By Manshi Asher & Himshi Singh In the third week of April, India’s raging pandemic’s second wave burst onto our phone screens with aerial images of burning pyres in crematoriums. Not very far away in the upper reaches of Pangi in Himachal, temperatures hit a sudden low due to heavy snowfall. Five migrant workers lay […]
हिमालयी क्षेत्रों में जल विद्युत विकास को स्वच्छ और अक्षय ऊर्जा के नाम पर बढ़ावा देने की होड़ पिछले दो दशकों से चल रही है। हिमाचल में बड़े पैमाने पर इन पनबिजली परियोजनाओं और संबंधित टावर लाईनों का निर्माण हुआ है और इसके लिए हज़ारों हेक्टेयर वन भूमि का हस्तांतरण भी किया गया है। वन […]
The disastrous flash floods in Uttarkhand in June 2013 turned the spotlight on a frontier region in the Western Himalayas, at least for a time. Was it a cloud burst or heavy rainfall? Could it have been predicted and prevented? Did the meteorological department mess up or was the problem the state government’s slow response? […]
On the eve of World Environment Day, we were struck by images of an elephant in despair who lost her life after feeding on fruit stuffed with crackers that were meant to ward off wild boars (from agriculture fields) in Palakkad, Kerala. It was no surprise that the initial news was put out without the […]
We are currently under the grip of a pandemic by the name of COVID-19 that has brought life to a standstill as we know it. This world-wide public health crisis has affected the lives and livelihoods of billions of people, and governments have been forced to take stern measures to tackle the contagion in the […]
Written by Aditi Vajpeyi & Vaishnavi Rathore Published on Economic and Political Weekly The emergence of the Forest Rights Act reasserted the vitality of the role people play in conservation and management of natural resources and carving out legal channels for recognition of their forest rights. But, in Himachal Pradesh, the FRA suffers at the […]
In a travesty of the Forest Rights Act set up to protect indigenous communities, members of the Lippa tribal village in Himachal Pradesh are being denied individual forest rights. Text by Manshi Asher Photographs by Sumit Mahar Himachal Pradesh, a State where two-thirds of the landscape is categorised as forest and 90 per cent of […]
A Himalayan village’s struggle to assert its forest rights Manshi Asher 01 September 2019 Karam Sain led the way through the narrow paths of the temperate forest near the tribal village of Lippa, located in the Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh. The cool May air was filled with the scent of dried chilgoza pine cones, […]
हिंदी के लिए नीचे स्क्रोल करें Lack of safety compliance in Hydro Projects invitation to disasters: Community representatives, activists to authorities This Lok Sabha elections both major national parties, the BJP and Congress in their manifestos speak of “Protecting the Himalayas”. However both parties and their candidates remain silent on a grave issue of concern […]
Article by Vaishnavi Rathore The Supreme Court order of February 13, 2019 on the forced eviction of more than 1,000,000 forest-dwelling households from forestlands across 16 states, once again brought to the fore the sharp ideological divide around the politics of ‘forest’ land ownership. Articulations by the ‘conservation’ lobby in support of the order also […]