Anti-Sterlite demonstration shootout 'biggest' massacre of activists in 2018: Global Witness

By A Representative
A new report, “Enemies of the State?: How governments and businesses silence land and environmental defenders”, published by Global Witness, a human rights organization based in London, has said that India saw the third highest number of activists killed, 23, in 2018 following Philippines 30 and Columbia 24.
The 52-page report says, the “biggest massacre we documented in 2018” is that of 13 persons killed in Tamil Nadu in May last year when “residents had been protesting against a copper smelting plant owned by the Sterlite Copper subsidiary of Vedanta Resources, which they said was polluting the air and threatening the local fishing industry.”
Pointing out that in a second massacre gunmen shot dead nine sugarcane farmers and burned their tents on the Philippine island of Negros, the report said, “More than three people were murdered each week in 2018, with countless more criminalised, for defending their land and our environment.”
The report regrets, “Calls to protect the planet are growing louder – but around the world, those defending their land and our environment are being silenced.” It adds, “Countless more people were threatened, arrested or thrown in jail for daring to oppose the governments or companies seeking to profit from their land.”

Right to walk, right to livelihood: Clearing footpaths 'can't mean' clearing out the urban poor

By Aseem Mishra* India’s cities are locked in a quiet but intensifying struggle over one of their most contested public spaces: the footpath. For pedestrians, a footpath is basic infrastructure—a strip of ground that should allow people to move safely, independently and with dignity. For millions of informal workers, the same stretch of pavement is a workplace, a source of daily income and often the difference between survival and destitution.

Ample evidence of child labour in South Gujarat's cash rich sugarcane belt: Study

By Rajiv Shah A recent German government-funded study , undertaken jointly by the NGO Prayas Centre for Labour Research and Action and the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, which mainly deals examines the working conditions of migrant workers in the cash-rich sugarcane zone of South Gujarat, has gone a long way to suggest large scale prevalence of child labour during the harvesting season.

Women lawyers petition Supreme Court, seek reconsideration of Aug 4 order on bar council co-option

By A Representative A group of women advocates who stood sixth and seventh among female candidates in the recent Bar Council elections have filed a petition before the Supreme Court, seeking a recall and reconsideration of the Court’s August 4 order determining the mechanism for co-opting women into State Bar Councils.

Counterview

Search This Blog