C.S. LAKSHMI The Hindu, September 7, 2003 IT is amazing how many voices in India are still to be heard and how some people work quietly to allow these voices to emerge. From Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh come the voices from the mountains gathered by…
PUCL Bulletin, October 2002 by K.N. Bhatt, GB Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad (Excerpts) Creation of Uttarakhand is, in fact, an outcome of the peoples’ long struggle for survival amidst the extreme conditions of regional economic backwardness and high rates of unemployment. The local people…
The Hoot (September 9, 2002) Sevanti Ninan Did you know that Dehradun was a major publishing centre? There are eleven daily newspapers and no less than 84 weeklies coming out of here. If you look closer though, you might find that many of these have…
Even as media proliferates in the wake of statehood for the Uttarakhand region, its primary challenge is to engage meaningfully with issues that are related to the environment The Hoot (August 9, 2002) Manjula Lal & Sevanti Ninan In a broad sense environment is the…
Twenty years ago this June, RAMACHANDRA GUHA began a secular pilgrimage to the Alakananda Valley. His destination was Gopeshwar and his mission was to pay tribute to Chandi Prasad Bhatt, founder of the Chipko Movement. On the occasion of World Environment Day on June 5,…
Man of the Year: Avdhash Kaushal Law is his weapon in his feisty crusade for empowerment His soft voice and love for the Sufi strains of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan camouflage his battle-readiness. So does his age. At 67, Avdhash Kaushal’s grandfatherly mien-and his occasional…
A historical look at the commentaries that appeared at the debut of Uttaranchal reveal much about the current trajectory of the state. Although almost universally pessimistic in tone and critical of the way Uttaranchal was formed, many of the commentaries at the time also focused…
Even as the people of the hill districts that are to be included in Uttaranchal hail the new State, protest movements build up in two plains districts. [more]
C.S. LAKSHMI The Hindu – May 21, 2000 A WISE person once said that forestry is not about trees. It is about people. No one has realised this more than the women of the Uttarakhand region. Everyone by now knows about the Chipko Movement. But…
Niraja Gopal Jayal Seminar, No. 480, August, 1999 As we prepare for the fifth general election of this decade, we also prepare to face the same slogans that are invariably dusted out and aired whenever an election is around the corner. These include Secularism, Nationalism,…