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 …
An increase in population, unplanned expansion in the command area of the river Bhavani in Tamil Nadu and the growing domestic and industrial demand for water have intensified competition among water users in the river basin.
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 …
Conditions of water scarcity have been aggravated in Vadali village of Gujarat due to the persisting differences between higher castes, chiefly the ahirs, and those lower in the hierarchy such as the kolis and other dalit castes. Power relations are linked to social and economic hierarchy and the issue of …
The conflict over the use of the waters of the Panchna dam for the Keoladeo National Park, in which upstream farmers in the command area of the dam have staged protests, is about rapidly decreasing water supply amidst a growing number of users. There is a need to increase the …
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.
For more than ten years, residents of Saleli in Goa had complained to the government authorities against the menace of stone crushing units in their village. On December 28, 2005 their patience ran out: the enraged villagers attacked and killed Prithviraj Rane, who was on a visit to Saleli to …
Among the consequences of war, the impact on the mental health of the civilian population is one of the most significant. Studies of the general population show a definite increase in the incidence and prevalence of mental disorders. Women are more affected than men. Other vulnerable groups are children, the …
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 …
This paper examines two treaties between Bangladesh and India for sharing waters of the Ganges river and augmenting flow during lean season. Since the construction of the Farakka Barrage in India, Ganges water became the key source of conflict between the two nations. To address this conflict, over the last …
This paper examines two treaties between Bangladesh and India for sharing waters of the Ganges river and augmenting flow during lean season. Since the construction of the Farakka Barrage in India, Ganges water became the key source of conflict between the two nations. To address this conflict, over the last …
The almost two decade civil conflict in Sri Lanka has radically altered the economic and social conditions of the people in the north, with profound impacts on the environment, biological diversity and natural resources. Habitat destruction and the accompanying loss of wildlife are among the most common and far-reaching impacts …
Sri Lanka is identified as one of the biodiversity hotspots in Asia. Although many of the endemic species are found in the hill country, the low country dry zone is home to some of the most seriously threatened species of wildlife. Following the protracted armed conflict, it appears that defaunation …
This report offers the vision of a different future - a revolution in development thinking that could see poor regions using renewable energy to power a new and clean era of prosperity. The report analysis focuses on sub-Saharan Africa - which has the highest concentration of the world's poorest people. …
This richly documented book asks the major questions about the enormously important political and geo-strategic issue of water. Does water have a price? Is it a right or a need? Is there a water crisis? Will wars be fought over water? Should we be worried about water pollution? Can the …
Since the mid-1990s, Cameroon has launched a process of decentralization of the management of its forests. Among other innovations, this decentralization process has transferred powers over forests and financial benefits accruing from their exploitation to local communities. This article explores and profiles such local-level outcomes.
A presentation by Wayne Whitlock to the California Mining Association Annual Conference in May 2005 addressed the impacts of growing water quality and endangered species requirements on the already heavily regulated mining industry. These requirements add increasing complexity and conflicting demands to the permitting, operation and reclamation of the state's …
A long-standing dispute over losses faced by Malaysian fisherfolk due to land reclamation activities by Singapore near the international waterway dividing the two nations has ended. In a deal struck on April 26, 2005, Singapore agreed to pay us$98,410 to Malaysia as compensation for the fisherfolk; the compensation for each …
The people of Dobjhirna village, barely 5 kilometres (km) from the town of Semri in Madhya Pradesh's Hoshangabad district are furious. Not without reason. The land they have tilled for 15 years is to be taken away from them to relocate people from another village, Dhai, which lies in the …
paddy farmers in Kerala's Alappuzha district have locked horns with the state-run National Thermal Power Corporation (ntpc) over the sharing of Achanakovil River water. The farmers of Veeyapuram, Haripad and Pallippad panchayats in the district's upper Kuttanad area recently held protests complaining that a check-dam built on the river at …
