Hydroelectric Dams Pose Threat to Tribal Peoples, Report Warns

Dams in Brazil, Ethiopia and Malaysia will force people off land and destroy hunting grounds, says Survival International

By John Vidal

Construction begins on the Gibe III hydroelectric dam in southern Ethiopia. Photograph: Xan Rice for the Guardian

Giant hydroelectric dams being built or planned in remote areas of Brazil, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Peru, Guyana and India will devastate tribal communities by forcing people off their land or destroying hunting and fishing grounds, according to a report by Survival International today.

The first global assessment of the impact of the dams on tribes suggests more than 300,000 indigenous people could be pushed towards economic ruin and, in the case of some isolated Brazilian groups, to extinction.

The dams are intended to provide much-needed,low-carbon electricity for burgeoning cities, but the report says tribal people living in their vicinity will gain little or nothing. Most of the power generated will be taken by large industries, it concludes.

At least 200,000 people from eight tribes are threatened and a further 200,000 people will be adversely affected by the Gibe III dam on the Omo river in Ethiopia. Ten thousand people in Sarawak, Malaysia, have been displaced by the Bakun dam,which is expected to open next year, and a series of Latin American dams could force many thousands of people off their land.

The authors say enthusiasm for large dams is resurfacing, driven by a powerful international lobby presenting them as a significant solution to climate change. Lyndsay Duffield, said: "The lessons learned [about the human impact of large dams]last century are being ignored, and tribal peoples worldwide are again being sidelined, their rights violated and their lands destroyed."

The report says the World Bank is one of the biggest funders of destructive dams, despite worldwide criticism in the 1990s for supporting such projects. Its portfolio now stands at $11bn, with funding up more than 50% on 1997.

The UN now subsidises dam building via the clean development mechanism (CDM), which allows rich countries to offset their greenhouse gas emissions by investing in clean energy in poor countries. The watchdog group CDM Watch says more than a third of all CDM-registered projects in 2008 were for hydropower, making them the most common type of project vying for carbon credits.

Concern is growing over the role of China, now the world's largest builder and funder of big dams. The Three Gorges Corporation, firm behind the controversial Three Gorges dam, which has displaced more than a million people from around the Yangtze river in the last 20 years, has been contracted to build a dam on the land of the Penan tribe in Sarawak. China's biggest state bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, may fund Gibe III in Ethiopia, to be Africa's tallest. The Chinese government has financed the majority of dams built in China, which account for about half the global total of large dams.

The report says tribes have borne the brunt of the development over the last 30 years. In India, at least 40% of people displaced by dams and other developmentprojects are tribal, though they make up just 8% of the country's population. Almost all of the large dams built or proposed in the Philippines have been on the land of the country's indigenous people.

The report accuses banks and dam builders of consistently underestimating the number of tribal people affected. "There is an endemic tendency within the dam industry to significantly underestimate the number of people to be affected by their projects," it says.

"The World Bank's review of big dam projects over 10 years found that the number of people actually evicted was nearly 50% higher than the planning estimates."

Survival International called for all hydroelectric dams on tribal peoples' land to be halted unless the tribes have given full consent. "In the case of isolated or uncontacted tribes, where consultation is not possible, there should be no development of hydroelectric dams on their territories," it said.

Danger dams

Ethiopia The Gibe III dam on the Omo river in Ethiopia threatens about 200,000 people from eight tribes in the Lower Omo valley. The dam will disrupt the annual flood the tribes rely on, destroying their livelihoods and leaving them vulnerable to famine. On the other side of the border in Kenya, 300,000 people who live on the banks of Lake Turkana will also be affected.

Brazil A series of dams is planned for the river Madeira. The Jirau and Santo Antonio dams will affect many tribes, including uncontacted groups known to live a few miles from one site. The Belo Monte mega-dam on the Xingu river would be the third largest in the world, and would devastate a huge area. Kayapó Indians and other tribes of the area have been protesting against the dam since it was proposed in the 1980s.

Malaysia The Bakun dam in Sarawak, due to be completed this year, has displaced 10,000 tribal people, including many semi-nomadic Penan tribespeople. The relocated Penan now cannot hunt, and struggle to support themselves on tiny plots of land. Sarawak plans 12 more hydroelectric dams, which will force thousands more people to move.

