India Is Colonising Itself
Arundhati Roy & Shoma Chaudhuri
26 March, 2007, www.tehelka.com

Arundhati Roy in conversation with Shoma Chaudhury on the violence rending our heartland

There is an atmosphere of growing violence across the country. How do you read the signs? Do you think it will grow more in the days to come? What are its causes? In what context should all this be read?

You don’t have to be a genius to read the signs. We have a growing middle class, being reared on a diet of radical consumerism and aggressive greed. Unlike industrializing western countries which had colonies from which to …

The following is some recent news, background, and a video about the 1984 Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal, India which killed over 20,000 people and left over 100,000 severely disabled.

Background: (from www.studentsforbhopal.org)
On December 3rd, 1984, thousands of people in Bhopal, India, were gassed to death after a catastrophic chemical leak at a Union Carbide pesticide plant. More than 150,000 people (1) were left severely disabled - of whom 22,000 (2) have since died of their injuries - in a disaster now widely acknowledged as the world’s worst-ever industrial disaster.

More …

Gummidipoondi residents stop illegal construction of toxic waste landfill
www.sipcotcuddalore.com
March 21, 2007

Gummidipoondi, 21 March 2007 – More than 500 residents, primarily women, from S.R. Kandigai panchayat in Gummidipoondi physically entered and stopped work at the project site of Tamil Nadu Waste Management Ltd (TNWML)’s hazardous waste landfill and incinerator. The construction was being carried out without permission from the local Government bodies and against the wishes of local residents. Representatives of Community Environmental Monitoring (CEM) and Chennai based youth group Youth for Social Change (YSC) also joined the residents in solidarity.

Speaking on behalf of the village, Mr. T. Rosepillai, Panchayat …

Wangari Mathaai: A Global Voice Of Fortitude
By Farah Aziz, Countercurrents.org
24 March, 2007

It had been a hectic day for her, her first day in India, but Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to win the Nobel peace prize, will not undermine any of her priorities. Invited to India by Rajiv Gandhi foundation and Indian council for cultural relations to deliver lectures on linkages between environment, governance and peace, Wangari has little more to say. At Navdanya, she opens up a bit more.

Beginning with biodiversity and the coexistence of natural varieties of seeds, she soon progresses into a wider arena of …

Land Acquisition In Bastar At A Critical Stage
By Debaranjan Sarangi, Countercurrents.org
March 15, 2007

The situation in Bastar is at a critical stage, with clashes on 27-28 Feb trying to force land acquisition for Tata’s steel plant. The “manufactured civil war” pursued by Salwa Judum continues with at least 80,000 tribal refugees in what are virtually concentration camps.

The steel plant is planned on 2,000+ hectares of tribal land belonging to 10 villages in Lohandiguda block, near the amazing Chitrakot waterfall on Indravati river. The agreement for the plant was signed between the Chhattisgarh Govt & Tata in June 2005 - precisely …

Development Through Industrialization? Or Environmental Colonialism Leading To Catastrophe? By Aseem Shrivastava, Countercurrents.org
10 March, 2007

“You can’t save land and water unless you can save agriculture and forests.”
- Prafullah Samantara, an activist from Orissa, speaking at the National Convention on Corporate Land-Grab at the Indian Social Institute, New Delhi, February 8, 2007

“If the company comes up we will lose thousands and thousands of acres of cultivable land and be reduced to beggars. That’s the reason why we won’t allow our land to be destroyed.”
- Shankar Prasad Muduli, a local farmer from Kashipur, Orissa, testifying before the Indian People’s …

INDIA: Officials questioned by UN on Jarawa
By Survival International
March 1, 2007

Indian officials were questioned by the UN on Monday about India’s protection of the Jarawa tribe of the Andaman Islands.

The Indian delegation was questioned at the annual session of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The Rapporteur to the Committee, Patrick Thornberry, asked the delegation to explain what measures had been implemented to protect the Jarawa.

Survival had submitted a report to the UN prior to the meeting, warning that the Jarawa tribe could be ‘wiped out’ unless the Indian government acts to protect …

Survival At Stake
by George Rich, Innu Nation
published on www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com

The Jarawa tribe of the Andaman Islands has long captured imaginations around the world, especially among other tribal peoples like my people, the Innu of north-eastern Canada. Since the final years of the twentieth century, when they stopped resisting with lethal arrows any contact with outsiders, the world has watched the Jarawa with fascination.

We don’t know why they stopped shooting at the settlers and poachers encroaching on their land. Perhaps they felt overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of settlers from the Indian mainland now living on their islands. But for …

From Corporate Land Grab To Land Sovereignty (Bhu Swaraj) By Vandana Shiva, Zmag

“There is a sacred tie between the tiller and the land. Any attempt to snap the relationship is bound to face opposition”.

P. Chidambaram Finance Minsiter

India’s Finance Minister Mr. Chidambaram is not a friend of farmers or a friend of the earth. He is committed to the neoliberal ideology. Yet even he has had to speak out against the corporate land grab of India’s small farms through the creation of Special Economic Zones (SEZ’s) and FDI in real estate. Every place where land is being acquired to create …

From Survival International, 25 Jan 2007 - The authorities on the Andaman Islands have begun a training programme for local police and welfare staff charged with protecting the Jarawa tribe.

The 300 Jarawa resisted contact with outsiders until 1998. Now, they are in serious danger from contact with poachers and other outsiders invading their land, hunting the animals they depend on and bringing disease, violence and exploitation. Police and welfare staff have often been complicit in the abuse of the tribe.

The government’s Jarawa policy, announced in 2004, promised, ‘The personnel working for Jarawas would be provided with proper training and sensitization.’

The …