Seventy-eight lakh trees will be chopped as part of the forest clearance process for the 1,500MW Tipaimukh hydroelectric project in Manipur, an exercise that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh says will be taken up for “national interest”. The project, which has been in the eye of controversies following opposition from Bangladesh, has received support from the Centre, which has promised not to take any steps that would adversely affect the neighbouring...
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Adivasi Predicament in Chhattisgarh by Supriya Sharma
Not only are the Forest Rights Act and the Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas Act routinely violated in Chhattisgarh, the adivasis are also short-changed on legislative representation and reservations in government jobs. As the state cedes land to capital while reducing the adivasis to an ornamental presence, there is increasing assertion of adivasi identity, born out of class predicaments and experiences of displacement as much as notions of indigeneity. Supriya Sharma...
More »Politicians I funded are after me now: Sarkhel
-The Times of India Bapi Sarkhel, in the eye of a storm since the December 14 violence near Poscoproject site in Jagatsinghpur, said on Thursday certain politicians seeking his arrest had benefited from him in the past, but turned against him as they saw him as a threat. Police has booked him on charges of fomenting trouble in the proposed Posco steel plant site and attacking anti-land acquisition villagers in the...
More »Centre hopes for early resolution to the Kudankulam stalemate
-The Hindu A pro-nuclear plant agitation has begun: Narayanasamy Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office V. Narayanasamy on Wednesday briefed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the situation in Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu, where an agitation is on against the commissioning of the nuclear power plant. Later speaking to journalists, Mr. Narayanasamy expressed hope that the stalemate would be resolved soon. “A pro-nuclear plant agitation has started in Kudankulam…The atmosphere is changing slowly.” Stating...
More »Reviving Universal PDS: A Step Towards Food Security by Suranjita Ray
An unprecedented economic growth during the last decade has also seen increasing malnutrition, hunger and starvation amongst certain sections of society. India ranks 66 in the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO’s) World Hunger Index of 88 countries (Inter-national Food Policy Research Institute). More than 200 million people in this country are denied the right to food. One-third of all underweight children (57 million) in the world due to lack of...
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