Peru Six dams have been proposed which would flood land along the river Ene, home of the Asháninka, the largest indigenous group in Peru.

Guyana More large dams are planned for the north of Brazil and southern Guyana, including the controversial Upper Mazaruni dam which was stopped after protests but is likely to be revived.

India Large dams are planned in Northeast India including Tipaimukh dam to meet the growing energy needs of developing India.

Via The Guardian UK

Cry, My Beloved Region

By Prasenjit Biswas

When one takes a hard look at how the nation-state of India manages its ethnic and cultural diversity and the attendant issues of social justice, one encounters the claims of being a nation in India’s Northeast as a challenge to the very idea of a national identity called “Indian”.

The claim of the Mizo, Naga, Assamese and many other smaller ethno-cultural groups as a “nation” creates a difference of meaning between what is meant by “Indian nation” and what is meant by “nation” in India’s Northeast.

The nationalist notion of Indian national identity cannot resolve this difference, which is further intensified on occasions like Independence Day or Republic Day, because on such days back in 1947 and 1950 respectively, many national identities and communities of the Northeast did not self-consciously become a part of the Indian nation.

Much of this history needs to be recounted to understand the contemporary crisis of identity in the Northeast. On 14-15 August 1947, meetings of important Mizo political leaders, chiefs and the public were held to decide whether to join India or not, only to later realize that the Mizo hills were already included within the territory of Assam.

Treaties of accession signed between 16 Khasi states and the government of India made it part of the Indian union. The status of Manipur was an independent princely state on the first Independence Day and it had to wait till its process of merger was completed by a treaty of accession signed with India on 15 October 1949.

As far as the Naga hills were concerned, the Naga National Council declared “independence” on 14 August 1947. Later, a nine-point agreement between the NNC and the governor of Assam established a set of rules of how the Nagas “will be free to decide their own future”.

On the flip side of Independence, the partition of Sylhet from India by a referendum resulted in a massive displacement and, arbitrarily, Sylhet was divided.

This entire process of constituting India in the Northeast remains at the back of any claim of nationhood that poses itself over and against a unitary notion of Indian national identity.

As long as the multiplicity of narratives and counter-narratives of how one became part of the post-colonial nation-state remains alive, a play between place, identity and history really decides the shape of polity and economy in the Northeast.

The specific nature of the claim to being a nation and its embedded sense of independence assumes the form of linguistic, cultural, territorial and economic claims of belonging articulated in an impressionist manner.

A lot of arguments and counter-arguments on the veracity and validity of the claim of being a nation resonate in all these modes and methods of articulation. There is a cacophony of such voices in the region.

Many of the ethnically specific insurgent outfits articulate these opinions in terms of political and cultural aspirations that assume a degree of legitimacy and engage in a struggle for formal recognition by the Indian state.

The idea of independence then took the shape of a claim of representation, autonomy and what is popularly expressed as the “right to self-determination”. Although a strict constitutional connotation of the term is yet to be determined, it still assumes a variety of meanings, starting from local self-government to institutional autonomy to secession.

The plurality of legal, political and cultural interpretations given to the most contested notion of “self-determination” in the Northeast acquires great currency in the background of ethnic claims and joining the Indian union as a group, community or nation.

Inclusions within the nation space of India and the exclusion from certain dominant social and political categories result in a radical discourse of alternatives, much of which are presented in the interpretative contest over the term “self-determination”.

In effect, two distinct prongs of political articulation emerge; one, a sense of belonging, and, two, a sense of seeking institutional authority and power. Both these prongs get mediated by various strategies of governance by the state that often treats people’s rights as subsidiary to the operation of the state.

This sub-sumption of politically articulated concerns of a number of ethnic and cultural identities within a framework of governance produces a whole range of contestations of the state by all of the Northeast’s civil society.

Strategies of development, such as big river dams, denudation of forest cover to build roads and other structures, are legitimized by the end that they are supposed to fulfill. As such, the “ends” are never achieved as they are described on paper and the “means” adopted for their achievement come under public scrutiny.

The projected generation of 70,000 MW in Arunachal Pradesh alone by 2020, by displacing a huge tract of tribal habitat, is critiqued for its corporate orientation and dependence on corporate funding.

Civil society groups pointed out that such massive power projects were not based on informed priori consent of the people. As such, projects would completely alter the life of a river and, hence, disparage climatic stability and affect rainfall, soil quality, underground water and the overall fragile ecology of the region.

