For 37 days now Members of the Lepcha tribe of Sikkim, mostly youth, have been on an indefinite fast (satyagraha) demanding the immediate scrapping of atleast 6 of the seven hydro dams proposed for development in the region of Dzongu— the homeland of the Lepcha people. The Lepcha say these projects will “devastate the region from head to toe.”

As noted here, the government of Sikkim has in the past been negotiable; having been one of the first States in India to ban plastic bags, the Sikkim government …

June 30 - Today is the 25th day of the dharna (indefinite fast) which began on June 6th, in protest to the mass displacement caused by the Indira Sagar dam and Omkareshwar dam in India. Nine people are currently fasting, with about half of those displaced (5000 people) sitting with them.
Click here to sign a petition in solidarity.

From Friends of the Narmada - More than 10,000 people affected by the Indira Sagar and Omkareshwar dam continue in their struggle by shifting their dharna from Khandwa to the Capital …

“No mother wants to nurture her child in a slum. Families do not live in a slum out of choice; it is a matter of survival.”

from The Official Website: Yumana Gently Weeps is the story of one of the biggest and oldest slums in Delhi and in India, called Yamuna Pushta. A slum that gave shelter to 1,50,000 people and which nurtured more than 40,000 homes. A world within a world existed in Yamuna Pushta.

Schools, medical and healthcare centres, self-help groups, shops, restaurants, creches, small businesses and various social organizations, worked closely with the community, bringing about immense positive …

We are told by Classical Western mythology that a hero is a being of great strength and courage, celebrated for bold exploits, and who is the offspring of no less than a mortal and a god.

Coca-Cola doesn’t quite fit this profile, I know. But if we change a few words–courage to audacity and strength to compulsion– I think we’ll find Coca Cola standing tall and proud. A hero among Men.

From oneworld.net - The Coca-Cola company has been charged with illegally seizing lands communally owned by small farmers and …

From angryindian.blogspot.com - The Indian caste system was handed a shock as Indigenous political power became a reality yesterday. The new balance of power for representation of India’s Aboriginal and Untouchable classes has the promise of improved living conditions for some of India’s poorest people.

While this is a historic and positive development, even with this change in dynamics the economic divide will still need to be addressed or this newly gained political power will only only go so far. - The Angryindian (source)

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A PARTY of “untouchables” took power in India’s most populous state yesterday, the …

On Wednesday, hundreds of children between the ages of 5 and 12 demonstrated against a proposed steel plant, in Orissa, India.

from http://www.andhracafe.com After walking across five villages including Trilochanpur, Patana and Govindpur, the children congregated at Dhinkia village. They were protesting under the banner of POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS), the main organisation opposing the project in the district.

The children shouted slogans against POSCO, holding placards and distributing leaflets, the police official said. Some children also delivered speeches.

‘I am ready to give my life with my parents because we will lose everything if the plant starts,’ Sujit Das, 5, …

The following is yet another situation where corporations are illegally encroaching on the land of Indigenous People — however, in Jharkhand, India, it’s amidst raging subterranean coal fires.

From www.peacefulsocieties.org
Coal mining in India’s Jharkhand state threatens to destroy the forests that the Birhor, and other aboriginal groups, depend on. A detailed report in an Indian paper issued on February 23rd explains the background of the mining practices in this area and the ways they affect the tribal peoples.

Evidently the Jharia mining district in eastern Jharkhand has India’s richest deposits of coking coal, …

Jashn-e-Azadi: How We Celebrate Freedom
Director: Sanjay Kak
Review by Farah Aziz

There are traces of hell in the heaven. “Kashmir is not the story, it is a story”, rectifies Sanjay Kak, his own default statement–”Kashmir is the story of–pains of many bereaved relations.”

Kak, in his documentary ‘Jashn-e-Azadi’– ‘How We Celebrate Freedom’ is as explicit to speak of violence in Kashmir as the violence itself. Jashn-e-Azadi, is not only a rear glance of life with military, it is a smidgen more, in and out, interlacing the cowed survivals and the recurring pangs of death.

A desolate father looks for his son’s grave …

Here’s a story (from the BBC) about an attempted land reclamation in India. The Gumti hydel project displaced approximately 25,000 indigenous People, and now that the water levels from the dam have dropped severely, hundreds are attempting to reclaim the land - but the police are chasing the people away…

From the article: The state’s Communist-led coalition government says it will not to let anybody settle down on the lands emerging from the reservoir of the 10 MW Gumti hydroelectric (hydel) project.

But Tripura’s power minister Manik Dey admits production of electricity from the project …

This scene of environment, social and developmental carnage in Mamallapuram is in no way special or unusual. It is being re-enacted globally on a massive scale and is typical of the way in which so-called ‘tourism development’ is carried out. Local communities are rarely consulted and even more rarely have a say in whether or not development takes place. The results?

The price of tourism
By Pamela Nowicka - www.newint.org
April 02, 2007

Mamallapuram, Tamil Nadu, South India: Kumar takes a small plaster elephant from the rows displayed on the glass cabinet of his shop. He starts drawing lines on the floor with …