Women-led and women’s rights organizations are on the frontlines of today’s humanitarian crises—but many are at risk of disappearing. As global needs rise due to conflict, climate change, and displacement, deep cuts to foreign aid are threatening organizations that provide life-saving services for women and girls. In March 2025, UN …
It was a bright sunny morning when I reached the Bakhira lake. Bakhira is reputed to be the biggest natural wetland in Uttar Pradesh and is known for its purple swamphens. The birds are known to be shy. I nurtured hopes of spotting them, nevertheless. They were soon belied. It …
The Group of Ministers on the draft resettlement and rehabilitation policy had its third meeting on July 19, where it considered increasing the state governments' role in land acquisition for private businesses. It recommended that states can purchase up to 30 per cent of the land required, while industries can …
the draft Resettlement and Rehabilitation Policy has hit a roadblock for the second time. The group of ministers (gom) debated the draft policy brought out by the Union ministry of rural development (mord) on July 3, after failing to reach consensus the first time on June 20. The problem areas …
Pangulu Pahada owes a lot to Ramakanta Pradhan and his 60 students for its existence. The hill would have become a neglected barren mount if the headmaster and his flock from an upper primary school in remote Orissa had not decided to protect it, helping a 121-hectare forest on the …
that the non-confrontational Lepchas are on an indefinite hunger strike against dams in north Sikkim shows how much of a threat they perceive these projects to be. The surge of support from across the north east again brings to fore the vexed issue of big dams in this socio-politically complex …
Lanjigarh block, Kalahandi, Orissa, May 17: At its summit, the northeastern ridge of the Niyamgiri hill range has a bald patch, typical of hilltops with bauxite deposits. A dense tree cover that provides a welcome shade to climbers struggling some 8 km up the steep forest path gives way to …
there is tension brewing in three villages in Maharashtra's Melghat Sanctuary over rehabilitation measures. The sanctuary, within the Melghat Tiger Reserve, is being freed of people to protect forests and to check declining tiger population. There is a debate over the rehabilitation package with ngos claiming it does not follow …
"i don't know what is uranium, I don't know if it's good or bad. I'm only happy that the public hearing went off peacefully,' says Tina Thongenirit from Wakhaji, a village 120 km from Meghalaya's capital Shillong. Wakhaji is 15 km from Nongbah Jynrin, the village where the public hearing …
People living near the Tehri dam on the Bhagirathi river in Uttarakhand are in trouble. Villages on the slopes overlooking the reservoir are threatened by increasing landslides and those living downstream, once ousted for the building of the dam and rehabilitated, are losing their new homes to an airport expansion …
Industrialist Ratan Tata has reportedly written to the prime minister cribbing about delays in implementing big buck projects. In his capacity as the chair of the government's investment commission he says over us $50 billion is tied up because of delays in allocating land and resources. His list includes major …
orissa's rich mineral resources have turned the state into a veritable battleground. On May 11, 2007, three Pohang Steel Company (posco) officials were kidnapped in Govindpur village in Jagatsighpur district. One of the officials was released immediately and two others were released after 10 hours of grilling and after giving …
vendata's proposed mining project in Orissa was a matter of intense legal debate in the Supreme Court (sc) from May 16 to 18. Initially, the company, and its lawyers, seemed to have answers to every conceivable hindrance that the opposition, in this case the Central Empowered Committee (cec), might throw …
Gujarat has received encomiums from many quarters for its rapid industrialisation. Industries have mushroomed all over the state, thanks to investment campaigns like
thousands of saltpan workers, called Agarias, from 107 villages in Gujarat's Rajkot, Surendranagar, Patan and Kutch districts face displacement with the Gujarat forest department serving them an eviction notice in December 2006. The workers were asked to leave the area, which falls under a wild ass sanctuary and told that …
The police recently blocked tribal people's protests in South Tripura district in Tripura over the Gumti Hydro-Electric Project commissioned in 1974. The tribal people want the project scrapped and the land given back to them but the state government is not doing that. "Hydel power is still cheaper, much cheaper …
entry of government officials in Chandan Nagar in Sarguja district of Chhattisgarh has been banned with effect from May 1, 2007. This comes after series of long-standing protests by people against a proposed 1,000-mw thermal power plant in the district. iffco Chhattisgarh Power Limited (icpl) is a joint venture between …
Forum to bridge a chasm deepened by breach of faith A piece of cartographic evidence of inequity is often repeated by social activists all over India. In this evidence, maps of forests, minerals, tribal habitation and poorest districts are overlayed and they denote almost the same areas in India. This …
Ethnic conflicts have dogged India since independence. The problem has attracted a lot of scholarship. Amarjyoti Borah talks to two eminent academics who have looked at the problem. Ram Dayal Munda, currently chief advisor, Indian Confederation of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, puts the problem of tribal people in the country …
As far as public protests go, Puducherry, formerly Pondicherry, has generally been a backwater. But the government's resolve to fast-track a deep-water port, upgrading the existing fair-weather port, has provoked a chorus of protests from citizens across the board
forest officials of Narmada Valley Development Authority (nvda) launched an operation in March 2007 to shift monkeys and nilgai from an island in the Indira Sagar Reservoir area near Chhanera in Madhya Pradesh's Khandwa district. Intermittent release of Narmada water into the reservoir's catchment area had marooned the animals on …
