Peaceful Societies

A representative of the Nellore District of the Yanadis Welfare Association charged last week that officials cheated the government when they started building some houses for Yanadi families. These alleged irregularities occurred in Allur Mandal, a village in the Nellore District of India’s Andhra Pradesh state.

The Yanadi advocate, T. Venkateswarlu, told the press that the government was building small houses for the indigenous people under the auspices of the state’s Indiramma Housing Scheme when the cheating occurred. He alleged that a work inspector and an assistant engineer had laid cheap concrete slabs for the houses for lesser amounts than was stipulated by the state government, but they had then charged the state for the full amounts. He requested an investigation by appropriate government officials.

The Andhra Pradesh State Housing Corporation website indicates that little houses are being built under the Indiramma Scheme for the scheduled tribes of the state, which would include the Yanadi. The houses are to cost 7,500 India rupees (US$385) each. The state government funds 7,000 rupees of the total and the individual covers 500. The website shows the approved plan of a very simple, one room house, with two doors, two windows, and a single room measuring 9 feet by 17 feet.

The website specifies that the new owners have to demonstrate that they own the land, and that the houses are to be built entirely by the owners “without involving any contractors/middlemen.” Apparently, contractors were involved anyway in pouring the concrete slabs onto which the houses were to be erected. One may suspect that the state law specified that no contractors were to be involved in order to prevent the type of corruption that allegedly occurred.

Earlier news stories have discussed instances of corruption in India and the cheating of peaceful tribal peoples, frequent problems in that country.

A seemingly bizarre news story about a predatory traditional healer emerged from rural Tanzania last week. According to the Sunday Citizen, an attack by the healer sent the manager of a guesthouse where he was staying and four of his other guests to a local hospital.

The healer was staying at the Annudo Guesthouse and Bar in the village of Buyagu, Geita District of the Mwanza Region in northern Tanzania. The healer, who was not named by the newspaper, was from Sumbawanga, an important city in southwestern Tanzania—presumably someone of Fipa ancestry.

One of the victims, Lucia Patrick, told authorities that the healer had bragged the night of the crime that he could make them rich before morning. They would have to leave their doors open during the night so he could administer medicine to them that would make them millionaires. Ms. Patrick told the press, “he said the medicine would boost our fortunes and our enterprises would attract very many customers.”

The healer was sharing a room for the week with one of the victims, Elizabeth Lucas. The other two affected guests in the house that evening were Khadija Kangero and Sofia John, both presumably also women. Around 11:00 PM, he went from room to room in the guesthouse, incising the skin of his victims and smearing traditional medicines into the bloody cuts.

“The traditional healer finally arrived in my room with a plate that had black medicine which he smeared on my incised skin,” Ms. Lucas recalled. She was not clear what else may have happened, because the next thing she knew, she awoke in the district hospital in the city of Geita.

A passerby in the morning saw the doors of the guesthouse wide open, walked in to investigate, and found the manager, Massanja Annudo, plus his guests all unconscious and naked. He alerted the executive officer of the village. The healer had made off with his victims’ cash, their cell phones, and the guesthouse money.

The doctor treating the victims at the hospital, Dr. Cassian Kabuche, confirmed that he had received the victims and said that he had taken blood samples from them. He felt that the medicines the healer had smeared onto their incised skin had poisoned them, causing them to lose consciousness. They could have died if they had not been taken to the hospital, the news story claimed. Police in Geita were searching for the traditional healer, and were interrogating further his lover during the week, Ms. Lucas.

The connection to the Fipa people is not clear, other than the fact that the healer was from Sumbawanga, the major city of Ufipa. A scholarly article by Willis (1968a) helps clear up some of the cultural implications of the strange crime. At the time Willis studied the Fipa, in the 1960s, traditional healers were quite common in Ufipa. He had the good fortune to befriend an elderly healer named Matiya Masangawale. Willis observed him in his trance states, making his medicinal preparations, and practicing his healing. The man administered medicines he deemed appropriate for each illness primarily by making incisions in the skin of his patients and rubbing in the preparations.

At the time he was there, in 1964, Willis discovered traditional healers in virtually every village. The senior medical officer at the regional hospital in Sumbawanga told him that the Fipa used the modern medical facilities. But he could always tell where patients had problems by the locations on their bodies of the cuts by the traditional healers.

Willis felt that the Fipa were ambivalent about patronizing traditional healers versus practitioners of modern, Western medicine. Apparently the people would go to either western or traditional healers, whichever proved to be the more effective, but they suspected sorcery would be practiced by both types.

