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Conserve/Resist

As Kerala’s sacred groves disappear, the Theyyam art form loses a vital link

3rd March 2019

There has always been an unmistakable umbilical link between the dance form of Kerala called Theyyam and nature. The unique pantheistic art form of the Theyyam now faces increasing threats of gentrification and Brahminisation, thus paving the way for the destruction of the sacred groves where it was born. Text and photographs by Thulasi Kakkat….

CLIMATE CRISIS

T.G. Jacob: The genesis and political economy of the Kerala floods

10th October 2018

From Frontier Weekly: The flood in Kerala, created by an overdrive in construction activities, which gave enormous profits to corporate capital, now demands reconstruction work on a giant scale, which only expands the market for corporations further. It is obvious that this is not what is required. The requirement is an alternative model of reconstruction….

ALTERNATIVES

Madhav Gadgil: A people’s campaign to rebuild Kerala

14th September 2018

From The Hindu: It’s imperative that we abandon business as usual. We cannot just focus on man-made capital; but enhance the sum total of man-made, natural, human and social capital. The new regime that we usher in should acknowledge that it is local communities that have a genuine stake in the health of their ecosystems….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Kerala floods: Time for introspection and amends as water recedes

29th August 2018

From Mongabay: It was the worst flooding in Kerala in nearly a century, with all 14 districts on red alert. With over 445 dead, a million still in relief camps, its impact will last for years. But the future can be more climate-resilient if grassroots communities realise start working for the conservation of fragile ecologies…

Conserve/Resist

A timeline of the historic Plachimada agitation, from Keraleeyam Magazine

7th March 2018

When in July 2017, Coca-Cola informed India’s Supreme Court that it won’t restart its bottling plant in Plachimada, Kerala, it brought to a close a decade-long agitation spearheaded by the local community comprising mostly dalits and adivasis. This historic struggle has now been comprehensively documented in a digital project by Neethu Das of Keraleeyam Magazine….

Development/Growth

A zero sum game: The rail projects that spell doom for the Cauvery

21st February 2018

The fracas over water sharing has obscured the fact that the Cauvery itself is facing a major threat: two railway lines to be constructed through Kodagu, the forested hill district where the river originates. A river’s fate – and those of the millions that depend on it – now hangs in balance, writes Chirag Chinnappa….

Conflict/Dispossession

The Indian Oil project that could turn a Kerala village into a deathtrap

21st December 2017

From The Wire: An Indian Oil Terminal, which can store up to 15,400 metric tons of cooking gas, is scheduled to be built in Vypeen, Kochi, which is among the world’s most densely populated islands. Will Kerala’s Communist Patrty-led government allow this high risk project to come up, defying all common sense and public opinion?…

CLIMATE CRISIS

The blame game behind the death toll of cyclone Ockhi

13th December 2017

Nidhi Jamwal writes: The India Meteorological Department claims its job was done by forecasting the cyclone, whereas the affected state government believes its rescue and relief actions are “a formidable achievement”. However, the deadly (mis)management of Ockhi raises some important questions, for which clear action-points are needed to avoid a similar situation in the future….

ALTERNATIVES

‘Nature gives us hope’: A tribute to Latha Anantha, river guardian

18th November 2017

Dr Latha Anantha, an expert on rivers and one of the first names to crop up in the struggle to protect them, is no more. The founder and moving spirit behind the River Research Centre, Kerala, she was best known for her efforts to save the Chalakudy river. She’d been diagnosed with cancer in 2014….

Paintings by Meenakshi Subramaniam

Culture/Cognition

Suprabha Seshan: The music of everything

15th August 2017

I’m no elephant whisperer, nor do I claim to have complex exchanges with them by moonlight, but the reverse is true: when they come by, I’m whispered out of my den by their calls and cries, by their trumpets, rumbles and whooshing sighs. When elephants arrive in the valley, I scoot out of my sheets….

