The IMF’s April 2025 Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa presents a clear warning: regional growth is slowing, debt pressures are mounting, and donor assistance is declining. Yet the report outlines critical opportunities particularly in domestic revenue mobilization, structural reform, and private sector activation that can shape a more resilient …
ROWS and rows of men and women are shown marching ahead to fight for their rights, the right to have a say in their future. These people are the centre point of Ali Kazimi's film Narmada: A valley rises (87 mins). He documents the sequence of events that led to …
SMILES lit up the battlescarred faces of the activists fighting the Sardar Sarovar project when the Supreme Court castigated the Review Committee Report (RCR) for being vague, "inconclusive and ambiguous". The committee, which had watered down its own role and independent status, had given no pointers to what the future …
THE COMMITTEE SUGGESTS: • Fresh calculation of the quantum of flow to avoid revision of plan priorities • Efforts to achieve a 60 per cent irrigation efficiency • Rationalisation of drainage pattern to check water-logging and salination • Increase of water allocation from Narmada or harnessing of local water resources …
The controversy over the reduction of dam height of the Sardar Sarovar project is back in the news with the Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh governments locking horns to scale political heights over it. The disagreement is likely to explode in the forthcoming meeting of the Sardar Sarovar Construction Advisory Committee, …
A RECENT environment impact assessment (EIA) report on the Narmada Sagar Project (NSP), one of the largest dams in the Narmada valley development project to be located in the Khandwa district of Madhya Pradesh, claims that it could wipe out many species of flora and fauna. According to the EIA …
THE Narmada Bachao Andolan's decision to approach the Supreme Court of India has now become the crux of its continuing agitation. The NBA filed a comprehensive petition on April 17 pleading that the construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam be halted. On their part, the respondents -- 4 state governments, …
How does the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) manage to insert expensive advertisements in publications like The New York Times, Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times? Does it receive foreign funds? These were among the questions raised by the Action Research in Community Health and Development (Arch) Vahini, at a …
The supporters of the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) have for long justified the large-scale displacement by the dam on grounds of its anticipated power and irrigation potential. However, a recent report of the Union ministry of water resources has indicated that the mega-dam scheme may face problems on that count …
A 7-MEMBER Narmada Bachao Andolan delegation led by Medha Patkar has urged Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao to expedite the proceedings of the Narmada Review Committee. The committee, set up by the Union water resources ministry, is to evaluate all modalities regarding the Sardar Sarovar Project. The delegation has …
ON NEW Year's Eve, 1991, newspersons covering the 2-week Sangharsh Yatra from Madhya Pradesh to Gujarat against the Sardar Sarovar project (SSP) witnessed an ominous phenomenon: an area under prohibitory orders changing its contours like an amoeba. The Gujarat police stopped the yatra at the interstate border in Ferkuva village, …
Pro-Narmada dam activists in Gujarat have succeeded in forcing a fact finding team appointed by Union ministry of environment and forest (MEF) to put off its visit to the dam site. The NBA felt that what would be just another project review was not required. The team was to find …
THERE was something questionable and baffling about the closure of the construction sluices on the Sardar Sarovar dam on February 23 this year. First, the suddenness of it: the Narmada Bachao Andolan says that 40 families were still present at Vadgam and were affected by the closure when the sluicedoors …
The battle to raise hopes and lower the heightTHIS is the kind of demagoguery that haunts the Sardar Sarovar Project. The late Gujarat Chief Minister, Chimanbhai Patel, had used the emotive words jeevan dori (lifeline) to cement the project on an emotional platform from which, with infinite political cunning, it …
Another tug-of-war has begun over the height of the Sardar Sarovar dam with Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh requesting the Gujarat government to lower it and Union water resources minister V C Shukla ruling out any reduction. Shukla's statement followed a plea by a delegation of Madhya Pradesh MPs, …
Will the death of Gujarat chief minister Chimanbhai Patel affect the controversial Sardar Sarovar Project? Opponents of the dam feel that without Patel, who expired on February 17 following a cardiac arrest, the state government will be unable to attract the Rs 9,000 crore required for the project. J John, …
JAPANESE environmentalists have objected to an Indian press report, which said Japanese non-governmental organisations had welcomed India's resettlement and rehabilitation (R&R;) package for oustees of the Sardar Sarovar Project. In fact, Yukio Tanaka, coordinator of the Narmada Action Committee of Japan, has denied this outright. The controversy erupted on February …
Union environment minister Kamal Nath will release 1,500 ha of forest land in Maharashtra's Dhule district for oustees of the Saradar Sarovar Project. This follows a directive issued by Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao after a meeting in January with the chief ministers of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya pradesh, …
THE NARMADA Control Authority (NCA) - a body controlling all aspects of the utilisation of Narmada waters - has restrained the Gujarat government from closing the sluice gates of the Sardar Sarovar dam until the three states involved in the project clearly state their rehabilitation and resettlement (R&R;) plans. The …
The recent death in police firing of 15-year-old Rahimat Punya Vasave, a tribal from Surung village in Dhule district in Maharashtra, created ripples of protest all the way to the Capital. Three other tribals were injured in the firing when villagers of Akrani taluk in Dhule district -- one of …
CITIZENS' groups have flayed the World Bank's (WB's) new information policy -- Expanding Access to Bank Information (EABI) -- for keeping information in and people out. In a desperate attempt to shore up its sinking image and secure a $18 billion capital replenishment, WB had recently cobbled together the information …
