CHHATTISGARH : RALLY OF ANTI-DISPLACEMENT MOVEMENTS IN RAIPUR ON 6TH OCTOBER.

The unrelenting loot of the abundant mineral resources of Chhattisgarh – iron ore, coal, limestone, bauxite, and even diamond and uranium has meant the total stranglehold of big corporates – foreign and Indian – over the State’s bureaucracy, polity, and even judiciary.

Multinationals Holcim and Lafarge have gobbled up the Indian cement companies and persist in earning super profits from the illegal exploitation of contract labour; Vedanta can get away with, and is in fact ably assisted by the State administration in, the criminal cover up of murder by negligence of nearly a hundred workers in a recent chimney collapse; Jindal and Monnet specialise in managing the pollution control department and so the Raigarh district, labouring under black clouds, drying water sources and disappearing forest cover, sees public hearing after public hearing where the public is never heard and clearances are granted, (Jairam Ramesh honestly called these environmental public hearings “match fixing” by the companies); a rash of sponge iron factories – mushroom in Raipur; Tata and Essar, with a little help from Collector Sahab, manipulate gram sabhas in the scheduled areas in gross violation of the PESA Act and employ every trick in the game to coerce people to accept compensations for land. Read the rest of this story

Whose land is it anyway?: An article on Koraput land struggle

Posted by Rajeesh Edachery August 3, 2009

After decades of condemnation, tribals in western Orissa have liberated their land. Interestingly, in this Maoist stronghold, this unique movement is non-violent

Bibhuti Pati Narayanpatna, Koraput (Orissa)

The undivided Koraput district in western Orissa has acquired notoriety because of the Maoists literally taking over the dense hilly and forest areas, inhabited by tribal communities, still trapped in the vicious trap of infinite poverty, injustice and underdevelopment. The Maoists’ presence stretch across the landscape and beyond to Ganjam, Malkangiri, Rayagada, and across the tense border zones of Jharkhand, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh.

Strangely, even as the national media focuses on Maoists, it has ignored a unique, militant and non-violent mass movement of the tribals which is as big a story as the land struggle in Nandigram, or the people’s resistance in Lalgarh. Indeed, there have been isolated incidents of violence, but largely, the movement has been peaceful. And the truth is, it has been a big success.

Koraput: Tribals in Orissa sieze forest-land from companies

KORAPUT – Several agitated tribals in Orissa’s Koraput district have resorted to forcible eviction methods of private companies from the forest land, in the disguise of restoration of land to tribals, the so-called ‘real’ owners.

The forest land, however, had been sold off by the non-tribals owners to private companies.

Protesting the ownership of private companies on the forest land, members of Chasi Mulia Sangh (CMS), a newly created and a ‘pro-tribal group’, has forcibly occupied 300 acres of the land in Bandhugaon Block of the district.

They also fell down several teak trees planted by the private company.

Orissa tribals seek Freedom from Forced Isolation

Report by Deba Prasad Dash; Malkangiri: More than twenty one thousand tribal people residing in the cut-off region ,just on the other side of the Chitrakonda Reservoir have sought freedom from the forced isolation.After remaining cut-off from the rest of the world for near about five decades,now the people of 151 revenue villages seems no more to find themselves in an absurd situation.In fact,they are planning for a major revolution against the state machinery under the banner of the newly formed “Cut-off Area Poor Tribals Association”.

The protest made at Chitrakonda by more than 300 tribals from the cut-off region on Wednesday gives a clear indication that a Lalgarh like situation is going to arise there with the tribals supporting the Maoists to get their problems redressed.

Narayanpatna:Chashi Mulia Adivasi Sangha Seized 2000 acres of land from the land lords

Report by K. Sudhakar Patnaik, Narayanpatna: The tribals of Narayanpatna Seized 2000 acres of cultivatable land from the land lords under the banner of Chashi Mulia Adivasi Sangha known as SANGAM (C.M.A.S) are distributing the land by its Secretary Nachika Linga to the landless.
The sized cultivatable lands covered with Red Flags, Members of the observation committee led by the Koraput Bar Association President Nihar ranjan Pattnaik its Vice- President Krushna Sawn, Advocate Bibek Ranjan Sethi, Social Activist Manoranjan Routray, and senior Journalist K. Sudhakar Pattnaik met Nachika Linga who gave an exclusive interview to the members of the team on Saturday last. It appears the cultivatable land is distributing under the slogan “land to the tiller” Nachika Linga Explained. The next target of the SANGAM is to capture MALI PARBAT to prevent the bauxite mining activities by multi national companies Mr. Linga Conformed.

Orissa’s Lalgarh in the making

Bhubaneswar: The might of the Indian state did win the battle for the government against Maoists and their supporters in Lalgarh , but the war is far from over. In neighbouring Orissa, armed tribals have taken over villages and land, leaving the local administration helpless and with little choice but to flee.

Tribals armed with swords and axes have taken over some 300 acres in the Bandhugaon block of Maoist-affected Koraput district. Four months ago, they had taken over five of the nine panchayats and 1000 acres of land in the adjoining Narayanpatna block in the district, around 550 km from Bhubaneswar.