A documentation of the custodial deaths during lockdown that also looks for the answer to some such questions around the class nature, caste nature and religious nature of such deaths. This is the fourth part of the Groundxero report. The Thoothukudi murders have once again drawn our attention to custodial and other forms of violence perpetrated […]
A documentation of the custodial deaths during lockdown that also looks for the answer to some such questions around the class nature, caste nature and religious nature of such deaths. This is the third part of the Groundxero report. The Thoothukudi murders have once again drawn our attention to custodial and other forms of violence […]
A documentation of the custodial deaths during lockdown that also looks for the answer to some such questions around the class nature, caste nature and religious nature of such deaths. This is the second part of the Groundxero report. The Thoothukudi murders have once again drawn our attention to custodial and other forms of violence […]
A documentation of the custodial deaths during lockdown that also looks for the answer to some such questions around the class nature, caste nature and religious nature of such deaths. This is the first part of the Groundxero report. The Thoothukudi murders have once again drawn our attention to custodial and other forms of violence […]
On May 22, 2018, Tamil Nadu police opened fire on thousands of people demonstrating against the expansion of Sterlite’s copper smelter plant in Thoothukudi. The residents were protesting against the Vedanta owned unit accusing it of causing severe environmental pollution in the entire region. One year after the violent incident in which 18 persons were shot dead and scores […]
After the recent order of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) recommending the opening of Vedanta’s copper smelting plant in Thoothukudi, a report by Reuters has once again brought the issue of police brutality to the forefront. It claims that 12 of the 13 protestors killed when police opened fire on a demonstration in May 2018 […]
Independent journalist and student Lois Sofia who has been extensively covering protests in Thoothukudi was arrested today for shouting “Down with Modi-BJP-RSS’s fascist rule” in a flight, addressed to TN BJP State President Tamilisai Soundararajan who happened to be in the same flight. GroundXero reports on the latest in the BJP-RSS regime’s blatant desperate attacks […]
While no action has been initiated against Thoothukudi police personnel who shot 131 bullets at unarmed protestors, killing 13 and maiming many others in broad daylight, the police have been rounding up and arresting people who participated in the agitation against Sterlite. However, resistance against such ‘development projects’ now seems to be spreading across Tamil […]
Amidst widening state repression of the struggle in Thoothukudi, Advocate Vanchi Nathan, State Coordinator of People’s Right Protection Centre who also served as the legal advisor to the Committee for the Struggle against Sterlite has been arrested, as have six members of Makkal Athikaram who have been booked under the authoritarian National Security Act. Lois […]
In the history of industrial pollution in India, both Bhopal and Thoothukudi must be seen as watershed moments, either in terms of the disasters themselves, or in terms of the resistances that followed. In most other such cases, the disaster is felt as a slow, everyday process – as something chronic. And the resistance is […]
Nothing much could be done because the world is not really a single world. It never was. Despite UN and the intergovernmental big shows, the world never behaved as a species. It was not the species per se that logged the primeval forests, dug up the Earth for coal and oil and gold, colonized the […]
সস্তা শ্রম এবং বেলাগাম দূষণ। বিশ্বায়নী উদারনীতির ‘উন্নয়ন’-এর এটাই ছিল প্যাকেজ ডিল। ‘উন্নয়ন’-এর চমকানিতে ভারত, বাংলাদেশ, আফ্রিকা, লাতিন আমেরিকার মতো বিভিন্ন দেশে অরণ্যের-পর-অরণ্য হাওয়ায় মিলিয়ে গেছে, খনিজ সম্পদে ভরা পাহাড় বিদেশে পাচার হয়ে গেছে, এক দিকে খরায় যখন ভূ-ভারত হেঁচকি তুলে মরেছে তখন নদীর জলে বহুজাতিক পানীয় কোম্পানি বোতল ধুয়েছে। আর রাস্তায় দাঁড়িয়ে ‘উন্নয়ন’ আমাদের চোখ রাঙিয়ে […]
On Tuesday 29 May, the allotment of land for the proposed expansion of Vedanta group’s copper smelter plant in Thoothukudi was canceled, “in larger public interest” by the State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu Ltd (SIPCOT). In an official release SIPCOT said, “The cancellation of allotment of 342.22 acres of land has been made in […]
In Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu police shot and killed another person, 22 year old Kaliappan on Wednesday and on Thursday morning another person, Selva Sekaran, succumbed to his injuries, bringing the death toll to at least 13, with more than 60 injured. Lois Sofia writes about the ongoing attacks and clampdown on the protesters. Read our […]