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 …
IN THE battle to save the environment, the nature of laws that govern people's rights to natural resources are crucial, as is the poor person's knowledge of these laws. Certain organisations are working towards reforming existing anomalies in the law and helping people become more aware of their legal rights. …
TWICE-DISPOSSESSED Pong dam oustees have urged the Centre to sponsor tripartite talks between their representatives and the BJP governments of Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan to settle rehabilitation issues. At a Congress-organised rally recently, Union minister of state for planning Sukh Ram condemned the Rajasthan government's high-handed and unilateral amendment of …
GUJJARS are up in arms because they resent being thrown out of their homes by the proposed Rajaji National Park in Uttar Pradesh. In coastal Orissa, Chilika fisherfolk are protesting the allocation by the government of a slice of their environment to the House of Tata. What binds these disparate …
THE alleged rape in Brazil of an 18-year-old teacher by Paulinho Paiakan, chief of the Kayapo tribe, may be seen as symbolic of the rape of the Amazon rainforests using as a lure the theory that marketing forest produce is more economically beneficial and ecologically friendly than selling timber. Attracted …
NOTHING seems to move them, the planners of misery and destruction in the Narmada Valley. Not entreaties, not scientific arguments, not reason, not 23-day hunger fasts, not 40,000-strong demonstrations, not even the possibility of entire communities drowning in their refusal to move out of their ancestral lands when the reservoir …
THE MORSE committee has asked the World Bank to step back from the Sardar Sarovar project. Whether the bank complies or not, the committee has undoubtedly delivered a resounding indictment of all those involved in the project -- from the governments of Gujarat and India to the mighty World Bank. …
THE REPORT of the Independent Review (RIR) of the Sardar Sarovar was expected to look at Sardar Sarovar and other projects on the Narmada not only from the viewpoint of displacement and rehabilitation, but more holistically to see whether submergence itself could be reduced to manageable proportions. Instead, the committee …
I HAVE not seen the Morse report. So I cannot comment on its specifics. But I have some general observations to make on the Narmada project and other issues of this kind. I believe that rehabilitation and resettlement must precede the launching of a project and not follow it. Secondly, …
THE RIR had raised considerable expectations in western India. The report, however, came as a damp squib. The only substantive comment made by the report relates to basic hydrology, which states, "We found that there is good reason to believe that the project will not perform as planned." The reference …
JHARKHAND stretches from Bankura district in West Bengal to Surguja in Madhya Pradesh; and from Santhal Parganas of Bihar to Sambhalpur in Orissa. Approximately 1,87,646 sq km in area, it has a population of 30.5 million according to the 1981 census. Adivasis constitute 30 per cent of the population, while …
RAGHUNATHPUR is a large village of 350 households in the Chanho block of Ranchi district. It lies 55 km from Ranchi on the road to Lohardagga. Though Oraons comprise the majority of the population, this multi-religious village has many non-tribals as well. Being an Oraon village, it was governed by …
JHARKHAND today is closer to reality than it has ever been. This summer saw Jharkhand leaders sweat it out in Delhi while waiting for cabinet committee meetings to decide the issue. They don"t expect the Centre to grant statehood right away. A senior leader puts it this way, "We will …
THE latest Economic Survey (1991-92) presents a very interesting set of statistics. It shows that, out of all types of commercial undertakings of state departments, only those based on forests and mining have maintained a steady profit margin between 1985 and 1992, while all the others -- industrial firms, dairies, …
IN October 1991, when the Cabinet Committee for Economic Affairs (CCEA) approved a fresh budget for the Koel Karo hydro-electric project near Ranchi, it began a fresh chapter in the protests and agitations that have chequered the 20-year history of the project, the longest fight against any dam in the …
