How did your trip to Niyamgiri and Vedanta’s mining project there come about? I’ve been a human rights, social justice and environment protection advocate for the last 30 years. I am the founder and chair of the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation. I also love India and have a long relationship with this country. Many people know this. This is why Action Aid approached me to meet Sitaram Kulisika, a tribal...
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Turnaround of India State Could Serve as a Model by Lydia Polgreen
For decades the sprawling state of Bihar, flat and scorching as a griddle, was something between a punch line and a cautionary tale, the exact opposite of the high-tech, rapidly growing, rising global power India has sought to become. Criminals could count on the police for protection, not prosecution. Highwaymen ruled the shredded roads and kidnapping was one of the state’s most profitable businesses. Violence raged between Muslims and Hindus, between...
More »Court orders NCPCR to probe trafficking in children
The Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered an inquiry by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) into trafficking of children from Manipur and Assam to Tamil Nadu on the pretext of providing them better education. “We would like to have an inquiry into the matter,” a Bench comprising Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justices Deepak Verma and B.S. Chauhan said, while asking the Commission to place its report within...
More »India doesn't have a law to protect whistleblower
What is a whistleblower protection law? A whistleblower is defined as someone who exposes wrongdoing, fraud, corruption or mismanagement. In many cases, this could be a person who works for the government who would report misconduct within the government or it could be an employee of a private company who reports corrupt practices within the company. The law that a government enacts to protect such persons who help expose corruption...
More »Remote Indian state set for development
A new drive has started to bring development to the remote north-eastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. In a letter from the region, the BBC's former India correspondent Mark Tully says there are fears that it will undermine the traditional tribal culture of the area and alienate the population. Driving from the east of Arunachal Pradesh to its oldest town, Pasighat, I was made all too aware of the state's underdevelopment....
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