As the livelihood of tribes, communities and others living in the Northeast solely depends on cultivation, animal rearing and forest and mineral resources, any attempt at industrialization driven by forces of the capital and the state is bound to frustrate and anger a huge section of indigenous and other people rooted in the region.

Sociologically speaking, models of development in the form of big projects imposed from above would give a fillip to claims of identity and would create a chasm between the state and the nation through renewed articulations from below, carried out by conscious sections of ethnic and cultural groups of the region.

Further, the thrust on industrial development at the cost of future ecological sustenance would convert the region into a free labor market, threatening its cultural demography and natural resources.

The recent concept of having a new time zone for the Northeast to save labor time clearly symbolizes such an imminent industrialization and the mindset for it. Changing the very concept of time in the Northeast does not bring any liberation from the puzzle of losing one’s culture and habitat in the name of development.

The sensitive context of the region requires a reinterpretation of the Constitution to give people a new meaning of Independence, which they would like to enjoy like others elsewhere in the country.

The continuation of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act and the regime of impunity that it provides percolates at every level of civil and judicial administration.

This has hurt the people. Insurgent groups seeking a peaceful resolution to conflicts have not only suffered but they also are trying to a write a new history for the region. But it will not be possible to change this “history” unless the meaning of independence is redrawn by taking into account the cry of the people.

**The writer is associate professor, Department of Philosophy, North Eastern Hill University, Shillong

The Need to Harness Power Before The Glory

By JB Lama

According to the North Eastern Electric Power Corporation, the North-east can generate about 58,971 MW — 40 per cent of India’s hydro potential – of which barely two per cent has been harnessed. The region also has abundant coal reserves — estimated at 945.03 million tons for thermal power (compared to the country’s 186 billion tons) capable of generating 30,000 MW for 50 years — and natural gas (151.68 billion cu.m) that can produce 3,000 MW for 30 years.

Neepco regrets that despite this vast potential the region ranks lowest in the country in terms of per capita energy consumption (in the 1990s it was estimated at around 75 kwh against the national average of about 235 kwh).

Among the reasons it cites are inhospitable climatic conditions and remote and inaccessible geographical locations. To this must be added the ubiquitous presence of numerous ethnic rebel outfits demanding “taxes”.

The corporation, however, predicts that once infrastructure improves the region will become the powerhouse of India by using its surplus potential, especially in hydel. The big question is when and who will oversee this?

A 1992 North-east Congress Coordination Committee report says the Neepco was constituted in April 1976 on the basis of a resolution passed by the North Eastern Council with the avowed objectives of planning, promoting and organizing an integrated and efficient electric power development in the region, in every aspect, including transmission, distribution and sale of power. It noted that the Neepco was “unhappy with the Centre for its alleged indifference to the problems it had been facing at various levels, unhappy over the lack of local cooperation and also unhappy with itself for not being able to manage affairs efficiently and economically”.

What must have upset the Neepco’s calculation most was the Centre’s decision to separate transmission and generation and the order that it fall in line. The report further adds that by separating transmission from generation the very objective of a regional level corporation for power development was negated.

Be that as it may, the Neepco has acquitted itself creditably well by executing, among others, the 275-MW Kopili (North Cachar Hills) hydel project, the 291-MW Assam gas-based power project, the 84-MW Agartala gas turbine project, the 75-MW Doyang (Nagaland) hydel unit and the 405-MW Ranganadi hydro project (Arunachal Pradesh).

The Arunachalese can look forward to brighter days. The state government is gearing up to harness its capacity of 50,000 MW. Little wonder then that it has signed a number of memorandums of understanding with private power agencies for mega projects, even ignoring stiff resistance from locals and environmentalists. By 2020, it hopes to generate 25,000 MW at a whooping investment of Rs 200,000 crore.

Other states are not so lucky. Meghalaya, once surplus and which supplied power to other states, now suffers from regular load-shedding when the water level at Umiam lake falls. Meghalaya’s principal secretary (power) was quoted last week as saying that by 2014 the state will have 800 MW when two projects under construction are completed. Today it has a deficit of 215 MW.

