South Asia Citizens Web

If caste panchayats still rule the roost in India’s villages, it is only because the State is unwilling to intervene.

India’s present investment boom, as it opens its markets and "resources" to foreign companies, has a shadow side too few are aware of. Essentially, the boom is at the expense of uprooting indigenous communities all over central India, and at the cost of permanent damage to India’s environment. The “mineral wealth” lying in the mountains of Orissa, Chattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand States – a non-renewable resource - is being opened up to an unprecedented scale of mining and metal manufacture by
Indian as well as foreign companies. Extracting vast quantities of iron-ore, bauxite, chromite, coal etc from these mountains not only affects the immediate and long-term well-being of India’s environment. It also leads to mass dispossession. Even more so the huge factories which process this ore into metal, and the huge dams being constructed. It is a little-known fact that supplying electricty and water to metal factories has always been one of the main reasons for big dams.

A valuable paper by Shaji Joseph from 2006

It is a nightmare I acquired on May 3, 1971, when, as a guest of the Pakistan army, I visited Jagannath Hall, Dhaka University. It had been cleaned up for our benefit, I learnt. What I saw has been indelibly imprinted on parts of my conscience, sub-conscience, and maybe also my unconscious.