Cops kill 3 as farmers protest water project, land seizure near Mumbai
By Rady Ananda
On August 9, police shot nine farmers, killing three, who were part of a mass protest against a water pipeline project in Baur Village, 50 miles east of Mumbai, India. Police also smashed cars, fired tear gas and threw rocks at farmers as they fled the violence. This was all caught on video:
Kantabai Thakar (age 40), Moreshwar Sathe (40) and Shyam Tupe (29) were fatally shot by police. Over 100 others were injured, and nine vehicles damaged in the lethal attack on protesters, report several news outlets in India.
PermalinkAgrochemicals, energy plants and GMO crops killing Bathinda residents
By Rady Ananda
Home to two coal power plants, a fertilizer plant, and a large oil refinery, the city of Bathinda in Punjab, India is making people sick. Forty percent of the population (nearly 90,000 people) suffers from respiratory ailments. The area also suffers from a host of other diseases including cancer, at a rate triple that of other areas, which has been linked to agrochemicals.
Doctors are urging people to use medicinal inhalers, which is culturally stigmatized. Rather than demanding strict environmental controls, doctors have asked authorities to fund an education campaign to dispel the stigma associated with inhaler use.
Is talk of secession sedition? Arundhati Roy responds to charges
By Rady Ananda
In a speech last week supporting ‘azadi' -- or freedom -- for the occupied people of Kashmir, Arundhati Roy won the ire of right wing extremists who started a petition to have her arrested on charges of sedition. Even moderates are shocked by her support of secession. I sit on an Indian listserve, and some of the comments against her were vicious, with most people supporting prison for this freedom-loving, earth-loving, prolific writer and activist.
Sedition is being openly discussed in several states in the US. Bill Kaufman's new book, Bye Bye, Miss American Empire addresses the topic head on (Chelsea Green, 2010).
Why is the world rushing headlong into Environmental Armageddon?
By Dr. Tom Termotto
Is there any doubt that planet Earth has been undergoing an environmental armageddon for decades? We are not just referring to the spate of oil spills all over the world such as the BP Gulf Oil Spill, or the many other toxic deluges which go unreported unlike the Hungary Toxic Sludge Disaster, or the ongoing destruction of the world’s rainforests like those being systematically wiped out in the Amazon Basin. We are also alluding to the “unseen” worldwide chemical apocalypse, the global proliferation of ellectro-pollution (EMR), the major uptick in manmade geopathic stress events on both the micro and macro levels, as well as the relentless contamination of living environments throughout the planet with radioactivity.
There are many other forms of ecological apocalypse taking place which, when viewed in the aggregate, are taking an immense toll on human, animal and plant life. Many of these ongoing assaults against the biosphere have unforeseen and collective ramifications which are extremely far-reaching and of great consequence to the viability of the planet. We ignore them at our peril, and will continue to suffer from a plague of alphabet soup diseases, multi-infection syndromes and infectious disease epidemics which have exploded on the healthcare landscape during the 21st century.
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