SRT cracks down on illegal crossings

The State Railway of Thailand (SRT) will close 693 illegal railway crossings across the country, after a pickup truck was struck by a freight train in Chachoengsao last week. Eight people were killed and three injured in the accident.

The collision took place at an unofficial crossing, which isn’t equipped with a signalling mechanism. Out of the 437 incidents involving trains which occurred between 2005 and 2021, about 44% took place at such crossings, according to the SRT.

SRT’s Director of Safety and Maintenance, Tayakorn Chandrangsu, said yesterday there are 2,697 level crossings across the nation’s 4,000-kilometre rail network. Of that total, 2,004 are official crossings, while 693 are not. Of the 693 to be closed, 52 are located in the North, 54 are in the Northeast, 68 in the East, and 519 in the South.

He said locals continue to use illegal crossings as they tend to be the most convenient and direct means to get to their destination.

The SRT had told each province to come up with solutions to minimise level crossing accidents, but the result was minimal at best, he said.

“When the SRT closed some of these crossings to prevent accidents, residents protested against it. They would then reopen the crossings,” he added.

He said the SRT will build more walkways around its rail network, especially in communities bisected by tracks. The SRT also encourages people to use the DRT’s Crossing Application app, where people can report problems with local crossings.

“We also aim to have fewer ground level crossings for our double-track expansion and high-speed railways to prevent accidents,” said Mr Tayakorn.

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Pheu Thai: No pre-vote cabinet offers

Coalition partners want assurances

The Pheu Thai Party has shrugged off demands from its prospective coalition partners for cabinet seats to be allocated before they proceed to vote on the party’s prime ministerial candidate.

Pheu Thai deputy leader Phumtham Wechayachai said there must be clarity on how the coalition will vote on the prime ministerial candidate first. Only then will cabinet seat allocation be discussed.

He insisted cabinet seats will have to be acceptable to society and reflect the policies of each coalition party.

“We ask that the parties recognise the country’s and people’s needs as the first priority,” he said.

Mr Phumtham’s statement followed a reported ultimatum issued by a number of its coalition members to settle the cabinet allocation ahead of the vote.

The parties also snubbed Pheu Thai’s prime ministerial candidate Srettha Thavisin’s suggestion that parties joining the Pheu Thai-led administration not return to oversee the ministries they are occupying in the current caretaker government.

So far, the Bhumjaithai and Chartthaipattana parties from the current caretaker government have agreed to take part in a Pheu Thai-led administration. Other major parties reportedly mulling whether to join the new coalition are the Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP) and the United Thai Nation (UTN) Party.

These parties from the caretaker government have insisted that if they get to keep the ministries they currently supervise, it would benefit work continuity.

They added Pheu Thai should not focus on amending the constitution, but instead take care of the economic problems and people’s livelihoods first.

Mr Phumtham said he has not heard of a reported demand by any prospective coalition parties pressing for Mr Srettha to be replaced as prime ministerial candidate by Paetongtarn Shinawatra, head of the so-called Pheu Thai Family.

As far as he was aware, the parties had not paid serious attention to the issue, Mr Phumtham said.

“It must be made clear how many parties are ready to be in the government and how the cabinet seats are to be divided up,” he said, affirming the coalition line-up so far consists of parties with 238 MPs between them.

“We expect that after the new prime minister is chosen, the new government will get down to work next month after the business of allocating ministries is over and done with,” the Pheu Thai deputy leader said.

However, Pheu Thai secretary-general Prasert Chantararuangthong said support for the coalition has now climbed to 278 MPs, with the latest addition of the PPRP, which has pledged that its 40 MPs will vote for Pheu Thai’s prime ministerial candidate.

“We’re confident Mr Srettha’s nomination will sail through in a single round of voting,” he said.

Parliament president Wan Muhamad Noor Matha said yesterday the vote will likely be called either on Friday or Aug 22.

