wide
range
of social and environmental action groups, peoples networks
and
movements of Karnataka, forced the closure of The World Bank's
'consultation' on the review of its environmental and social
safeguards in Bangalore today (08/04/2013). The 'consultation'
was
slammed as a 'complete sham' which 'must be denounced by
anyone
genuinely concerned about the nature of democracy and broad
based
public interest, and committed to the principle of Free, Prior
and
Informed Consent (FPIC), climate justice, sustainable
development
through democratic decision making and the Principle of
Intergenerational Equity'. Moreover it was made into an
occasion to
denounce the various projects that have destroyed the
environment and
various communities, and to demand the World Bank to quit
India.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm"><font face="Calibri"><font>Stephen
F. Lintner, Senior Advisor, Operational Policy and Client
Services of
The World Bank had flown in from Washington DC (USA) to hold
the
'consultation' at Hotel Atria in Bangalore, along with Preeti
Kudesia, Senior Operations Officer of the Bank. The meeting
was
supposed to have been facilitated by Anubrotto Kumar (Dunu)
Roy,
Honorary Director of Hazards Centre, New Delhi. </font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm"><font face="Calibri"><font>Of
those invited by the Bank, about 5 represented various civil
society
and research organisations, and a dozen or so officials
represented
various agencies of the Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh
governments. The
consultation was held barely a stone's throw from the
Karnataka
Legislative Assembly, and yet, shockingly, not one
Parliamentarian,
Legislator, Municipal Councillor or Panchayat member from
anywhere
had been invited. This amply demonstrated what a mockery of
democracy
the exercise was. </font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm"><font face="Calibri"><font>The
invited gathering of about 20 odd 'representatives' of 'civil
society
organisations' and Governments of various Central and Southern
States
of India were probably invited by the Bank to accord a certain
legitimacy to the review exercise. Were it not for the
intervention
of progressive social and environmental action activists, this
charade of 'consulting' the 'public' would probably have been
passed
of as a successful process, and the exercise possibly used to
legitimise the weak safeguards of the Bank. </font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm"><font face="Calibri"><font>Clifton
D’ Rozario of the Alternative Law Forum read out a detailed
statement (available from address above) which strongly critiqued the World Bank's
'consultation' process and also its investment policies. He
attacked
the Bank's double-speak on claiming belief in democratic
decision
making, when, in fact, all it does is talk to an elite section
of
society and claim such opinion gathering held in classy hotels
as
peoples' sanction to the Bank's investment policies. He also
reminded
the World Bank of its responsibility in regard to the
devastation
heaped on the thousands of adivasis and farmers in the Narmada
Valley due
to Sardar Sarovar dam, which it fails to own up to even today.
He
also decried the so-called ‘knowledge production’ by the World
Bank as methods to monetise and commodify all resources and
even
relationships. </font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm"><font face="Calibri"><font>Leo
Saldanha of Environment Support Group criticised the flawed
process
of the Bank's consultation mechanisms and said it amounted to
ritualising the FPIC Principle. He demanded that the Bank
cancel the
charade being passed of as a 'consultation' as it was against
the
jurisprudence that had evolved in India which required deep
application of FPIC Principle in decision-making. The current
process seriously compromised people's right to know and
participate
in decisions that affect them and exposed the Bank's vacuous
claim of
being a 'change maker' in developing progressive environmental
and
social safeguards. </font></font>
</p><p><font face="Calibri"><font>Despite
repeatedly being urged to speak, not one of the officials
representing various Government agencies chose to spoke. Mr.
S. M.
Jamdar, a senior bureaucrat of the Karnataka Government who
recently
retired, also did not speak. He, however, spoke to media
persons
where he is reported to have said that he shared all the
concerns
being aired, and said it is critical that these messages
reached
senior politicians and bureaucrats of the Government who were
complicit in perpetuating such systemic problems.</font></font></p>
<p><font face="Calibri"><font>In the face
of
such informed criticism of its actions, policies and
'consultation'
procedures, Stephen Lintner decided finally that the
'consultation'
had ended without any adherence to the Agenda the World Bank
had
proposed. </font></font>
</p>
<p><font face="Calibri"><font>The
organisations that participated were Peoples Union for Civil
Liberties – Karnataka, Environment Support Group, Alternative
Law
Forum, Peoples’ Campaign Against Water Privatisation,
Janaarogya
Andolana – Karnataka, Vimochana, CIEDS Collective, CIVIC
Bangalore
and various others in their individual capacity. </font></font>
</p>
<p><br></p>
JOINT STATEMENT AND PICTURES available<span><font color="#888888"><br>
</font></span><br></div></div></div></div><br>