dams
Nubians Protest More Dams on the Nile
The Nubians along the Nile in northern Sudan, who were mostly spared from flooding by Lake Nasser in the 1960s, are now facing the threat of destruction by dams in their own valleys.
The Kadar Are in the News
Ten years ago, during the first full year of this website, almost nothing was reported in the Indian news about the then obscure Kadar society. The situation has changed dramatically since then. Three news reports on the Kadar were published last week alone. This society and its problems seem to have captured the attention of […]
A Dam Could Destroy Indigenous Communities [journal article review]
Kerala tries to include its citizens in decision-making as a way of strengthening local communities, but it has not succeeded as far as the Kadar are concerned. The Indian state’s Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) has made few attempts to integrate its plans for power generation with the culture of its indigenous communities, a recent […]
Kadar Boycott National Elections
While national elections in India made headlines worldwide in recent weeks, a Kadar hamlet decided to boycott the polls in Kerala to make their own statement. An article in The Hindu explained their reasoning. The various candidates for office in the state have not clarified their positions on the controversial 163 megawatt hydropower project on […]
India’s Rush to Build Power Dams
The eminent journal Nature last Thursday featured the controversy over the construction of dams in the Teesta River valley, projects that many Lepchas passionately deplore. They feel that the dams are destroying their sacred landscape, but, as the article points out, government agencies are finding many reasons for moving ahead with the construction. Jane Qiu, […]
Wisdom of the Sacred Mountain
The Teesta River system is one of the biodiversity hotspots of India, and local Lepcha residents in the river valleys are agitating to stop the construction of dams that will destroy their ecosystem. Lingthen Gongthing, a Lepcha shaman, warns that “damming the Teesta, messing with her trajectory, arresting her flow, will cause a lot of […]
Conflict Over the Chalakudy Dam Nearly Ended
The Deccan Herald, an important Indian newspaper, carried a story last week summarizing the protracted, bitter fight over the construction of a 163 mw power dam across the Chalakudy River in Kerala. Kanchi Kohli, the author, describes the way the opinions of the Kadar, whose Vazhachal village would be destroyed by the project, and other […]
The Kadar of the Western Ghats
The Kadar are now being noticed. Their plight, if not their peacefulness, is receiving some attention lately. A lot of meetings and news stories over the past five years about the proposed Athirappilly Dam on the Chalakudy River in Kerala have focused on elephant corridors and hornbill habitat, with only brief mentions of a Kadar […]
Power Dam Cancelled—Lepcha Religious Beliefs Respected
Pressures from the Lepcha and Bhutia communities of Sikkim have prompted the government of India to cancel a power dam proposed for one of their sacred rivers, a victory which should help them preserve their religious beliefs in the sanctity of nature. The news media in India in recent weeks have carried numerous stories about […]
Kadar News Increasingly Upbeat
The cause of peace is advanced when the rights and interests of minority peoples such as the Kadar are acknowledged and respected by larger states and nations. These small societies are often at the losing ends of disputes—the dams are built, the forests are clearcut, rights to lands are denied, communities are destroyed. Two of […]
