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Letter from Dhaka: A river trip and climate change
A sail down the ageless rivers of Bangladesh is a reminder that 20 years from now the teeming humanity and its way of life, the abundant flora and fauna will disappear as a consequence of climate change. A rise in sea surface temperatures and levels could mean that 10% of Bangladesh would be under water in 20 years More... Tiger boundariesA turned-away tiger complains to the Supreme Court. Ashish Kothari reports on this strange case from the Maharashtra-Madhya Pradesh border More... ‘The fire we ignited’How did the Bhopal campaign for justice come to be led by uneducated, cloistered women who had scarcely stepped out of their homes? Why are these women willing to stake both family and social priorities to create space for political engagement? This article looks at the gender dimension of the 25-year-old Bhopal survivors movement More... The human rights mathematicianBobby Kunhu pays tribute to the committed human rights activist and lawyer K Balagopal who passed away on October 8, 2009 More... People’s movement against corruptionFrom Plachimada to Kasargod and Guruvayur, a wide range of people’s movements have joined hands in Kerala to battle corruption. Their definition of corruption includes the looting of natural resources, anti-people and anti-nature development policies, and the exploitation of adivasis and dalits More... A tool of empowerment only enables more exploitationRigorous and frequent social audits are the only way to make the NREGA effective, as these audits in two gram panchayats in Karnataka showed. The audits revealed that elected officials fool or bully beneficiaries into signing away their rights and monies, refuse them work they are entitled to, and threaten NGOs who are seen to be on the ‘side’ of the villagers More... Where is NREGS heading?The biggest danger the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme faces is that the people it is meant to benefit will lose faith in it. In far too many instances guilty officials are not punished, social audits are not followed up, payment of wages is delayed and violence against those seeking to make the scheme work goes unchecked More... Violence in the jhoom fieldsOne hospital for a population of 1.86 lakh, 136 villages electrified out of a total of 552, infant mortality at 4 per 10 infants, and per capita income at Rs 39 a day. Such underdevelopment is a fertile breeding ground for ethnic strife and militancy in Assam’s North Cachar Hills district More... Environmentalism of the poorBy the 1990s, with their new slogan No More Bhopals, the Bhopal movement had shifted from the retributive, eye-for-an-eye approach to an environmental justice approach. How did these poor and marginalised communities of Old Bhopal come to understand and define Bhopal as one of hundreds of people’s struggles against environmental prejudice? How did they reach out to pollution-impacted communities all over the world? More... ‘Give us food or jail us’Four months after Cyclone Aila, surveys reveal that only 1.38 kg of foodgrain are being distributed per adult per month, against a Famine Code requirement of 12 kg per head. No compensation for destroyed homes is forthcoming yet, and little work is being provided under NREGS. There is a dangerous unrest growing at state apathy, according to this special report from affected districts in West Bengal More... Winning the cashew battle in OrissaTo avoid siltation of the newly constructed dams caused by traditional forms of agriculture, the tribals of the Koraput district of Orissa were persuaded to shift to cultivation of cashew and other trees and promised ownership of the land. But when the government reneged on its promise and started reaping the benefits itself, a people’s movement began that has just ended in victory after 10 long years More... Slaughter of treesA German botanist laid the foundation of the gardens of Bangalore as well as all the significant parks and gardens in the then princely state of Mysore. As recently as 2000, 374 tree species were recorded in this garden city. In the last decade, many of these trees have been lost More... Women's voices hit the airwaves in Pakistan’s tribal beltRadio Khyber is among the four radio stations in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas started by the federal government in 2006 to counter militant propaganda and stem their growing influence in the region. And, a growing number of voices being heard over the air belong to women who have defied tradition and are working to demolish stereotypes in the area More... Rage against road killsPune-based activist Vilas Kane has been documenting road kills of animals in Maharashtra. In the hill station of Mahabaleshwar alone he reports 600,000 snakes crushed by vehicles in a single year. So many kills can disturb the ecosystem More... The demand for corporate accountabilitySince the gas disaster of 1984, Union Carbide Corporation (now part of Dow Chemicals) has played a cat-and-mouse game of corporate restructuring in a bid to conceal liability from Indian courts. Part 2 of our series on the Bhopal Survivors’ Movement chronicles the long struggle to hold the corporation liable More... |
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