Even as attention is focused on the upcoming talks at Copenhagen, the Campaign for Survival and Dignity (CSD) notes a “dangerous side of negotiation” that has been taking place along the main talks. These negotiations have concerned a scheme called ‘REDD,’ which could result in a massive land grab across India’s forest and Adivasi belts, one that would make the current conflicts over land acquisition look minor, a CSD statement...

The Anderson saga is one more reminder that the powerful can always count on official help.  In the fall of 2002, Greenpeace campaigner Casey Harell paid a surprise visit to the New York State private estate of Warren Anderson, and found him living a “life of luxury”. Nothing odd about the discovery except that in the eyes of the law Mr. Anderson was untraceable, and had been so since 1992...

Eleven months after B. Ramalinga Raju, the former chairman of Hyderabad-based Satyam Computer Services, confessed to masterminding a $1.2 billion fraud at Indias fourth largest I.T. outsourcing company, the dirt is still tumbling out. On Nov. 24, the country's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) released findings that show the alleged fraudulent accounting and embezzlement was far larger than originally thought. Raju and nine accomplices skimmed some $2.5 billion from the...

The UPA government has come under severe criticism for trying to hurriedly pass the Land Acquisition (amendment) and the Resettlement & Rehabilitation Bill during the ongoing Parliamentary session. Both the bills have been dubbed as anti-poor as their provisions are seen to promote forced dispossession of farmers’ land as well as large scale displacement of rural people. The haste with which the two Bills are being promoted could be assessed...

The S.C. and S.T. (Prevention of Atrocities) Act has failed to make Dalits any safer. THE ascent of the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to power in Uttar Pradesh on May 13, 2007, was seen as a defining moment in the politics of Dalit empowerment in the country. The Scheduled Caste (S.C.) leader of an avowedly “Dalit assertive” party had been Chief Minister earlier too, but the difference this time...