This wedding season, anxious grooms from Parsa and Ghatburra, two villages in Chhattisgarh's Surguja district, were offered financial assistance from an unlikely source. Adani Mining Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of Adani Enterprises Ltd, was handing out loans to all those who could prove that the money would be spent on marriage arrangements.
Local authorities are deliberating on an ambitious plan to resettle thousands of forest-dwelling villagers across Chhattisgarh's Maoist-affected Narayanpur district in a bid to provide essential services like education and health care. Sources in the administration say the plan is still under consideration at the district level and is yet to be formally presented to the State Government.
KORBA (CHHATTISGARH): An immense expanse of fine grey fly-ash stretches out to meet the distant horizon, its flat surface rippled by slow-spinning whirlwinds.
The Toxics Link study found high concentrations of lead in all samples of soft toys containing PVC. Even trace amounts of lead are dangerous to children.
Shielding herself from the fierce afternoon sun with a bright dupatta, Urmila lowers her bucket deep into the heart of the well. As she draws out bucket after bucket of water, Urmila talks about how the water level has never been this low. "The colour and quality of the water has deteriorated over the last few years," she says. "But we are lucky.
Privatisation of water is taking root in India, often aided by political and bureaucratic corruption. Alongside, resistance to this is also building up.