Meanwhile, Senator Kittisak Rattanawaraha admitted some senators doubt whether Mr Srettha will become prime minister. He said he believed the new premier would not be one of the three Pheu Thai prime ministerial candidates.

“It appears credible that the right to form a new government will pass from the Pheu Thai Party to the third-biggest, the Bhumjaithai Party or even the fourth-ranked PPRP,” he said.

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Govt lauds ‘Growth Triangle’ success

The Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle (IMT-GT) strategic framework has generated over US$618 billion (about 21.7 trillion baht) since its founding in 1993, said deputy government spokeswoman Rachada Dhnadirek on Monday.

Established during Chuan Leekpai’s tenure as prime minister, the framework was set up to facilitate private sector cooperation between the three countries, in a bid to boost the region’s economic growth.

Ms Rachada said Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha praised the longevity and success of the initiative, which has helped the region improve its economic performance, especially in border areas tremendously.

Under the IMT-GT framework, the private sector is encouraged to help develop six core industries which are seen as the key drivers of the region’s economic growth, namely trading, infrastructure, tourism, human resources, agriculture and the environment, as well as halal food production.

As for projects to enhance connectivity in the region worth US$57 billion, all 36 have made considerable progress, said Ms Rachada. Aimed at improving logistics and travel, the projects include the Hat Yai-Padang Besar-Kuala Lumpur train and the second bridge over the Kolok River connecting the border town of Sungai Kolok in Narathiwat of Thailand to Rantau Panjang district of Kelantan in Malaysia.

At present, the scope of the IMT-GT cooperation has also expanded to 36 states and provinces in all three countries, she said.

During the past four decades, the gross domestic product of the three countries has also increased from US$12.7 billion in 1984 to US$405 billion in 2021, Ms Rachada said.

Trade value also increased from US$97 billion in 1984 to US$618 billion in 2021.

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Back to the future for India’s rice farmers

Varsha ShwarmaVarsha Shwarma

Varsha Sharma has been through some turbulent years on her small farm in the mountainous state of Himachal Pradesh, in northern India.

For more than a century her family have been rice farmers, but erratic rainfall and water being diverted for industry have made cultivating rice more difficult.

Seven years ago she switched to a hybrid rice variety and to growing apples, but that just caused fresh problems.

The hybrid rice variety promised increased production, but needed a lot of additives, which she says damaged the soil.

“We destroyed our soils by adding chemicals and fertilizers,” she says.

So in 2018 she switched again, this time experimenting with red rice, a variety which has a long history in Himachal Pradesh, but has dwindled as farmers have switched to modern varieties.

Red rice has attractive qualities. It is hardy and grows well without fertiliser and other chemicals. Research also shows it has nutritional benefits over white rice.

But perhaps for farmers the biggest attraction is that it sells well.

“Red rice fetches a good price, ranging between $3 and $4 per kilo in the retail market, as it completely organic. This has helped many farmers like me,” says Ms Sharma.

The government of Himachal Pradesh wants to expand the production of red rice, increasing its area under cultivation to 4,000 hectares (10,000 acres).

Red rice

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Red rice is not the only traditional variety being promoted.

In West Bengal, the largest rice producing state in India, almost half of its arable land is under rice cultivation.

It is home to more than 5,000 varieties of rice, but the majority are no longer grown.

“They [farmers] are only thinking about increased production, hence are switching to hybrid varieties,” says Anjan Kumar Sinha, the founder of the Socio-Environmental Welfare Society (ARSWS), which promotes conservation and the restoration of biodiversity.

He says that farming hybrid rice varieties can be expensive.

“When hybrid seeds are used, the demand for pesticide increases and the costs go up in an unsustainable way.

“Indigenous rice seed varieties have adapted to local ecologies and can resist drought and floods. We have varieties of rice seeds in India which can grow without water,” says Mr Sinha.

