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 …
the Orissa government has drawn up a new comprehensive draft policy on rehabilitation and resettlement (r & r) to address the increasing anger of the state's rural and tribal people over being displaced by industries setting up shop on their land. Though the policy promises several additional sops for displaced …
The virgin beauty of Arakku Valley in the Eastern Ghats is a popular tourist draw, but it may soon be just a memory. The hill ranges from Papikonda in East Godavari to Sileru and Krishnadevipeta in Visakhapatnam district, rich in bauxite ore, have been chosen as the site for a …
Here is a social drama with the most complex of plots. The dramatis personae of the Sardar Sarovar Project (ssp): four state governments with a multiplicity of departments; threea Union ministries with ministers, bureaucrats and technocrats; a tribunal of three retired high court judges that gave an
the forest managers of Tripura might not have done anything to settle the rights of tribals dispalced from their land, but they've started paying their casual labourers better. About 30 years after its creation, the Tripura Forest Development and Plantation Corporation (tfdpc) earned its highest-ever profit in 2005 (see graph …
construction work on the Sardar Sarovar Project (ssp) on the river Narmada has resumed after two-years. On March 8, 2006, the Narmada Control Authority (nca) cleared an increase of 11.28 metres in the Narmada dam's height
The Polavaram Project was envisaged to harness the Godavari's waters for much needed irrigation purposes in the coastal areas of Andhra Pradesh and the drier Rayalaseema region. However, the project remains dogged by controversy because there has been no agreement on the area to be submerged and the rehabilitation package …
The Haribad minor irrigation project in Madhya Pradesh is to be built on the boundary of the two villages of Haribad and Sakad on the Kundi river. The project will largely benefit Haribad, while the tribal people of Sakad will lose their land. This is a brief account of the …
The Sardar Sarovar Project has been the focus of a long drawn-out conflict between the Gujarat government and experts, on the one hand, and anti-big dam activists, on the other. This is a revisiting of the principles behind an alternative that was articulated 10 years ago, but is still relevant …
The island of Majuli on the river Brahmaputra has been under constant threat from floods as well as rising erosion levels. Tension has simmered between development agencies responsible for flood control and the local people who have opposed the structural measures. The proposed Bogibeel bridge has evoked concerns that the …
Water conflicts in India have now percolated to every level. They are aggravated by the relative paucity of frameworks, policies and mechanisms to govern use of water resources. This collection of articles, part of a larger compendium, is an attempt to offer analyses of different aspects of water conflicts that …
Orissa is going through a "steel revolution". In the past three years, the state government has signed more than 40 MoUs with companies, both domestic and foreign, signing off 20 billion tonnes of iron ore that it is supposed to be sitting on. But it has also meant destruction of …
This article describes the essential characteristics of various people's movements in Orissa against the backdrop of the recent Kalinga Nagar killings and also analyses how society reacts to such movements.
The iniquitous development agenda pursued by successive governments at the centre and the state has rendered several tribal groups in Orissa, who reside in some of the poorer, more inaccessible districts of the state, largely marginal to the governance process. Arguably, it is this alienation and underdevelopment that has afforded …
Orissa first drafted a comprehensive rehabilitation policy back in 1994, but that was never enacted. Currently, the state draws up R&R; policies on industry-specific basis. Another UNDP/DFID aided draft was presented to the state revenue department on 8 July 2005. After sitting on the draft since last year, the state …
at least 12 tribals and a policeman were killed in a clash at the Kalinga Nagar steel complex in Orissa's Jajpur district on January 2, 2006. The state government has ordered a judicial inquiry. Nearly 800 tribals from nearby villages were protesting the construction of a boundary wall for a …
TEHRI AGAIN As the old Tehri town drowns in the water impounded by the Tehri dam, some way upstream another hydroelectric power project is making an unwelcome appearance. Work on a hydel project, located on the Bhilangana river, a tributary of the Bhagirathi, is being carried out with heavy protection
The Government of Madhya Pradesh was initially supposed to undertake the process of land acquisition for the families displaced by the Indira Sagar Project (ISP), but it handed over the responsibility to the National Hydro Development Corporation (HYDC). This was tantamount to absolving itself of the responsibility and is, according …
