September Issue Cover feature
Big dams in Southasia - The dangers of inevitability
By : Kanak Mani dixit
The fight against large dams and the reservoirs they impound is a phenomenon that sparks wherever and whenever the people of Southasia feel empowered enough to resist. And so, the “temples of modern India” of the 1950s and 1960s had by the 1980s turned into targets for attack by people’s movements, environmentalists and cultural activists alike, but not enough by economists and political scientists. This is probably why, as the articles in this issue of Himal indicate, even as high dams make a comeback in India and are bound to make a return elsewhere in Southasia, the overt arguments remain essentially the same and predicated on culture and environment rather than on market value, equity and prior consent.
READ MORE ABOUT IT @
http://www.himalmag.com/2007/september/big_dam_southasia_kanak.htmCover feature
Lepcha v hydropower
Do Gangtok and New Delhi policymakers view the Lepcha ancestral homeland as sacrosanct or not? The answer cannot be both.
By : Soumik Dutta
Sikkim has recently been witness to what may be the longest satyagraha in its history. The indefinite hunger strike was called on 20 June 2007 by the Affected Citizens of Teesta, an ostensibly apolitical organisation formed to fight the Gangtok government’s decision to build seven large-scale hydroelectric projects within the ancestral lands of the indigenous Lepcha community. Since then, at any given time passers-by at the Bhutia Lepcha House in Gangtok have seen at least ten satyagrahis lying down in silent protest – young women and men, as well as a host of Buddhist lamas.
READ MORE ABOUT IT @
http://www.himalmag.com/2007/september/sikkim_hydropower.htm
Cover feature
A flood of dams
More than a hundred large hydropower projects, offering a staggering 55,556 megawatts, are currently planned for construction in Arunachal Pradesh.
By : Neeraj Vagholikar
India’s Northeast has been identified by New Delhi as the country’s future ‘powerhouse’, and Arunachal Pradesh is slated to be the major contributor. In 2001, the country’s Central Electricity Authority did a preliminary ranking of the hydroelectric potential of various Indian rivers. It identified 168 large projects in the Brahmaputra Basin alone, which collectively could generate more than 63,300 megawatts of hydropower. Out of these projects, as many as 87 were in Arunachal Pradesh.
Subsequently, in 2003, a new hydropower initiative was launched at the national level, promising 50,000 MW of power. Under this, initial reports were prepared for 42 projects in Arunachal, out of which 19 were short-listed for further investigation. Prior to these studies, at least ten large projects in the state were either already in operation, under construction or in an advanced planning stage; since then, the number has skyrocketed. The current figure of completed, under construction and planned projects is 104, in both the public and private sector, promising a cumulative 55,556 MW of energy.
READ MORE ABOUT IT @http://www.himalmag.com/2007/september/arunachal_pradesh_hydropower.htm
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Kuldip Lepcha from Kalimpong who is on hunger strike since 23rd August ’07. He is presently hospitalized in Kalimpong Sub –Divisional Hospital.
Kuldip Lepcha from Kalimpong who is on hunger strike since 23rd August ’07. He is presently hospitalized in Kalimpong Sub –Divisional Hospital.
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