The Fipa denied that sorcery was really practiced in the modern era of the mid-1960s, but as he got to know them better, he discovered that people talked about it constantly. His new friends warned him frequently to be extremely careful about everything he ate and drank, since he should suspect everyone, his hosts on all occasions, of wanting to poison him. Hosts would take a sip from a bowl of millet beer before handing it to him, but even then he should be suspicious. The person intent on killing him could conceal a bit of poison under his or her thumb nail and dip it into the beer bowl after taking a sip.

Willis argues that the declining belief in witchcraft and sorcery, commonly articulated by the village people, seemed to correspond with a poisoning psychosis. He noted in his field diary four moths after he arrived, “Everyone believes that the next man (or woman) is only waiting for a chance to slip a fatal dose into one’s beer (p.148).”

Ten years later, Willis wrote another article (1978) which amplified his analysis of the actual medical practices of the traditional healers. He described, for instance, ingredients that his healer friend gathered in the bush and he related in some detail the ways he processed them into his preparations by mixing, burning, and combining the ashes.

The healer then made tiny incisions, called innkalo, by holding folds of the patient’s skin between the first finger of his left hand and his thumb, and barely cutting into the skin with his razor. He made a pattern of parallel cuts over the site of the ailment before rubbing in the black, burnt powder.

Ms. Patrick had mentioned to the reporter last week that the “medicine” the healer administered was black, probably from its having been burned in the traditional fashion. Unfortunately, it is unreasonable to expect a newspaper article to follow up on a story about a minor crime with more interesting cultural details. Exactly how were the incisions made, why did the guests all submit to the treatment, was any analysis made of the residue of the “medicine” on the patients’ skin? The story does provide intriguing hints about the continuation of traditional Fipa healing and the potential dangers of poisoning in their culture.

Although many South American indigenous societies employ ayahuasca preparations for shamanic and social purposes, a recent journal article describes some unique ways that the Piaroa use the plant mixtures. Robin Rodd, the author, points out that portions of the Banisteriopsis caapi vine are used in combination with other compounds by peoples throughout the Amazon region of South America to release and control desired hallucinogenic properties.

The article had to review the technical details first. Evidently, a number of societies prepare preparations of B. caapi, along with other plant compounds containing N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), to form hallucinogenic drinks. Compounds called harmala alkaloids, the active ingredients in the B. caapi plant samples, help to denature gut enzymes, and the DMT provides the active hallucinogenic properties.

Ayahuasca is probably the best known name for drinks prepared by shamans in the South American societies, but they also make drinks such as yagé and natéma. Rodd focuses his article on the unique ways the Piaroa prepare and use the compounds as hallucinogens—and for other purposes.

The Piaroa shamans use four different psychoactive plants for different situations, but the one they call tuhuipä (B. caapi), colloquially called capi in Spanish, is one of the most important. Their other major psychoactive compound, called yopo, is derived from the pulverized seeds of a leguminous tree, Anadenanthera peregtrina. Several hours after they drink the capi, the shamans use the yopo preparations, which include some B. caapi, as a snuff.

The Piaroa, unlike other South American societies, use the cambium layer in the elbow portions of the vine, a bulbous part of the plant that only occurs on mature specimens. Shamans in certain areas of Piaroa territory believe that these portions of the plants provide the strongest possible hallucinogens. They describe the flavor as very strong and acrid. They consider it to be the “father of all capi,” and so strong that “it gives you visions all night.”

After gathering the proper amounts of the plants, they scrape off the outer bark from the stems and heat the remaining portions next to a fire for a few minutes. The heat makes it easier to separate the cambium layer on the stems from the piths. Rodd argues that other societies which prepare ayahuasca are not so fanatical as to use only the cambium in making their preparations.

The shamans then use the B. caapi in two different ways. They may suck on a wad for several hours, or they may prepare an oral drink from the shavings. They consume the capi without inhaling the yopo snuff afterwards in order to help perceive the motivations, feelings, desires, and mental states of other people.

On the other hand, they will prepare especially strong oral potions when they want to use the yopo afterwards—in order to experience powerful visions. Since the success of a shaman depends on his ability to maintain social harmony, he must be able to perceive the needs of other people and figure out the contexts of their desires. The hallucinogens seem to help. The extra-strength drugs may be used for especially important events, such as divinations, preventive rituals, sorcery battles, and initiations. Group ceremonies—funerals, rites of various sorts, and increase festivals—may also require the shamans to use strong hallucinogens.

