The five principles of the Goenchi Mati Movement What would you say if you were told that each and every member of your family had been unceremoniously and consistently robbed over an eight-year period to the tune of Rupees 3.7 Lakhs? A theft of inherited wealth, passed down through the generations, now almost beyond recovery and the perpetrators yet to …
Tag: Intergenerational Equity
Seed money for the All India Permanent Fund?
The CAG reports that some Rs. 9,307 crores is recoverable from Reliance on account of the KG basin operations. As the block is offshore, the minerals are owned by all the people of India. Our share is Rs. 74 each. But we must stop cheating our children and future generations. Let’s use this money to start off the All India Permanent Fund. Would anyone …
The Goa Guidelines on Intergenerational Equity
While Goa is setting new precedents in the implementation of Intergenerational Equity, it has a longer history with the idea. Intergenerational equity became a part of the discourse with the Brundtland Commission report “Our Common Future” in 1987. At the same time, Edith Brown Weiss headed a six member Advisory Group set up by the United Nations University. The six …
Prutha Goa discusses the Goenchi Mati proposal
Iris C F Gomes from Prutha Goa discusses the idea behind the Goenchi Mati campaign: “The example Rahul uses to explain intergenerational equity is that the iron ore is like inherited gold which brings no income. This would prompt one to sell the gold and traditionally buy land for agriculture from which you could derive income. This is something that could be …
Minerals – who are the beneficial owners
In an earlier post, we had discussed who owns minerals in India under the Constitution. In broad terms, state governments usually own onshore minerals, all offshore minerals are owned by the union government. There are two additional aspects of minerals to consider, the public trust doctrine and the intergenerational equity principle. The Public Trust Doctrine, an integral part of common law …
Scroll : Goa mining judgement is a first
A beautiful, albeit dated, summary by Mridula Chari of the unprecedented nature of the Goa mining judgement for we the people, our children, and our future generations. “Observing that natural resources belonged to the state, which is a trustee of its citizens, the court ordered that a part of the profits from the sale of iron ore be set aside for a permanent …
P2P Foundation blogs on the Goenchi Mati campaign
David Bollier, author, activist, blogger and consultant on the commons, calls the Supreme Court order in the Goa mining case setting up the Permanent Fund as a bold precedent, “the first time that a court anywhere had ordered such a remedy, and it resulted in the first permanent fund in India.” Something Goa should be proud of!
Avoid resource curse through Permanent Funds – Brookings
The Brookings Institute has recommended that US states Pennsylvania and Ohio establish Permanent Funds from their taxes from oil & gas fracking. This is similar to our proposal relating to the Goenchi Mati Permanent Fund. Devashree Saha & Mark Muro in their report titled “Permanent trust funds: Funding economic change with fracking revenues” advance five elements of good fund governance and management …
Nauru’s Citizen’s Dividend
The tiny pacific island of Nauru is a cautionary tale for mineral royalties being saved in a Permanent Fund and paying out a Citizen’s Dividend. The island was covered by guano, a form of phosphate, a fertilizer. The royalties from phosphate mining resulted in Nauru having the highest per capita income in the world. The phosphate royalties were paid into the Nauru …
Iron ore mining in Goa
The Navhind Times carried a couple of interesting articles by Dr. Nandkumar Kamat titled “How Goa missed the bus in iron ore exports”. His articles show clearly how Goa lost out during the mining stoppage. This new article titled “Mining of past 8 years was a total loss for our future generations” published by Navhind elaborates on Dr. Kamat’s articles. You can …