Order of National Green Tribunal (Central Zone Bench, Bhopal) in the matter of Kamlesh Roj Vs State of Rajasthan & Others dated 21/01/2025. The issue raised in the application are protection of historical Hingonia Dam from the encroachment from the local residence violating the environmental norms and damaging the area …
Narmada Maiya (Mother Narmada) is a curious mix of reportage, diary, report, and analysis on the much-debated Narmada Valley dam project. Originally written in Marathi in 1990, it has now been published in Hindi. The book attempts to cover a wide range of facts and figures on the Narmada project, …
AUTHORITIES at Dudhwa National Park are wallowing in smugness at the ease with which they evicted tribals who occupied forest land near the park. Boasts Lakhimpur-Kheri superintendent O P Singh, "Without even raising a baton, we deported the encroachers to Bichhia." Sixty-two tribals were arrested. Although the deportation exercise went …
The Union government has made yet another feeble attempt at a dialogue with opponents of the Rs 13,000-crore Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP). Union water resources minister V C Shukla was forced to heed the demands of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) for a comprehensive review of the project after its …
I heard in Baroda on June 2 that the authorities were planning to demolish Keshubhai's hut. That night, some of us sneaked past the police cordon around Manibeli and entered the hut. Around 11 am on June 3, some 100 police surrounded the hut to demolish it. But when we …
THE POPULAR fish, Palla, or Ilish as it is known in Bangladesh, is an endangered species, says a Panos Features report quoting Mirza Arshad Beg, former chairperson of the Pakistan Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. Beg says dams have restricted the fish's movement in the last few decades and, …
The Narmada Bachao Andolan, which wants a revaluation of the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP), says the review team should consist of pro-dam and anti-dam groups. The Prime Minister or the minister for water resources should lead the pro-dam group, which should include officials from the states concerned with the project …
January 30, 1989: Official Secrets Act imposed on 10 villages around the dam site; 18 protesting activists and 500 villagers arrested. February 22: Medha Patkar and 8,000 others arrested near dam site. May 18, 1990: Armed police beat up people in 17 Madhya Pradesh villages that would be the first …
THE NILE delta lies trapped between a dammed Nile and a rapacious sea that is constantly threatening to swallow it up. The death of the delta, which constitutes two-thirds of Egypt's habitable land, will be catastrophic because with 1.33 million births every year, Egypt's dependence on the river and its …
AFTER struggling for eight long years against the massive Narmada dam, the people of the valley are still caught between the devil and the deep blue sea -- in this case, the threat of submergence on one hand, and a repressive government machinery on the other. The doughty anti-Narmada crusader, …
Undeterred by a police crackdown and the threat of submergence, protestors in Manibeli have refused to leave. Last year, the rising Narmada waters had come close to submerging the village. This time, Manibeli will be the first village in Maharashtra to be submerged by the monsoons now that the height …
AS THE sun rose slowly over a picturesque Andean valley in south Ecuador last month, fear-stricken people sheltered on high ground watched helplessly while a deluge of storm water swept through the valley, washing their homes and crops away. "It's a lifetime's work, senor, the bread for our mouths every …
In a significant ruling in April this year, the Gujarat High Court clarified its stay on the eviction of inhabitants in the Sardar Sarovar project catchment area also prohibits removal of villagers on account of floods during the coming monsoons. In a recent hearing of a public interest petition filed …
The Kerala government decided constructing the Ambalur-Keecheri dam in Ernakulam district would remedy the decline in paddy production. Instead, the dam has accelerated damage to the crop. The dam was intended to prevent inflow of saline water from Vembanad lake, which was supposedly lowering crop yields. But agricultural experts now …
TWENTY years ago, the people of the remote Garhwal village of Mandal decided to resist commercial felling of the trees on which they depended for their basic needs. Their resistance soon spread to other parts of Garhwal and Kumaon, where local pressures on the area's limited grazing resources had reduced …
NALINI Singh has made a highly successful career as a television crusader by walking on the thin edge of the permissible. No wonder Doordarshan gives her space -- she lends them credibility. Singh exposes social ills without criticising the government and covers government programmes with enough implicit criticism to make …
Many international organisations have expressed concern for the people to be displaced by the Sardar Sarovar dam project on the Narmada in Gujarat, but the fate of those already ousted by other dams on the river goes unnoticed. Recently, one of them, 65-year-old Sunderbai, died of starvation a few months …
"WE ARE happy without government help for our agriculture. Our lands now yield thrice what they used to four years ago," says 36-year-old Jagdish Gujjar of Guwara Dewari, a village of 60 households in the green belt of the Sariska reserved forest in Rajasthan's semi-arid Alwar district. Agriculture in the …
THE TEHRI dam project (TDP) is back in news. Even as engineering experts and scientists reiterated building such a high dam in a seismically sensitive region is hazardous, an offer from a consortium of Russian and Uzbek companies to finance the project brought joy to its proponents. A two-day workshop …
THE WORLD Bank has approved a $70 million loan to finance the 450-MW hydroelectric dam on Chile's biggest river, the Bio Bio. The loan was sanctioned by the bank's International Finance Corp (IFC), which lends to the private sector, even before the Pangue dam's environmental impact assessment by the bank …
1992 has been a watershed year. Trends that were visible over the last few years came to a head, both globally and locally. At the global level, the events that preceded the Rio summit and took place at the meet were fascinating proofs that micro movements at the community, state, …
