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 …
When did you rise to political prominence? What were the issues that propelled you to the political stage? When the Karzan dam was built in 1979, 19 villages, including ours, were submerged. We were paid compensation. In my student days back in the early 1980s, I was with the Congress. …
What are the most important issues for tribals in your region? Political empowerment, land alienation (by non-tribals, forest laws, dams, mining and militancy), education, poor standard of living and insurgency. Why are these issues crucial? Earlier, there was a safety in separation. The British administration didn't exist in Karbi-Anglong as …
What are the most important issues for tribals in your region? Economic development, unemployment, agriculture, poor roads, irrigation, education and health and electricity. When did these issues become so important? There is not too much difference in the issues that were important earlier and the ones that are important today. …
What are the most important issues for tribals in your region? The question of maintaining tribal identity, government failure to understand tribal sentiment, land alienation, displacement and rights related to the forest. Why are these issues crucial today? Tribals don't need just the money. Even in the 21st century, half …
nepal's multimillion-dollar project for supplying drinking water to the parched Kathmandu valley has left residents of Melamchi valley fuming. The reason: water will be diverted from the latter region to benefit the former. Activists of the Melamchi Local Concern Group (mlcg) have locked horns with the Melamchi Water Supply Project …
India has the largest tribal population in the world. Tribals number 8.6 per cent of its total population. They are also among the country's most marginalised. Why has India's political democracy not given its tribals their due? What is in India's political system that prevents the tribal voice from being …
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Madhya Pradesh (mp) chief minister Digvijay Singh are playing the blame game over the settlement of tribal communities' claims to forestland. It may be noted that elections to the mp legislative assembly are due later this year, and the state has a sizeable tribal …
on june 25, the police opened fire on a crowd of restive farmers desperate to purchase subsidised maize seeds from a distribution centre in Andhra Pradesh's (ap) Ranga Reddy district. The toll: one farmer dead and more than 100 injured. Even before protests against the police action had died down, …
crisis tided over: The dispute over seasonal fishing in the reserved forestland of Jambudwip island in West Bengal (see: Out of bounds, February 28, 2003) may be resolved in the near future. An amicable agreement between the state government's fisheries and forest departments bears testimony to this. The deal was …
Why are we, as a nation, so non-serious about following through on actions? Is it the curse of a foreign language in which we act, but not think, that we pick up words and so believe the deed, too, is done? Take any major challenge that has confronted decision-making in …
Multinational oil giants Chevron Texaco Oil Company, Shell and Total Fina Elf have shut down operations in Nigeria's trouble-torn southern Delta region. The companies estimate that the disruptions have reduced Nigeria's daily oil output by about 30 per cent. The country is the world's sixth largest oil exporter. Dozens of …
function openana1(){ var popurl="html/20030331_p28.htm" winpops=window.open(popurl,"","width=610,height=460") } War zones Where battles rage in the evening By the time they killed it on June 25, 2002 the female elephant had killed 13 people over three days across the Indo-Nepal border. This much is known. The rest is a mix of half-truths, rumours, …
At a time when the threat of war looms large over Iraq, here's more ammunition for peaceniks to confront warmongers with. The United Nations Environment Programme (unep) recently released the findings of assessments conducted in the violence-wracked Occupied Palestinian Territories and Afghanistan. The reports have brought into sharp focus the …
The recent imbroglio on interconnectivity between cellular and WILL (wireless in local loop)/CDMA (code division multiple access) subscribers left many of us speechless. Literally. The response came through a proxy war involving Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL). This is worrying; for interconnectivity is the …
a unique people's movement is gathering momentum in Pakistan. Local residents and politicians of a small town in central Punjab in Pakistan are resisting tooth and nail an attempt to siphon off their water resources to a bigger urban centre. The plan to install tubewells in the villages around Chiniot, …
Writ Petition number 202 of 1995; Godavarman v the Union of India and others. This is the ‘forest case’ being heard in Supreme Court for the past seven years. With more than 800 interlocutory applications (ias) filed, the case will dictate the fate of India’s forests and an estimated 10 …
When Karnataka chief minister (cm) S M Krishna was asked to disclose his "strategy' for resolving the raging Cauvery river dispute with Tamil Nadu (tn), he wrung his hands and said: "The only panacea is rainfall.' While Krishna lobbed the ball in "Nature's court', his tn counterpart
the underground fire has resurfaced as a raging row in Jharia, a small industrial town near Dhanbad in Jharkhand. What has stoked the controversy afresh is state chief minister (cm) Babulal Marandi's announcement that nearly 0.3 million people would be evacuated from the area. Local leaders, irrespective of their political …