The two compounds, capi and yopo, allow the shaman to predict the future and to divine solutions to individual problems: whom to marry, where to hunt, where to clear a food plot, how to make a spouse happier, and the like. When a shaman is asked by someone how to get along better with family members, he will prepare his hallucinogens to divine the answers.

The shamans assess the health of their communities based mostly on what they perceive about people rather than what they say. In other words, the shaman sucks on B. caapi in order to see the truth better. A shaman can often be identified as the man with a big wad in his cheek.

The capi has other uses in addition to its hallucinogenic properties. Piaroa hunters use it before going on hunting trips to provide extra strength, to fend off evil spirits, and to suppress hunger during long journeys. They believe that it aids their night vision. It gives the hunter, in the words of one shaman, the “eyes of a jaguar,” which is famed for its night-hunting ability. Rodd has even found literature suggesting that jaguars may eat B. caapi and become intoxicated by it. Capi is also used as a stimulant in some communities.

The author indicates that he has personally consumed capi, both as a beverage and as a wad on which he has sucked “on numerous occasions and in a range of contexts concordant with traditional [Piaroa] use (p.305).” He was able to verify that Piaroa shamans derive stimulation from the drugs for varying periods of time, depending on the ways they consumed it and how large the dosages were. “High doses produced sensations of heightened empathy and the ability to reason about these feelings (p.305),” he reports.

He concludes that consuming capi both within and outside the context of rituals may help the Piaroa maintain positive emotional social settings. The long term use of the drug, particularly in non-ritual situations, “may have coordinated group affect and produced antidepressant-like effects (p.305).” It is thus an indigenous, socially-approved, group anti-depressant that helps keep the people peaceful.

Rodd, Robin. 2008. “Reassessing the Cultural and Psychopharmacological Significance of Banisteriopsis caapi: Preparation, Classification and Use Among the Piaroa of Southern Venezuela.” Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 40(3): 301-307

Six Birhor men from a village in Jharkhand state willingly followed a middleman to a supposed work assignment on the other side of India, in Gujarat state, and they haven’t returned.

The middleman promised they would have jobs in a brick kiln in Gujarat, that they would make good money, and that they would return in a month. The mother of three of the men has raised an alarm since six months have elapsed. Their village, Chotki Sidharwara, is in the Gomia Block of the Bokaro District in the state. “They might have been trapped,” claimed the woman. “I do not know whether they are dead or alive.” District officials have launched an inquiry.

Reporting on the story, the Times of India last week noted that while the Birhor used to subsist on agriculture and forest products, they are no longer able to do so. They have to search for alternative wage labor opportunities. Traveling with middlemen to other states to find work in farms and industries is not uncommon, according to the paper.

Survival International reported last week that James Anaya, UN Special Rapporteur for Indigenous Peoples, has issued an advance report condemning Botswana’s treatment of the San. Over ten years ago, the government of that country exiled the G/wi and the G//ana, two of the San peoples, from their homes in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and forced them into squalid resettlement camps, where many have since died due to poverty and diseases.

The San peoples appealed to the High Court of Botswana, which decided, in 2006, in their favor and gave them the right to return to their homes. But the government has closed the borehole that provided water to the San communities and has denied their pleas to reopen it. It has also refused to grant them permits to hunt—essentially, denying them access to food.

Prof. Anaya visited Botswana last March, reviewed the situation, and concluded that the government’s systematic harassment of the San people clearly violates the spirit of the 2006 court decision as well as international standards of human rights. He especially condemns the fact that the government denies them access to water.

Furthermore, he dismisses the government’s claim that it is only seeking to preserve the conservation objectives of the CKGR—to manage the land effectively for wildlife. The government, after all, is encouraging a large diamond-mining project in the reserve, which will have a much greater impact on the natural ecology of the desert than the traditional, small-scale, hunting, gathering, and herding of the G/wi and G//ana people, which have only minimal impacts on the ecosystem.

He urged the government to “fully and faithfully implement” the High Court ruling of 2006 and to allow all those who wish to return to their former homes to do so. It should permit the people to resume their traditional hunting and gathering, and to have the same access to water, from boreholes, that they had before they were resettled.

Mr. Anaya is an unpaid expert reporting to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. This coming September he will issue his final report.