In Manipur, the commissioning in 1984 of the prestigious 105-MW multipurpose Centrally-sponsored Loktak Hydel Project has failed to even meet the state’s meagre need of 25 MW. Manipur consumers are the worst sufferers. Greater parts of Imphal town remain without power for hours together. Engineers do not admit there being any shortage, instead saying there are only power cuts for which their predecessors are to blame for using substandard transformers and equipment or lack of rain in the Loktak Lake area.

The Manipur government is going ahead with the Rs  8,138-crore Tipaimukh multipurpose hydro project. It will be executed by the state-owned National Hydro Electric Project and Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam. The Loktak project took more than 15 years to commission, so it is anybody’s guess when Tipaimukh will be completed, though officials are confident the job will be done in 84 months.

Nagaland is perennially short of power and it, perforce, has to depend on neighboring states.
Addressing a conference on “Empowering North East”, sponsored by the Meghalaya government and the Indian Chambers of Commerce and held in Shillong at the end of last month, Neepco chaiman and managing director IP Barua stressed the need for a unifom hydel policy to develop power in a coordinated manner in partnership with neighboring countries.

A sensible suggestion that deserves attention because, if today the vast potential of tourism in the North-east has remained unexploited it is because there is no uniform policy on tourism. Similarly, in the absence of any uniform policy on insurgency the Centre is talking to only one Naga group, ignoring others who are equally potent.

It needs to be noted that while in all other states the Centre has signed ceasefire accords with rebel outfits, it is chary of such a deal with Meitei insurgents.

Assam has done well by opening power generation, both conventional and unconventional, to the private sector in 2006 with the focus on thermal power. All that the Assam State Electricity Board generates is 100 MW, against the peak hour demand of 800 MW. It hopes to become self-sufficient in the next six years. Once the 500-MW Bongoigaon thermal power project — the foundation of which the Prime Minister laid in 2005 — is completed, Assam will be in a comfortable position.

Here one must express a modest hope that once the Northeast states become self-sufficient in power, they will then concentrate on rural electrification.

Time for Media Soul-Searching

By Patricia Mukhim

Journalists churn out millions of words in their lifetime. Whether they write what they do out of love for the profession or simply because the job demands it of them is a matter of personal soul-searching.

But having been in this profession (now unfortunately termed a racket after the “paid news” blitzkrieg) you begin to wonder at times why you write what you write. To be fair to journalists, there are any number of people with axes to grind who would love to fire the gun from their fragile shoulders.

While seasoned scribes can smell “planted news” a mile away, the rookie often gets caught. Believing that he has a “scoop” he rushes to the newsroom to key in his story of the day. He tells the desk he has tried to call the other party but “they could not be contacted”. (That’s the standard excuse when you’re chasing deadlines.)

The editor passes it after asking a few elementary questions such as whether he has cross-checked his facts. Mr Scribe says he’s done it all. The desk spices up the story and out it comes in the next day’s paper. Glee is followed by a stentorian call from the management. A legal notice has arrived at the newspaper office demanding a defamation suit of Rs 1 crore and all that legal crap.

The scribe is summoned and asked to give his side of the story and the rigmarole follows. All newspapers have their standing legal counsels to ferret out the loopholes in the litigant’s plaint. More often than not, some compromise is made. The newspaper publishes an apology (which for editors is like eating crow).

The rookie has learnt the lesson of his life. Henceforth he is wary of even authentic news and smells a rat where there is none. What usually happens is that reporters learn to tread the straight and narrow and as a result they dare not venture into investigative journalism unless pressured to do so.

Most reporters spend more time at the press club filching stories from colleagues and depend on press releases to show their output for the day.

Journalism has come a long way since those bad old days when powerful people kept a reasonable distance because they feared journalists and their poison pens. Today, things have come full circle.

There is a happy bonhomie between journalists, politicians and the business lobby. Some of our current crop of politicians, particularly the top few in the UPA government, have their hand-picked journalists to get their own points of view across; not critical views that the public need to know but views that are comfortable for the minister, so he can cut both ways.

He can take a dig at fellow politicians and also convey to the government through the media what he cannot do at a cabinet meeting or a political party meeting. In fact, we journalists have provided cosy platforms where politicians speak to each other through our channels.

