Clear Hold Build: Hard Lessons of Business and Human Rights in India

Winner, Excellence Award, Best Insights into Asian Societies, Asian Publishing Award 2014xml: namespace prefix = "o" ns = "urn: schemas-microsoft-com: office: office" /

Winner, Excellence Award, Best Insights into Asian Societies, Asian Publishing Award 2014 How could a group as respectable as Tata get it so wrong with human rights and community engagement in Kalinga Nagar and Singur? What lessons has it learnt?

Why did Vedanta Resources Plc insist on mining in the Niyamgiri Hills in the face of opposition from the tribal inhabitants of the region who fear desecration of their god and losing their land and home? How valid are the safety concerns of the residents of Kudankulam protesting against a nuclear power plant?

What gives a global giant like Posco the ability to ride over local sentiments in acquiring land for their mammoth steel plant in Odisha? There is growing discontent over the manner in which governments and businesses in India treat communities and stakeholders.

Presumption, arrogance, suspicion and deceit often hold sway over community engagement and holistic human resource development. Disaffection of project-affected communities over issues of land acquisition, resettlement and rehabilitation has emerged as a major threat to economic growth in India, besides adding to the cost of businesses on account of lost opportunities, delays and liability.

Driven to the wall, the world of business is finally waking up to the idea of human rights, of true corporate social responsibility. This book offers a must-do checklist for human rights, and for responsible business planning and policy-making.

Sudeep Chakravarti speaks to senior executives, policymakers, activists, lawyers and local communities across such conflict zones in India to present a ringside view of the present and future of business and human rights. He breathes fresh understanding into some of the biggest human rights flashpoints in recent years - Vedanta, Tata Steel, Posco, Kudankulam - as well as less visible ones, and numerous forgotten projects, places and people that continue to haunt the development story of twenty-first century India.

Clear. Hold.

Build. is a groundbreaking work that highlights avoidable battle lines and seeks to change the way government, businesses and communities talk with each other, treat each other and work with each other.

Sudeep Chakravarti is a leading commentator on matters of business and human rights, and socio-political and security issues in India and South Asia. Sudeep's non-fiction narratives - Red Sun: Travels in Naxalite Country, on India's ongoing Maoist rebellion; and Highway 39: Journeys through a Fractured Land (4th Estate, HarperCollins), set in north-east India - are critically feted bestsellers. His essays on conflict are contained in several collections, including Non-State Armed Groups in South Asia; andMore than Maoism: Politics, Policies and Insurgencies in South Asia. Sudeep began his career with The Asian Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Company. He subsequently held senior positions at Sunday, India Today, HT Media and India Today Group. Sudeep's media writing is extensively published in numerous Indian and global publications. Sudeep is a professional member of World Future Society, Washington D.C. He was earlier invited to the Club of Asia by Strategic Intelligence. He is invited to comment on aspects of internal security on network television; social, digital and print media platforms; at academic institutions and think-tanks, including India's Army War College, the Naval War College, and Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad; various CEO and investment forums; and for similar engagements in North America, Europe and Asia.