The Lifetime Movie Network has prepared a film version about the murders of five Amish girls in a Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, schoolhouse and the forgiveness the families showed for the killer and his wife. Unfortunately, the made-for-television movie, due to be shown on Sunday, March 28, at 8:00 PM Eastern time (U.S.), misrepresents the real story, messes up some of the details, and, most unfortunately, distorts Amish beliefs about forgiveness.

Herman Bontrager, an Amish man from Akron, also in Lancaster County, was critical of the film. He had acted as a spokesman for the Amish immediately after the tragic shooting three and one-half years ago. “It didn’t happen that way,” he said after watching the brief movie trailer on the film website.

The press release for the movie from LMN says, “Deeply conflicted and unable to forgive the gunman and his family, Ida [the mother of one of the murdered girls] is tempted to leave the only life she’s ever known before re-embracing her faith.” While the families of the victims were, of course, devastated by the tragic losses of their daughters, none were tempted to leave their faith. Ida, in the movie, also confronts the wife of the killer and denies that she can forgive what has happened.

Such actions would contradict the essence of Amish beliefs. Of course, faith-shaking crises and questioning core beliefs make far better movies than would an accurate depiction of the ways the Amish really reacted to the events. The forgiveness that so caught the attention of the world had to be remade by Hollywood—corrupted.

The movie was based, at least in theory, on the book Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy, by Donald B. Kraybill, Steven M. Nolt, and David Weaver-Zercher. The three prominent authorities on Amish society researched their book quickly after the tragedy and it was published a year later, to many positive reviews. However, the three scholars have distanced themselves from the movie. The publisher of their book, Jossey-Bass, owns the movie rights, so they had no control over its resale for the production of the film.

The three authors released a statement last week that indicates their disapproval about exploiting the tragedy in a movie. They, of course, know that the Amish do not approve of movies or television, and that the ones living in the Nickel Mines area would be extremely sensitive about the subject. The scholars refused to cooperate with the production company. Evidently, their share of the proceeds from the sale of the movie rights, like their royalties from the book, will go to the Mennonite Central Committee for its programs providing aid to children who suffer from wars and natural disasters.

“Out of respect to our friends in the Amish community and especially those related to the Nickel Mines tragedy, we declined the producer’s requests to consult and assist in the development of a film,” they said in their statement. The producers also contacted Mr. Bontrager seeking his assistance, but he too refused to consult with them. After he looked at the film website, Bontrager disagreed with the statement that the media was critical of the Amish stance about forgiveness. He found, over three years ago, that reporters were “in awe” of their beliefs, taken straight from the Sermon on the Mount, that people must forgive others if they hope to have God forgive them.

He admitted that some of the Amish did have to struggle with their feelings of grief after the tragedy, as any normal individuals would do after the murders of their family members. They did not deny their emotions, and they were all aware of the normal processes of dealing with tragedy like that. “But I am not aware of anyone, to me or anyone I’ve talked with, who almost left their faith,” he said.

He noted that the actors playing the Amish people are dressed incorrectly in the movie, but the bigger issue, for him, is that the film doesn’t portray their gentleness accurately. He said that, in addition, the Amish believe in telling the truth, and fictionalizing or distorting what actually happened disturbs them. Furthermore, they don’t like to be depicted in photographs or films, and they really dislike publicity, particularly about such a tragic, recent event.

Presumably the Amish forgive the movie producers for having made still another exploitative movie about them, though it must be difficult. Twenty five years ago, the movie “Witness,” which was filmed in Lancaster County, offended them because of its inaccuracies and attempts to make money off of them. Hollywood patterns have not changed.

The Ladakhi film industry, which was described recently in a major newspaper article, has now been portrayed in an Indian documentary film called “Out of Thin Air.”

According to a review in The Hindu last week, the new documentary shows how the Ladakhi films portray “the landscape and its people in the harsh attractiveness of Ladakh … seeped in a visual language of immense feeling and a childish curiosity.” One of the most charming aspects of the films made in Ladakh is apparently the fact that the lead actors are native Ladakhis rather than professionals—ordinary people who want to depict the various personalities of their country.

One of the co-directors of the new documentary, Samreen Farooqui, commented at the screening that “the characters you see in the film are the backbone of the film industry in Ladakh.” She and her co-director, Shabani Hassanwalia, spent a year in Ladakh doing the filming in order to produce the 50 minute documentary.

