Dear Friends,

Based on the discussions (which have been very interesting) and some of the
suggestions, I am attempting here to put down in brief some of issues that are
extremely important and alive at this point of time.

For the purpose of this mail, I will restrict myself to elaborating on what is
happening in the courts.

There are three ongoing cases, one in the Supreme Court and two in the Port
Blair Circuit Bench of the Calcutta High Court that are related to the
environment and particularly the indigenous peoples on these islands.

I) Supreme Court: In 1999, the Society for Andaman & Nicobar Ecology (SANE),
Kalpavriksh, and the Bombay Natural History Society had filed an intervention in
the Godavarman (forest) case in the Supreme Court. There have major developments
that have occured since, particularly Oct. 2001 onwards. After a lot of
discussions and the report of the Shekhar Singh Commission appointed by the
Supreme Court, the court passed a comprehensive set of orders in May 2002. There
is lot of detail in the recos of the Commission report and also in the orders of
the SC itself. The orders were wide ranging and included among others: a
complete ban on the commercial timber extraction of the forests of the islands;
the shutting down of the Andaman Trunk Road in those parts where it runs through
or along the forests of the Jarawa Tribal Reserve; the closing down of the
Andaman and Nicobar Forest Development and Plantation Development Corporation;
declaring the islands as an Inner Line Area to deal with the very critical issue
of the continued migration of people from mainland India to the islands;
measures to phase out plantations of exotics plants here like teak, read oil
palm and rubber; steps to deal with the encroachment issues; phasing out of sand
mining from the beaches of the islands; appropriate materials for construction
etc. etc.

The latest on this is that some of the orders like the stoppage of timber
extraction were implemented pretty promptly. Two key orders, the one to close
down the ATR and declaration of the Inner Line have still not been implemented,
though more than a year has passed since the deadlines imposed by the SC have
expired, and the administration is clearly in contempt of the SC. This matter is
now once again before court and is likely to come up in a hearing on the 27th of
Nov. The administration has filed asking for a review of these orders and the
petitioners too have filed explaining that there are no grounds for the review.

The report of the Shekhar Singh Commission has been put up on a website that has
been developed recently by us with the help of a couple of volunteers from
Chennai. The website address is as follows

http://protect_jarawas.tripod.com/


II) Parallel to the above process, there has been an ongoing case in the Port
Blair Circuit Bench of the Cal HC, that is related exclusively to the Jarawa
Community. I will not go into the history and background of the case at this
point of time, except to say the following.
In July,earlier this year an expert committee that had been appointed by the
court to look into matters related to the Jarawa submitted its final report.
This report has also been put up on the above mentioned website. There are some
very interesting parts in this report and perhaps the most interesting are the
dissent notes by Dr. Bhattacharya and Dr. KB Saxena, two of the independant
members on this committee.
The important thing is that based on this report the A&N Administration has been
asked by the Court to call a meeting of all those interested before a final
policy for the Jarawa is drafted. The court has also asked the administration to
invite people to send in their comments, suggestions and reactions to the
report, which will be considered in the final drafting of the policy. It would
therefore be very useful if as many people who are interested looked at this
report (Its large - about 450 pages) and made suggestions. If you need any
specific help or further information please write to me at pankajs@... or
Samir Acharya at sane@...

Would also like to add here, that the background and the issues of the above two
cases have been dealth in some detail in 'Troubled Islands', a compilation of my
own articles that has been recently published as a book.

III) The 3rd and the least known of legal interventions in the islands, is by
the Nicobari Tribals of the Nancowry group themselves. The entire group of the
Nicobars has been declared a tribal area under the Andaman and Nicobar
Protection of Aboriginal Tribes Regulation of 1956. However there are in the
Nicobars large encroachments on land by outside settlers, who have lived here,
illegally for more than a decade and are in league with the police, bureaucrats
and the politicians. The Nicobaris have asked for their removal and some action
has been initiated on this front as well.

In conclusion, just want to add, that the regulation mentioned above has been a
key player in all these three cases.

There are a number of other issues in the islands that are related to tourism,
the larger tribal policy in the islands, conservation of the biological
diversity here, etc. etc.

I am sure many of these will also come up in due course and that in fact is the
main purpose of having started this discussion group in the 1st place.

Thanks
Pankaj Sekhsaria
pankajs@...
C/o Kalpavriksh
Apt. 5, Sri Dutta Krupa,
908 Deccan Gymkhana,
Pune 411004
India
Tel: + 91 20 5654239 / 5675450
Fax: 5654239
Email: pankajs@...


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