Judgment of the Supreme Court in the matter of In Re: Zudpi Jungle Lands. A batch of applications involved a peculiar issue concerning the situation prevailing in the six districts of eastern Vidarbha region namely Nagpur, Wardha, Bhandara, Gondia, Chandrapur and Gadchiroli. The issue pertains to the status of the …
How does it feel to be told that if only your car had seat belts fitted, your 26-year-old son and 22-year-old daughter-in-law would be alive today? What would you do if you were told this? Would you bow down in acceptance before the Hindu priest when he said that it …
Those who took upon themselves the task of opposing the Dunkel proposals for the Uruguay round of talks have done a remarkable job. A motley band of people with little in common -- except their professed dislike for the Dunkel proposals -- have managed to carry the anti-Dunkel stand even …
MEDICAL research aims at producing technologies for the human good. But in pursuit of this objective, should we allow medical research to violate basic human rights? The violence of a male-dominated scientific establishment is being directed against the weaker members of society: women, the poor, and the illiterate. This exploitation …
If a girl child in India could benefit every time somebody recounted her problems, hers would be a happy lot by now. Unfortunately, efforts to better her condition have been restricted to pieces of paper which do the rounds in various "concerned" ministries, elaborate action plans that serve to make …
A kuccha road leading to village Mallana near Sariska in Rajasthan is blocked by villagers. Faces bright with anger, they say: "We will free Mallana from the miners. We will do or die." A truck approaches cautiously and then turns tail. Harshawardhan Varma's moving documentary, The Slaughter of Sariska, drives …
Why were you chosen as a trainee? I was interested because of the money I could earn. Over a period of six months, 15 other poor women like me were trained. Are all of them caretakers of handpumps? No, only nine of us were assigned pumps. We undertake repair works …
OF PAPUA New Guinea's land area of 45.3 million ha, the state owns only 600,000 ha, a colonial legacy known, with inevitable irony, as "alienated land". Forests cover about 78 per cent of the country: this is "customary land", neither documented nor registered but held nevertheless by 700 clans and …
Lae Airport In February 1993, the Ahi Landowners' Association of Lae, the second largest town in PNG, told the government that development could not take place on the airport land because the K176, 000 paid was compensation for damages to the land and not, as it were, payment for the …
KIDNAPPING natives from the Pacific Islands to use them as slave labour on plantations was common in Papua New Guinea. In his book, Black Islanders, anthropologist Douglas Oliver describes how this labour was tamed. In 1871, a ship called The Carl destroyed a flotilla of native boats and hauled the …
Papua New Guinea has extraordinary biodiversity that parallels its extraordinary cultural diversity. But it is not enough to get a Prince Philip or a King of Sweden to impress upon the local elite the need to protect the animals. In PNG, they have to talk to the poor villagers themselves. …
RAPACIOUS gold, copper and silver mining came to Papua New Guinea in the 1920s with white colonisers and multinationals. Australian explorers found gold for the taking in the Wau-Bulolo area, a mountainous region swathed with forests. Gold from Wau dominated the export earnings of PNG for three decades. Then, in …
MOUNT Kare towers 2,750 metres in the midst of the jagged limestone mountains of the central range. Peter Ryan, author of a book on the Mount Kare gold rush, says the mountain was too high, too wet, too infertile and too wholly repellent to permit even the hardy Papua New …
ONE THING Papua New Guineans and Indians have in common is addiction to betel-nut chewing. Crimson mouths and red spit-splattered walls are common in PNG. Papua New Guineans chew a potent mix of green betel nut and powdered slake lime, combined with the Piper betel plant. With deadly consequences. Oral …
IN PAPUA New Guinea, it is said -- and bitterly -- that "the Malaysians are to forests what the Taiwanese are to the seas". The allusion is to Malaysia's interests in PNG's forests and the extensive Taiwanese appropriation of marine resources. One Malaysian company, Rimbunan Hijau, controls more than 85 …
"WE'VE BEEN repairing this pump since November 1989," says Ajufa Begum, a 27-year-old handpump mechanic in village Hathkhoapara in Assam's Kamrup district. "It has broken down 10 times in the past few years, but now we can handle it confidently." She is one of the five women who are proudly …
RICE IS the staple crop of deltaic Orissa and around 1990 occupied about 87 per cent of the total cultivated area. Four types of paddy were grow, according to season. Biali was sown in April or May and reaped by the end August or early September. Saradh dhan was cultivated …
THE UNION government has sanctioned a Rs 10.16 crore plan for the popularisation of biopesticides. This comes on the heels of a large outlay for organic farming announced in the present five-year plan. The project, proposed by the department of biotechnology (DBT) and approved on January 24, envisages the setting …
A BRITISH astronomer may be the first to have witnessed a bizarre celestial phenomenon: the formation of strange heavenly bodies when a superdense neutron star -- one that has been crushed by its own gravity -- insinuates itself inside a red giant star and transforms it (Science, Vol 262, No …
THE SIX Nations native reserve in Ontario, Canada, has been reduced to an ugly waste dump, according to Multinational Monitor. Situated close to the industrial heartland of the country, the reserve is susceptible to refuse from neighbouring communities. Industrialists can afford to take such liberties because Indian lands are governed …
THE FAILURE of the Siberian cranes to pay their annual migratory visit, in mid-November, to the Keoladeo Ghana National Park in Bharatpur is fuelling anxiety that these birds may be on the brink of extinction. The number of Siberian cranes coming to Bharatpur has declined steadily since 1969. In 1964, …