Journalism seems to be going down the way of all other institutions in this country. Paid news, which became the defining trajectory for a section of the media during the last Lok Sabha election, has become the content of many a debate. P Sainath, in a caustic article in The Hindu (5 August 2010) titled “The empire strikes back — and how”, has castigated the Press Council of India for evidently suppressing the contents of its own report on the paid news outrage – a report that apparently names and shames the movers and shakers of this new media business. Sainath says this was one opportunity for the media to cleanse their Augean stables and set right the code of misconduct they had adopted as a stratagem to get rich quick. But apparently, we have missed the bus!  

A panel discussion to commemorate the death anniversary of Ramnath Goenka, which was aired by a channel, discussed “paid news” with extra flourish and a sadistic  sense of fulfilment that it was payback time for journalists.

After all, opportunities to critique the Fourth Estate are so rare! Several parliamentarians in the audience, among them Sachin Pilot, Kumari Selja, Naveen Jindal, Arun Jaitley, et al, were asked if they were approached by journalists during the last parliamentary elections.

They said they were. Not only were they asked to pay a certain sum so that their campaign trial was covered minute by minute, the poker-faced journalists also stated upfront that if they did not comply they would receive negative reportage. That statement from politicians whom we as journalists have learnt to crucify for every wrong move was akin to being nailed on the cross. It was a mortifying moment to know the depths to which we have sunk.

But mere breast-beating is not going to help. There is need to evolve new ideas to deal with the challenging and gargantuan demon of ruthless globalisation which has co-opted all of us into its hideous groove.

Life is getting tougher by the day. Mediapersons have aspirations, more so because they themselves promote those aspirations, but their incomes are not exactly enviable. In the small towns and mohallas, journalists live from hand to mouth.

The management cocks a snook at the various wage board recommendations. Frustration is writ large on the faces of most scribes and often times they drink themselves silly and even to death.

In the North-east of this country, some crafty politicians have emulated the southern political gladiators, namely Jayalalitha and Karunanidhi, to set up their own television channels spinning out 24x7 news. Such channels usually follow their bosses wherever they travel. Recently, Himanta Biswa Sarma, Assam’s health minister, travelled to Mumbai where chief minister Tarun Gogoi was to undergo by-pass surgery.

All the information that was to be conveyed to Congress acolytes and Gogoi’s constituents back home, including those who were performing a puja for his quick recovery, was conveyed through the channel and through Biswa Sarma, whose wife ostensibly owns this multicrore-rupee channel.

Instead of paying journalists to cover their dusty election tracks and also attracting a penalty in case they refuse to pay, most politicians today feel it’s better to set up their own news channels.

This puts the whole notion of a free press on its head. Can a press owned by a politician claim journalistic freedom?

Yet there is no gainsaying that this trend is fast picking up and becoming the norm. So is the media entering a new, irreversible era in India?

It is bad enough that media barons are today global capitalists and from all discernable trends it appears that this is the only way to survive. Even the more conservative media leaders seem to have joined the rat race.

The slogan is, “If you cannot beat them, join them.” So people like Sainath might be lonesome, forlorn wanderers and prophets in a media world that is fast gravitating towards the razzmatazz and the razzle-dazzle of the new media.

How else do you explain a news channel lapping up Bollywood gossip after 11 pm and selling it to us viewers? And then they have the gumption to cite TRP ratings for doing what they do!

I feel a sense of déjà vu for what was once a fiercely independent media of which I was happy and proud to belong to. That’s now in the past tense. How do we salvage what’s lost? Is it still possible?

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, speaking at the 65th anniversary of The Shillong Times in Shillong, had accused media practitioners of being not just pet dogs but of having graduated to being lap dogs of politicians.

That was not taken too kindly but I guess we are all getting there! Who will save us from ourselves?  

**The writer is editor, The Shillong Times, and can be contacted at patricia17@rediffmail.com

My First Time: Madison Riley

She’s gone from playing a girl with really bad manners on Nickelodeon’s Zoey 101 to the sexiest reason to check out this month’s comedian-loaded laughfest Grown Ups. Now listen up as the 20-year-old Salt Lake City cutie shares some fun firsts.

Madison Riley

First Water Bra
I lived in Houston for the first four years of my life, and my first memories were of a friend who lived two doors down from me. We would fill up water balloons and stuff them down our bathing suits, like they were our boobs.

First Facebook Stalker
I got this creepy message from a guy who said, “You were so great in this movie, and we met at the wrap party.” I was like, I got cut from that movie, and I didn’t go to the wrap party, weirdo.

