INVITE: 7th Convention of National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM)

INVITE
7th Convention of National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM)

National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM)

[To read this posting in Hindi language, please click here]


Venue: Kushinagar, Uttar Pradesh (UP)
Date: 7 - 8 June 2008


Dear Friends,
Zindabad.

You may know that the National Alliance of Peoples' Movements is a coming of various Peoples' Movements fighting for the toiling peoples' right to Life and Livelihood, and as also those working on various alternatives in the fields of Agriculture, Water, Energy etc. The Alliance, over the years has brought together diverse groups engaged in struggles across the country and drawn people's attention to the marginalization of the majority of the people for the benefit of the wealthy and influential few.

We realise that the situation is becoming ever grimmer, by the day, be it any party ruling at the Centre or in the States. The stark reality is:

While the 'powers that be' boast of a high growth it is at best a jobless, or rather a 'job-loss' growth.

The Agriculture sector has been destroyed and labour laws decimated at the bidding of the Global Financial Institutions and Corporate interests.

All basic services and Utilities such as Water, Electricity, Health care, Education, Roads, Railways, Ports, Public transport have or are in the process of being turned over into private hands through a cruel onslaught on peoples' resources.

Caste violence, religious fundamentalism and ethnic strife are being perpetrated so as to destroy our social fabric.

What has been unleashed on the people - farmers, fisher people, adivasis, dalits, minorities, workers is 'development terrorism'

Whether it is Nandigram, Singur, Kalinganar, Ayodhya, Posco, Gorai, Plachimada, Chengara, Kakinanda, the cruelest violence is used to displace, dispossess, dis-employ and dehumanize people killing the democratic space and social justice sought to be enshrined in our Constitution. Anyone raising a voice against this is labelled 'anti-development', 'anti-national', 'naxalite' 'foreign-funded' etc. These hundreds of land and resource grab exercises, actively indulged in by corporate bigwigs and ably manoeuvered by state machinery have revitalized with renewed rigour the need for and demands by nation wide struggles groups to give flesh and blood to Article 243 in the Constitution, which provides the framework for "development" (in whose name all the tamasha of Special Economic Zones (SEZ) are happening) and locates the Gram Sabhas and Ward Committees in villages and towns as the epicentres of any developmental planning.

National sovereignty, democracy and governance are virtually being outsourced and sub-contracted in the name of Public Private Partnership. How far away is this to practical realization, more particularly, in the wake of draconian definitions of 'public purpose' creeping into enactments, as is being witnessed in the recently proposed Land Acquisition Bill, 2007 and Resettlement and Rehabilitation Bill, 2007 is the challenge before peoples movements and struggles all across the country.

Over the last 12-14 years, NAPM has been at the forefront of people's struggles be it the slum-demolitions in Mumbai and other cities and towns, displacement by various dams and projects, the Enron struggle, the various anti-SEZ struggles, fisher peoples' struggles, WTO and World Bank Bharat Chodo campaigns, Desh Bachao Desh Banao campaigns etc. Similarly, its various constituents have led successful struggles of fisher people, those displaced by dams, those fighting globalization in its various manifestations.

Probably, never before has there been in the history, so much a need, as also an opportunity, for all democratic forces, including like-minded individuals, groups, alliances and movements, with the struggling masses at large, to come together and challenge the claims of those who hold seats of power in various ways, both within and outside the framework of the State and reclaim back not just legitimate democratic spaces, denied and robbed hitherto, but also assert positive claims to natural and other resources and strive for societal and political recognition of the non-destructive, equitable ways of harnessing those new economics and politics of reconstruction. The inevitable task, ahead for presently sectoral people's struggles, is to strike at the root of inequality at various levels within existing power-structures and the future pre-condition for that would be the strategic coming together of all the concerned and their democratic supporters, across the country and around the world.

Over the years, NAPM has come to grow as a broad-based platform of diverse groups articulating the concerns of various marginalized peoples and communities.

It is in this context that the NAPM is hosting its 7th bi-annual convention and invites you, along with your friends and allies, to join us at this convention, who are ready to struggle for ensuring democracy, equality, secularism, and justice.

The 7th NAPM Convention is therefore an opportunity for all those struggling with the people and those desirous of bringing about an alternative development paradigm through various sustainable alternatives and experiments.

Yours sincerely,

Arundhati Duru, Sandeep Pandey, Medha Patkar
Sr. Celia, D. Gabriela, P. Chenniah
Anand Mazgaonkar, Thomas Kocherry, Aruna Roy
Sanjay MG, Ulka Mahajan, Mukta Srivastava
Geeta Ramakrishnan, PT Hussain, Uma Shankari
Subhash Ware, NB Kohli, Amarnath Bhai

For further programme and travel details contact:

Keshav: 09839883518, email: napmup@gmail.com
Nandlal Master: 09415300520
Udhay Bhan: 09935445489
Mukta: 09969530060

Other emails: napmindia@gmail.com, mumbainapm@gmail.com
Simpreet: 09969363065

VENUE: Kushinagar, Uttar Pradesh (50 km from Gorakhpur and 30 km from Devaria)

A detailed schedule of the travel and transport details and particulars of trains plying from various parts of India may be obtained from the above contacts. The above contact persons would be waiting at the Gorakhpur and Devaria Railway Stations, with the NAPM banners.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
1) 6th June would be the Preparatory Meeting of the Present Conveners and 9th June would be the Meeting of newly elected Conveners.

2) There will be an exhibition on alternative development put up from the 6th of June itself. All those committed to alternate and sustainable development, please bring along with you models, banners, literature, posters, for the exhibition.

[To read this posting in Hindi language, please click here]