Farmers who join his organisation get a kilo of seeds free, enough to produce up to 60kg of rice. In return the farmers have to return a kilo of seeds.

“These varieties may play a vital role in sustainable agriculture in drought prone regions,” he adds.

Rice is widely consumed and grown in India and it is the world’s biggest exporter of the grain.

But in July, to tame surging domestic prices after heavy rains hurt crops, the Indian government banned the export of non-basmati white rice.

This came after Russia withdrew from a deal guaranteeing the safe passage of Ukrainian grain, putting more pressure on global food supplies.

Women planting rice

Shankar Patnaik

Shankar Patnaik, who is also a farmer and seed conservationist, says that farmers “became greedy” and started growing rice from hybrid seeds to boost production.

“We used lot of urea and fertilizers which destroyed our soil. Also now very few farmers are using traditional seeds to grow rice,” he says.

Mr Patnaik has a collection of 500 rice varieties and is experimenting with many of them on his 14 acres of land.

“There are several indigenous rice varieties that can have higher yields but their potential is not fully explored. Even without application of chemical fertilizers one can get a good yield. But generally, people consider these as low yielding varieties and don’t pay much attention,” says Mr Patnaik.

As well as experimenting with varieties, Mr Patnaik is working on growing methods that need less water.

In particular he uses the alternate wetting and drying (AWD) method. In that technique famers flood fields, allow them to drain for a few days, and then flood them again.

Rice field

Shankar Patnaik

This is one of the processes promoted by India’s Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA), an organisation that works with farmers to make farming more sustainable.

“Rice is highly water-consuming crop. It’s grown in stagnant water and consumes about 5,000 litres if water per kg of rice,” says GV Ramanjaneyulu, executive director of the CSA.

He says bacteria in rice ponds emit methane, and flooding damages the soil structure, and can make it more salty.

He says there are several ways of growing rice with less water, but at the moment they need more support.

“There are no proper campaigns or training on these methods and no incentive for farmers to make a shift,” says Mr Ramanjaneyulu.

“Many of the current incentive systems like fertilizer subsidy, free power, canal irrigation, minimum support price and procurement, all work against the interest of farmers to shift towards more sustainable production,” he adds.

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One farmer who has embraced a new technique is Prema Devi from Farsali Malde, a village in the northern state of Uttarakhand.

“Most of the people from the village are farmers but with major climatic changes we started facing a lot of problems. Our crops got destroyed because of unseasonal rains or scarcity of water,” she says.

So, in 2021 she started to reduce the number of rice seeds she planted.

Rice saplings are grown in nursery beds and are transferred to main field after 12 to 14 days, where they are planted six to eight inches apart.

“The spacing between each plant gives them more oxygen, and minimises the competition between plants for nutrients and sunlight,” says Ms Devi.

She says the system has doubled her rice production to 100kg a year.

“It was not easy for us to believe that a simple change in technique was all we needed,” she says.

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Burning mangrove trees for a living: ‘I’d quit tomorrow if I could’

Nurhadi looking at the fire in a furnace

Indonesia has more mangrove trees than any other country but there’s growing concern about the “dangerous” rate they are being cut down, turned into charcoal and exported to places such as Europe, China and Japan. People involved in the work know the trees are important for the environment and would like to quit but they see no other way to survive.

Inside a wooden hut, near his house on the island of Borneo, Nurhadi keeps two furnaces burning all year round. The 68-year-old employs at least a dozen people.

Four men cut up wood collected from mangrove trees, while another throws it into a furnace made from earth and stones. Once burned, the wood is cooled and packaged, ready to be sold.

Mangrove wood is very hard and dense but not very durable, which makes it ideal for charcoal production and particularly good for barbeques. But it is a resource-intensive process with little return.

Sixteen tonnes of raw material only produces three tonnes of charcoal. “If I produce less than three tonnes, it’s a loss,” Nurhadi says. Once costs are taken into account, he estimates he only makes a profit of about $1,250 (£1,000) per year.