First Enemy
She was this girl who used to flip me off in junior high school! I remember she would mouth “Fuck you” to me in the hallways. I was just confused the whole time. Now I’m a lot feistier. I’d punch her in the face and knee her in the crotch.

First Injury
It was probably my broken ankle. My future brother-in-law and I were jumping on the tramp—that’s what we call a trampoline—and he jumped on my ankle. The tramp was pretty sweet, though. Those were good times. I miss the tramp...

First Visit to Night Court
It was actually just last week! If you need some amusement, go to night court. There was a woman ahead of me bargaining with the judge on jail time instead of paying her traffic ticket. She was dead serious. I have to go back in a month for my speeding ticket. I’m looking forward to it!

Click here for sex videos and live cams.

Jennifer Aniston In Harper's

Jennifer Aniston as Barbra Streisand

Jennifer Aniston proves that she's just like the ultimate "funny girl" in the September issue of Harper's Bazaar.

"The Bounty Hunter" star dons some of Barbra Streisand's signature looks for the mag that hits stands on Aug. 17.

Jen Channels Barbra for Harper's Bazaar

Subscribers to Harper's will have this cover on their September issue.

Jen tells the mag what she’s learned from Barbra Streisand:

You don’t have to stop at one thing. You can do it all if you want to.

This is the cover that will appear on newsstands on Aug. 17.

The comedic actress talks about being funny:

People laugh at me. Sometimes I know why, and sometimes I don’t. But I can pretty much find humor in anything. That is a necessary part of life. I don’t want to say laughter is healing, because it sounds corny, but it’s a release.

On looking up to Streisand:

Barbra inspires me because there isn’t anything she hasn’t done that she wanted to do, especially as a female in the time when her generation was prime. She’s a true renaissance woman. I had a long conversation with Barbra about directing because I directed a short a couple years ago, and if I don’t do it again soon, I’m going to burst out of my skin. And we also love interior design.

On being in the spotlight:

“[Barbra and I] are people who have been put in the spotlight, for better or for worse, and you just keep riding and you keep overcoming.”

Jen Sizzles in Harper's

Jennifer Aniston opens up to Harper’s Bazaar in this month’s May UK edition, discussing botox, girl-power and her self-confessed re-birth.

The 41 year-old golden girl reveals a more mysterious side... and some steamy new photos!

“The last five years have been about spring cleaning for me," says Jen. "Now it’s time for my rebirth. I love trying new things. I can’t just be put in a box.”

Click through for more Aniston.

Full feature appears in the May issue of Harper’s Bazaar UK, on sale Thursday, April 1.

(Photos by Alexi Lubomirski, pictures courtesy of Harper’s Bazaar)

Jen on the power of women:

“I grew up admiring strong women like journalist Barbara Walters and super-agent Sue Mengers, who represented Ali McGraw. But now look where we’ve got to as women. We’ve had a woman run for President. There is nothing like our power.”

On Botox: 
“I could do it, and I mean these lines are getting deeper every day, but when I tell you what’s happened to me – these lines are just about living. Look, I eat really well and I work out, but I also indulge when I want to. I don’t starve myself in an extremist way. You’re not taking away my coffee or my dairy or my glass of wine because I’d be devastated. My advice: just stop eating sh** every day.”

On the launch of her new fragrance, Lolavie:
“I’d been asked to put my name to many [fragrances], but I wanted to be involved in the process, from the initial idea of the scent to the ad campaign with Mario Sorrenti.”

On her fans being upset by her racy roles:
“With "Derailed" [a dark action thriller opposite Clive Owen], I loved being racy. Love it…But people couldn’t cope with me being involved in rape and murder.”

On her love of British comedy:
“I so love the British sense of humor – I was obsessed with Benny Hill and Monty Python as a child. Oh my god, and I am so hooked on Ricky Gervais.”

On her fellow Hollywood leading ladies: 

“I love what Drew Barrymore is doing with directing. It’s so much about a rebirth for her, and I love it when people are living in the now, like her. I hate it when people look back and regret what they haven’t got. That’s how I feel about my own life now. And my God, let’s talk about how much I love Demi Moore as well. What kind of Kool-Aid is she drinking?”