The Hindu feels that the film industry in Ladakh provides a way for the Ladakhi people to value and preserve their own culture. The new documentary depicts the way the films mix the approaches of Bollywood with themes from the local society and culture. It shows the serene, rugged beauty of the land effectively, and, according to the review, it is enhanced by a lilting score.

The documentary includes such characters as a friendly young Buddhist monk, who writes love songs and scripts, and a taxi driver who portrays a villain in the locally-made films. Production of the documentary was supported by the India Foundation for the Arts. Unfortunately, a Google video search does not as yet turn up even a trailer for the documentary. But in the opinion of the reviewer, “the film may be short, but it works perfectly…” It was screened recently in Delhi.

Drivers in a couple Hutterite colonies in Alberta may start driving illegally. Last July, the two colonies lost their appeal to the Canadian Supreme Court to be exempt from the provincial requirement that photos were required for their driver’s licenses. They believe that the requirement violates their religious freedom, and they feel strongly that they must obey the second commandment in the Bible, which prohibits graven images.

The manager of the Three Hills Colony, Sam Wurz, announced at the end of last week that, as the temporary licenses issued by the province run out, colony drivers will continue to refuse to violate their consciences and they will, of necessity, continue to drive their vehicles. He said that living according to God’s commands was more important to them then following the rules and regulations of men.

The colony, joined by the Wilson Colony near Lethbridge, had contested in the Canadian courts provincial regulations requiring photo IDs on all driver’s licenses. In May 2006, they won at the local court level, and, a year later, after the province appealed to the superior court, the Hutterites won again. But the province appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, where it finally triumphed last July.

The two sides have been negotiating since then, but the province refuses to back down on the essence of its ruling—that all driver’s licenses must have photos on them. Hutterites in the two colonies refuse to compromise their beliefs. Having some drivers is essential to the colonies.

Mr. Wurtz said that 20 members of his colony used to have valid driver’s license, but most of them have now expired. Many of them are already driving without legal licenses. The province has continued to reject compromise suggestions that other forms of identification might be used—fingerprints or special pouches that would hide the licenses. Cam Traynor, spokesperson for Service Alberta, said that the province is “still open to hearing ideas from the colony leaders on how to accommodate them, [but] none of the ideas they brought forward meet the requirements for an Alberta driver’s license. Until there are any new ideas that come forward that would fit within the law, I don’t think there’s any more room for discussion at this point.”

Traynor added, pointedly, “Anyone who drives in the province with an expired driver’s license or without a driver’s license is subject to the penalties of the law.”

Wurz responds that the members of the two colonies face a difficult decision. “You’re at the mercy of a government which will not reason with us and we have to obey the government,” he said. “We even pray for our government every evening in our church, but if the government puts a yoke on your neck and wants more than our religion will allow us to do, then we have to obey God more than man, and if they lock us up in jail I guess we’ll be locked up in jail.”

He says it has been the government that has rejected their attempts to reach a compromise. He told the press that the Hutterites have a lengthy history of disobeying laws that contradict their beliefs. It is not clear if he added that they have obeyed their consciences for nearly 500 years—and ultimately, moved to avoid persecution.

Upside Down World, an online progressive magazine focusing on Latin America, carried a story last week about a Zapotec festival held in the town of Santa Gertrudis earlier in February. The fourth annual Feria of the Cornfield—Globalization and the Natural Resources—was organized by a local group, the Union of Organizations of the Sierra Juarez of Oaxaca (UNOSJO). The group tries to preserve the indigenous Zapotec culture and the purity of their corn, untainted by Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO), specifically genetically modified corn seeds.

The fair attracted participants from around Mexico and many other countries who are interested in the Zapotec farming culture—and the GMO controversy. The theme of the fair this year was a specific focus on the dangers of genetically modified corn. It emphasized and showcased indigenous corn, the basis of the Zapotec culture. One community leader, Rodrigo Santiago Hernandez, said during the opening plenary session, “If we don’t cultivate corn, we have no life. It is central to our existence. We are the people of corn.”

Another Zapotec leader, Baltazar Felix, said pretty much the same thing. “To be a campesino or campesina allows us to respect and understand the profound worth of our [earth].” He argued that corn provides the basis for their identity and is central to their customs, culture, and way of life.

The Mexican government of President Calderon recently reversed an earlier ban on the importation of GMO corn into Mexico. The Zapotec farmers emphasized at the fair their concerns for the purity of their corn, which is threatened, as they see it, by the GMO seeds.