“There’s no money in cutting down mangroves. Nobody gets rich from charcoal furnaces. We do this to have food on our plate,” he explains.

A conversation he once had with a government official sums up his predicament: “He asked me: ‘Are you ready to leave the charcoal business?’ I answered: ‘If you can provide farming land or other opportunities, I’d quit tomorrow.'”

Almost half of the 9,000 people in Nurhadi’s village, Batu Ampar, rely on mangrove charcoal for a living, a tradition dating back to the 1940s. Some families like Nurhadi’s have been doing this for generations – his father and grandfather owned the same furnaces, so he says this is the only work he knows.

Indonesia is home to 20% of the world’s mangroves, and Nurhadi’s area, the Kuba Raya Regency has the biggest mangrove forest in the western part of Indonesian Borneo.

But the number of furnaces is increasing – in 2000 there were 90 but today there are at least 490 – and that is speeding up deforestation.

BBC graphic showing deforestation in the region from 2006 to 2020

Arsyad Al Amin, who is involved in a local research project, predicts that the Batu Ampar mangrove forest will only last for another 74 years if things carry on as they are. “It will all be gone in 2096,” the researcher from the Bogor Agricultural Institute says.

Thick, dense forest areas of mangrove canopy have decreased so much that bare patches can now be seen from planes overhead.

“If there is no effort to accelerate rehabilitation, this is dangerous. We desperately need intervention,” he warns.

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Mangrove forests:

  • Tackle climate change, by reducing carbon in the atmosphere – some do this up to 10 times better than forests on land
  • Protect people from coastal erosion, storm surges and tsunamis
  • Provide nurseries for tropical fish
  • Shield coral reefs from storms and heat waves
  • Boost economies of many developing countries

Source: The Ocean Agency

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Deep in the forest, an hour north of Batu Ampar village by boat, dozens of mangrove trees have been cut down. The people living along the river breathe in air mingled with the smoke coming from rows of furnaces.

There are areas in this forest where it is legal to take wood, but as the number of furnaces grows, it gets harder to source raw materials and loggers venture further into the protected areas.

Among the sound of monkey chatter and birdsong is the unmistakable sound of a chainsaw revving up.

We speak to some men who are cutting down an average-sized mangrove tree. “We would not cut down the big trees,” says one lumberjack who refuses to reveal his name because he is operating in a protected forest. He’s wearing minimal safety gear. “A logger died from being crushed by wood when cutting,” he says. “This is a high risk job, but my children need to eat.”

Man chops down tree with chainsaw

The local environment and forestry agency claims it’s been hard to enforce the regulations on illegal logging.

“There are too many home furnaces and a large number of locals involved in this activity,” spokesman Adi Yani says.

He also thinks that if they impose the rules strictly “it has the potential to cause social unrest”.

“Repressive law enforcement” was carried out a few years ago against loggers and furnace owners in Batu Ampar village, says an official with the local government, Herbimo Utoyo. But, he adds, “it never reached court because it is viewed as a tradition, a culture”.

He also says the government has offered to train people how to farm honey from the forest and produce palm sugar to try to move them away from the charcoal industry, but he admits: “It hasn’t been successful yet. It’s hard to break something that has been done from generation to generation.”

Bare patch of forest seen from overhead

But one man who quit the charcoal business says the government needs to do more. “We feel like we were left alone without the government’s support. If they do have programmes, maybe they only came to the head of the village. No-one came to us,” 39-year-old Suheri says.

Ten years ago, he used to run two furnaces but decided to stop after a peatland fire smothered his village in smoke. “I thought that if the fire happened in our mangrove forest, we’d be devastated,” he explains.

Before the pandemic, he tried farming mud crab in mangrove aquaculture, but the venture failed. “I suffered a huge loss, and I am in debt because of it,” he says. Now he collects honey from the forest’s bees instead.