Trouble Brews in Assam Over illegal Immigrants

By Biswajyoti Das

Guwahati, Aug 11 : Thousands of students on Tuesday marched through the streets of Assam demanding resumption of work on the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

The NRC is aimed at identifying millions of illegal settlers from neighboring countries, with locals fearing they would soon be outnumbered in their homeland by immigrants.

Many say the immigrants, mostly from Bangladesh, are posing a threat to the tradition, culture and identity of the indigenous people.

"The ruling Congress government is playing with the future of local people for the sake of its vote bank," said Manoj Baruah, leader of a powerful youth organization in Assam.

The students, shouting slogans and carrying placards, also demanded DNA testing to detect illegal settlers in the state.

Authorities initiated the NRC process last month but stopped after violent protests in which four people were killed.

Locals complain that illegal settlers are a deciding factor during elections in the region, occupy vast tracts of land and control the local economy.

"Indigenous people will soon become endangered in their own land. It is high time we raise united voice against it," said Dethang Naiding, a tribal leader in Assam.

India's revolt-racked northeast, made up of eight states surrounded by China, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, is home to more than 200 ethnic and tribal groups.

Tension between settlers and locals leads to violent clashes and armed groups fighting for freedom or more political autonomy in the region, often target these settlers.

Rallies Held in Manipur Hills For Protection of Tribal Rights And Land

Imphal, Aug 11 : Hundreds of tribals today demonstrated against alleged distortion of district boundaries in the census 2011 during simultaneous rallies marched at six places in areas of hill districts and demanded protection of rights and lands of the tribals.

The Committee on Protection of Tribal Areas, Manipur (COPTAM) with the support of various Kuki based civil bodies organized the rallies alleging that in the ongoing Census Operation 2011 original inter-state district boundaries have been altered affecting tribal lands.

Memoranda were submitted to the DC, SDO and ADC concerns at the concluding part of the rallies in which the committee set the deadline to translate their demands into work within August 12 and threatened that intensified democratic forms of agitations will follow if government fails to address the demands.

Mass protest rally in hill areas against state government organised by COPTAM

The rallies were carried at Churachandpur district headquarters, Moreh town and Zaphou Bazar in Chandel district, Saikul and Kangpokpi under Sadar Hills of Senapati district and Litan of Ukhrul district at around 11 am with public meetings before the rallies.

A satellite map of Manipur was also burnt down by demonstrators at Kangpokpi during the rally to protest against alleged distortion of district boundaries in the map.

The rallies were carried out peacefully without any untoward incident with the participation of a good numbers of people mostly womenfolk, reports culled out from venues informed adding that various slogans decrying overlapping in census operation and disturbing district boundaries were shouted as well as displayed.

Placards that read "Restore original boundaries of districts', 'GoI save us and our land', 'No compromise on tribal land rights', 'Stop encroaching our land, return our land records', 'Stop atrocities towards tribals', 'Without justice no integration', 'No bargain with our land', 'Overlapping census is nonsense', etc. were displayed in the rallies.

A memorandum submitted to the Chief Minister through the DCs of Churachandpur and Chandel districts and ADC of Sadar Hills, AD of Moreh and SDOs of Saikul sub-division and Litan of Ukhrul district demanded de-linking of revenue collection from Census Operation and district boundary demarcation, immediate conduct of Census for the overlapping villages by concerned hill districts as was done till 2001 Census among others.

Maintaining of land records in the respective hill districts and collection of land revenues thereof by the concerned hill districts and initiation of constitutional protection of Manipur tribal areas as was done in all tribal areas of Northeast India, are other demands laid down in the memorandum.

Speaking to reporters after the rallies were carried out peacefully, chairman of COPTAM, Sadar Hills, Lamcha Chongloi said that if the state government fails to give a response to the memorandum submitted today, they will be compelled to launch intensified forms of agitations.

The protests will be launched by COPTAM with the support of the other hill based civil organizations.

He also said that they are not pressing the government to give demands which will hurt the integrity of the state.

They are demanding justice only for maintaining peaceful co-existence of the people of different communities.

For peaceful co-existence among the different communities in the state, there is the need for a fair and smooth conduct in the ongoing Census Operation 2011, he said.
He also claimed that COPTAM gets the support of UNC, ANSAM, ATSUM, KSO, ZSUM, Kuki Inpi, etc.

in their demands for fair and smooth conduct of the Census Operation, 2011 .

via Hueiyen News Service