The second day of the fair celebrated the rich traditional Zapotec culture with demonstrations of local food dishes from different communities made with corn in various ways. At the booths, cooks explained the techniques and skills of cooking corn from such communities as Asunción Lachixila, San Cristóbal Lachirioag, and Santa Maria Temaxcalpa. The exhibitors produced dishes such as canavalia, tortilla de platano, pozoncle, pozol, and mazorcas.

One lady, Doña Maria from Lachixila, explained that, even without money, she could eat if she had preserved corn seeds. It is those seeds which give the Zapotec their treasured autonomy. When people can no longer be self sufficient in food, when they have to go out and buy it, they are unable to govern themselves. Autonomy is essential to the Zapotec people. The absence of state power—army or police—is a noticeable feature of their communities. The reporter observed that a drunk had just been incarcerated in the town jail, which is located directly under the restaurant, demonstrating the local power of the community to control itself.

On the third day of the fair, the attendees visited a farm and an exhibit of small scale agricultural practices. One outspoken campesino, Don Carlos, told the visitors to his farm that the government would prefer them to work in the maquiladoras rather than stay on their small plots and work with their hand tools. “They don’t want us to remain as campesinos. They say we are unproductive and useless. But we are going to stay here, in our cornfields, in our communities because this is what we want; this is what the people want.”

Zapotec representatives at the event discussed other issues that confront their communities. Mining by a large Canadian firm threatens villages in the region where the mine is located by polluting their waters and their natural environment. Local inhabitants are “carrying out direct action against the mining company,” according to one speaker, by blocking roads and the movements of heavy mining equipment. Large-scale, industrial animal operations also pose threats to small communities.

In the opinion of Aldo Gonzalez from UNOSJO, contaminating corn by the introduction of GMOs is a crime. GMOs contaminate not only local corn but also local culture. He insisted that the Zapotec people have an intimate connection to the land, which is based on corn. Their corn represents, to them, water, land, and culture, he suggested.

The Union Minister of Forests and Environment for India continued last week to express his opposition to a huge power dam on the Chalakudy River in Kerala State. Jairam Ramesh told reporters in the small Kerala city of Palakkad on Friday that permission to build the dam was now out of the question. He had come to the state to declare that the Parambikulam Wildlife Sanctuary was now designated as a tiger reserve. A press conference followed that event.

Two major problems have hindered the dam-builders from devastating the Chalakudy River. One has been the wildlife that uses the area that would be affected by the dam and its reservoir. The other is a Kadar village, which lies directly in the path of the development. Mr. Ramesh cited both issues in his previous statement on the issue.

At this event, he referred to an earlier report from the Kerala State Biodiversity Board, which had unanimously condemned the proposed project in 2007 because of its adverse effects on the ecology of the river basin. Mr. Ramesh admitted that his agency had failed to take the state’s biodiversity report into account when it gave its approval several years ago. “It was a lapse on the part of the Union Ministry,” he admitted.

Mr. Ramesh described other opposition in Kerala to the hydropower scheme. He pointed out that T. M. Manoharan, who was Principal Chief Conservator of Forests in the state, had expressed his opposition. Other organizations plus the district panchayat are opposed as well.

He denied allegations by A. K. Balam, Electricity Minister for the state, that he was discriminating against Kerala. He cited earlier instances where his ministry had approved projects in other states but it had subsequently cancelled them as new evidence had shown that the construction was not wise.

The Kerala Electricity Ministry has not been quiet, however. On Saturday, Mr. Balan responded at his own press conference that the union minister had made his decision even while an Expert Appraisal Committee, appointed by the Union Ministry, was examining the issue but before it had submitted its report. The minister’s decision, he said, was therefore “a total farce,” part of a conspiracy to terminate the project.

Two other organizations, the Tropical Botanical Garden and the Water and Power Consultancy Services, had both found in 1998 and 2002 that the proposed power dam was an environmentally friendly project, he said.

Peaceful Societies

Peaceful Societies

Corruption in Constructing Yanadi Housing

Traditional Tanzanian Healer and his Victims

Social Uses of Ayahuasca by the Piaroa [journal article review]

Birhor Disappear in Gujarat

UN Expert Condemns Treatment of G/wi

New TV Movie About Amish Forgiveness

Ladakhi Film Industry Portrayed in New Documentary

Alberta Hutterites Solve Photo ID Problem

Protecting Zapotec Corn

Kadar Village To Be Spared

Subscribe to our weekly digest

Subject Listing

Previous News and Reviews