Suheri uses his boat to navigate the waterways and can spend hours looking for beehives that are ready to be harvested.

When he spots one, he puts on a homemade hat with a veil, climbs up the tree and uses smoke from burned nipah leaves to distract the bees. “There are many risks with collecting honey – mud, wild animals, snakes and crocodiles. The least of the risks is getting stung by the bees,” he says with a little laugh.

Suheri on a boat

If he is lucky, Suheri can collect up to five bottles of honey in a day, with one bottle of raw, wild forest honey selling for $10 (£8). It’s a very good price but he says he can’t count on just honey for a living because “the harvesting season is uncertain”.

When he’s not in the forest looking for honey, Suheri breeds croaker fish but the eggs are expensive and there is a high chance they will die.

Even thought it’s not easy, he says he is determined to find something other than the furnaces to make money, in the hope it inspires others in his village to stop cutting down mangrove trees to make charcoal.

“I have to do better… If I want people to change, I have to succeed!” he exclaims.

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Data protection bill: Will India’s hard-won information law get weaker?

Data protectionGetty Images

A crucial new law that aims to protect the personal data of Indians will dilute another landmark legislation that brought much-needed transparency into government functioning, experts say.

Until last week, India did not have a law to regulate how the personal information of individuals is collected, stored and processed. The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, which was passed in parliament, fulfils that long-standing demand.

But privacy experts have raised serious concerns, pointing out that the law does not protect citizens from surveillance and that it gives excessive power to the federal government in terms of application.

One major criticism is the change the legislation makes to the landmark right to information (RTI) law, which allows people to access data from the government. Since it was passed in 2005 – after years of campaigning – millions of Indians have used the RTI law to ask questions and demand information from government departments and officials.

But the new legislation changes a provision of the RTI law to exempt “personal information” from being disclosed – this will affect a majority of the information currently sought under it.

“Everything that people have been using the RTI law for – to hold governments accountable, to fight corruption [etc.] – has somewhere an element of personal information,” says Anjali Bhardwaj, co-convenor of the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information, which was critical in getting the RTI law passed in 2005.

Madan Lokur, a former Supreme Court judge, says that the amendment “will emasculate the RTI to a large extent”.

While the application of the RTI law was never perfect – information was often denied on flimsy grounds and there have been several attempts by successive governments to dilute it – activists fear the latest change will make answers almost impossible to access.

What does the RTI law say?

The RTI law covers a wide ambit of organisations, including all departments formed under the Constitution or any government law or notification. Even organisations that are substantially financed by any government, even indirectly, are covered.

The RTI Act’s default position is that all information should be made available to citizens when requested, barring a few exceptions such as national security.

Protestors against the amendments to the Right to Information Act proposed by the government at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi in July 2019

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One of the clauses, which is under contention, says that if the information is of a personal nature and does not relate to any “public activity” or would cause an “unwarranted invasion” of an individual’s privacy, then the officer can deny the request – unless they find that it should be made available in “larger public interest”.

A 2012 committee on privacy law headed by Justice AP Shah had recommended that disclosures under the RTI Act should not constitute an infringement of privacy.

What will the new law change?

The new data protection law overrides this clause. It merely says that any information that “relates to personal information” can be denied – which could include any answer that identifies an individual.

“Earlier there was a filter that personal information should not have a relationship with any public activity or unwarranted invasion of privacy,” says Shailesh Gandhi, a former Central Information Commissioner who was responsible for deciding on complaints under the RTI Act.

Mr Gandhi says that to ensure that the law was easily implemented, it also spelt out that if information cannot be denied to a legislature, it should not be denied to an individual as well.

But now there is a blanket ban on personal information, which Mr Gandhi says is problematic, as “you could relate any information to a person one way or the other”.

The data protection law also says that non-compliance with it could attract hefty monetary fines, going up to 2.5bn rupees ($30.1m; £23.7m). This can discourage officers from disclosing answers which could be related to personal information.

