South Asia Citizens Web

The history of the struggle against the Narmada dam has been one of the great narratives of democracy in India. One can criticise the activists, lampoon Medha Patkar, agree with the World Bank and yet when all is said and done, one will salute it as one of the great acts of protest, non-violence and citizenship in modern India. I want to state this as clearly as possible because this regime, like the previous one, has created a wall of complete indifference and contempt for the struggle of the Narmada. What one is witnessing is an act of eviction — a mass-scale forced eviction — by a government that has failed to keep its promises of relief and rehabilitation. When one looks at the 88 sites for relief and rehabilitation, one hears that none are ready for settlement.

the articles citing the history of the Darjeeling Hills fail to mention that the "Gorkhas" are not the original inhabitants. If Bengalis, Marwaris and Biharis, those who have made Darjeeling their home in the last century and toiled to make it what it is today are outsiders, so are the Nepali speaking people. Darjeeling was thinly populated by Lepchas when the British "discovered " it. When they began planting tea the Lepcha population was too small to help so they settled Nepali speaking people from the relatively more populous Nepal.

The heir to the last Raja of Mahmudabad has spent decades fighting to claim his inheritance, despite being branded a national ‘enemy’

increasingly a level of tolerance is being accorded to the most toxic purveyors of Sinhala-Buddhist racism which bodes ill for the dream of a pluralist, tolerant and humane Sri Lanka

In March, five people were killed in police firing as Madhesi cadres disrupted the East-West election campaign of the UML. The mob that attacked the rally in Siraha was led by Dinesh Yadav, a defector from the UML and once protected by the party’s Suman Pyakurel. Many saw him as being almost his foster son.