Save Western Ghats group/Facebook

ALTERNATIVES

Tribute: A mountain and a movement: the Save Western Ghats March

23rd July 2017

From The Hindu: Straddling six states, the 1600-odd kilometre-long Western Ghats is home to an astonishing diversity of life and supports innumerable communities and cultures. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the remarkable 100-day ‘Save Western Ghats March’, a landmark event in Indian environmental activism, which became the model for numerous campaigns to follow….

Lalitha Gowda with her children Sharad and Bharathi, victims of endosulfan poisoning

Aparna Pallavi / CSE

Education/Awareness

Spotlight: The continuing trauma of the endosulfan victims

26th May 2017

Hundreds of Endosulfan-affected people, this time from Karnataka, are threatening to sit on a fast until death from May 27 to demand better care from the government. Here are exhaustive reports from Down to Earth magazine, which first exposed the issue in 2001, chronicling one of the worst and longest-running pesticide poisoning episodes in history….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Drought in South India: A Firstpost special series

5th May 2017

This is the introductory article in Firstpost’s nine-part series of ground reports on the ongoing water crisis in south India. The series will cover various aspects of the near-calamitous situation in Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, with the onset of blistering heat waves that are putting more pressure on existing water resources….

The Indian Quarterly

Forests/Wildlife

Suprabha Seshan: People of the rain

25th April 2017

From The Indian Quarterly: Strange things happen in this forest. A bug sucks and then pees. Droplets of bright water shoot out of its bum and fall rain-like on the forest floor. I saw it today with my own eyes. Orange and black bug on a Heliconia leaf, shadow-spangled, tumbling in the gusting wind, peeing….

Countercurrents.org

Conserve/Resist

Obituary: Veloor Swaminathan, who led a legendary fight against Coca Cola that’s finding new resonance

18th March 2017

K.P. Sasi writes: Swaminathan along with Mylamma were the initial foundations of the historic struggle at Plachimada, Kerala. The struggle initiated by a small group of these Adivasis with Dalits and farmers forced one of the largest corporate powers in the world to back down and quit Plachimada. Swaminathan passed away on March 14, 2015….

Jemima Rohekar

Conserve/Resist

Sounds of silence: a forest that survived ‘development’

20th January 2017

Jemima Rohekar writes: So secluded is Silent Valley that there is no written record of any human habitation in its core area. It is also the site of the first and most bitterly fought ‘environment vs development’ debate in India. Silent Valley reinforces the fact that forests and their resident biodiversity are our greatest wealth….

A view of the Vizhinjam fishing harbour

Aneesh/Wikimapia

Conflict/Dispossession

Adani’s Vizhinjam port: Another development disaster in the making?

6th September 2016

The National Green Tribunal has virtually given the go-ahead for the proposed mega port at Vizhinjam, to be built and run by the Adani group, setting aside appeals by local fisher folk and environmentalists. Here’s a closer look at what’s at stake at Vizhinjam, and why many consider it another developmental disaster in the making….

Culture/Cognition

How modern schooling is aiding the destruction of the biosphere

19th August 2016

Suprabha Seshan writes: Modern education serves a version of Gulag, by forcing our young to suffer unspeakable conditions in their most vulnerable years. It ultimately breaks them, in order to refashion them into a pliable workforce. This psychic predicament goes hand in hand with the destruction of life, with the catastrophic end of the biosphere….

ALTERNATIVES

Video: This wind turbine costs as much as an iPhone, powers an entire house

10th July 2016

Avant Garde Innovations, founded by siblings Arun and Anoop George from Kerala, has come up with a low-cost wind turbine that can generate enough electricity to power an entire house for a lifetime. The size of a ceiling fan, this wind turbine can generate 5 kWh/kW per day— with just a one-time cost of US$750….

A view of the Athirapilly falls

Countercurrents.org

Conflict/Dispossession

Athirappilly: Kerala’s destructive dam project that refuses to die

1st July 2016

Neha Miriam Kurian writes: The Left-Front government in Kerala is reviving the Athirappilly Hydro Electric Project against stiff resistance from local tribes and environmentalists. If implemented, it will displace the ancient hunter-gatherer Kadar tribe and submerge the only remaining low elevation riparian forests left in the Western Ghats, one of the world’s eight biodiversity ‘hotspots’….