“Even if they impose a [lower fine], which officer would take the risk [of disclosing personal information in public interest]?” Mr Gandhi asks.

Federal minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has said in an interview that the change in the law takes into account a landmark 2017 Supreme Court ruling on privacy “which said personal data can be processed if it passes the test of legality, legitimacy, and proportionality” and that it won’t affect the RTI.

What will the impact be?

Activists fear the change will affect their ability to seek information that has helped check corruption and ensure the delivery of basic rights.

“For instance, under the National Food Security Act, to check if there is corruption and someone does not get their rations, then people try to access information about fair-price shops and their sales registers to find out who was sold ration,” Ms Bhardwaj says. This helps check for pilferages in the ration given by the government’s public distribution system.

She also points out that Dalit (formerly known as untouchables) students have used the law to ask colleges to provide data about the admission process if they were not allotted a place even when they had the required marks.

Without this information, “the RTI Act would not keep a check on corruption and [this would] reduce transparency”, Mr Gandhi says.

Indian men and women line up outside the Fair Price Shop with their ration cards to receive portions of wheat, sugar, kerosene and rice from the government in Jhabua, Madhya Pradesh, India, on July 16, 2010.

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He points to an instance during his tenure where a person got a copy of the degrees of doctors appointed at a government hospital. “After going through them, they found out that there were several people who held fake degrees,” he says.

Such answers could become unavailable under the new law, he believes, since they would disclose the personal information of individuals.

Even now, officials deny many RTI requests by just saying that the information is personal, Mr Gandhi says. He now expects these denials to increase.

Are there any exceptions?

The change doesn’t affect a section in the RTI law that says that says that even if the information falls under any of the exceptions (such as personal information), an officer could still allow access to it if the public interest “outweighs the harms to the protected interests”.

But this flips the burden on people seeking the information.

“A person seeking information under RTI does not have to justify why they are seeking the information,” Ms Bhardwaj says. “But now, I will have to prove that there is a public interest and that its non-disclosure has larger harms to the protected interest.”

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Beer clip lands MP in the soup

Beer clip lands MP in the soup
Padipat: Posedwith a can

Deputy House speaker Padipat Suntiphada has come un-der fire after posting a video clip of himself drinking beer on social media, which some say could be a violation of the law.

The furore began after Mr Padipat, a Move Forward Party MP for Phitsanulok, reviewed a can of beer brewed in his home province on Tiktok.

This prompted a flurry of criticism from netizens, who pointed to the law which prohibits the advertising of alcoholic beverages.

Tankhun Jittitsara, a former Democrat MP, called on House speaker Wan Muhamad Noor Matha to look into whether Mr Padipat breached the ethical code for political-office holders.

Democrat spokesman, Ramet Rattanachaweng, warned that Mr Padipat’s action may constitute a violation of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act.

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Orphaned jumbo ‘Tula’ dies from bone disease

Orphaned jumbo 'Tula' dies from bone disease
A veterinarian feeds Tula, a male elephant calf who was abandoned by his herd in October last year. Tula passed away over the weekend after 10 months of treatment.

The orphaned elephant calf Tula has died due to illness after 10 months under the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation’s (DNP) care, the department announced on its Facebook page on Sunday evening.

Tula first came to the public’s attention when a team of veterinarians found him in Chanthaburi’s Khao Soi Dao Wildlife Sanctuary in October last year.

He was abandoned by his herd after contracting herpes in the wild, said Patarapol Maneeorn, chief of the department’s Wildlife Health Management Division.

According to Dr Patarapol, Tula suffered from a metabolic bone disease, which impeded his ability to stand on his front legs. Tula’s condition began to deteriorate last week and on Sunday, his pulse became very weak.

Veterinarians attempted to resuscitate Tula, but he died later that evening.

Dr Patarapol said Tula’s remains will be examined for other contributing factors.

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