(KINDLY CIRCULATE WIDELY)
INVITATION: PUBLIC MEETING
PEOPLE’S AUDIT OF SEZS IN TAMIL NADU
Date: 26th October 2009; Time: 11am-1pm;
Venue: Dhyana Ashram, # 25, Mada Church Road, Mandaveli, Chennai 600028
(Close to St. Antony's girls school, take right turn after Santhome
Church while coming from Light house/Marina Beach)
On 24th-25th October 2009, an eminent panel of lawyers, social
scientists, journalists, retired bureaucrats from different parts of
the country will visit different districts of Tamil Nadu, namely,
Kanchipuram, Thiruvannamalai, Thiruvallur, Madurai, Thirunelveli,
Krishnagiri and Vellore to critically examine issues emerging around
SEZs/industrial estates—of land acquisition; displacement; corruption;
environmental impact; compensation, employment generation, livelihood
loss and labour rights as well as questions of development and
economic growth.
On 26th October 2009, the audit panel will present its findings in an
open forum in Chennai which will be attended by representatives of
state government, members of media, struggle groups, labour groups,
NGOs and concerned citizens.
We cordially invite you to participate in the public meeting on 26th
October (venue and time noted above). Your participation and
engagement will prove extremely valuable in critically examining the
unfolding political economy of SEZs/industrial estates and in
articulating the development needs of the State. We hope that you will
join us in this process.
This effort has been jointly initiated by the Sirapu Porulaathara
Mandala Edirappu Iyyakkam (Movement Against Special Economic Zones in
TN) and its member organisations- Thervoy Grama Makkal Munnetra Nala
Sangam, Walaja Unriya Vyvasaigal Nala Sangam, Tamil Nadu Vyvasaigal
Inamanamgulam Kilai, Madurai Mavatta Vyvasaigal Nala Sangam, Vyvasa
Thozhilar Nala Sangam, Amaipusara Thozhilar Koottamaippu. Supported by
National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM), Unorganised Workers
Federation, Dalit Land Rights Federation (Mannurimai Koottamaippu);
Tamil Nadu Women’s Forum and many other TN based peoples’ movement and
organisations.
Looking forward to your kind participation.
Warm Regards,
Campaign Against Special Economic Zones (Sirapu Porulaathara Mandala
Edirappu Iyyakkam)
On Behalf of the Organisers.
Madhumita Dutta (09444390240) ; Chandrika Ramanujam (09444455385) ; K
Sarvanan (09941408181) ; Anbuvendan (09841112523) ; S Perumal
(09443396786)
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Peoples audit of SEZs in Tamilnadu
Monday, October 19, 2009
AID on the top #1 Position in America's Giving Challenge
From: aid_delcore@yahoogroups.com [mailto:aid_delcore@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 20, 2009 10:00 AM
To: AID NCR; AID Prayas; aidgurgaon; aashayeinwired; jaagriti-india@googlegroups.com
Cc: AID India Volunteers
Subject: [Volunteer] AID on the top #1 Position in America's Giving Challenge
Dear Friends,
Hope you all are doing well and enjoying. I just wanted to take a few minutes to remind you all about the on going America's Giving Challenge on Facebook. As some of you might already be following it; so far we have been holding the top most position for the past one week and we are on track to win $50,000. It is really nice to see AID on the top.
While doing this, we have already realized over $17,000 to support our flood relief work in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. In addition to this we also reached out to over 2,100 new people to join our Cause. Some noted individuals like Katha Politt have supported our work by donating several times in the last one week. She even made a personal appeal to her friends to support us. She is not even an AID volunteer like yourself and me.
In addition to this, we also received a couple of congratulation+appreciation emails from Facebook/Cause folks. All of this clearly demonstrates the underlying strength we have in small group like ours.
To keep up our winning position we are targeting to win the daily challenge tomorrow.
Now to continue all of this good stuff we would highly appreciate if you can help us drive this cause to the finish line. This can be done in the following ways:
1. Each volunteer gets 3 people to donate of $10 each (=3 tall ). Please keep in mind that all donations shall be made before 3pm tomorrow(Tuesday).
Facebook users can join the Cause by going to
Non Facebook users can directly donate on Causes page at
Also note, we are really not expecting anyone to donate even a dollar more than $10- Thats what matter and thats we are asking for.
2. Invite at least 10 or more friend to join the Cause on face book.
A few chapters have assign coordinators to make sure this is done on a given day like tomorrow. It will be great if your chapters can do the same. Will be great if one volunteer can take this up for the next 2-3 weeks and make sure your chapter volunteers have done their bit to help AID win this challenge. Please let me know who can help and don't forget to wish us good luck..:) Feel free to call/email us if you have any question/concerns about this campaign.
Thanks,
Dushyant
312-402-0615