Kuno's folk: missing the wood and the trees
, and • Sheopur, Madhya Pradesh

Kuno's folk: missing the wood and the trees

Thousands of Sahariya Adivasis who have lived here for centuries and depended on the forest for their livelihoods, are now banned from entering. September 2024 marks two years since the state shut them out for a cheetah safari park

September 3, 2024 | Priti David
Kuno’s caged cheetahs and exiled Adivasis
and • Sheopur, Madhya Pradesh

Kuno’s caged cheetahs and exiled Adivasis

Kuno is now a hunting ground for green political optics. Money and state influence are powering a cheetah safari in the guise of a conservation project. For the hundreds of displaced people who vacated the forest for the cats still primarily in cages, finding jobs, schools, firewood and even drinking water is a daily challenge

February 6, 2024 | Priti David

In Bagribari: the river takes it all

The annual monsoon flooding of the Puthimari river, a tributary of the Brahmaputra, is a constant source of anxiety for those who live on its banks. Flood waters destroy farmland, standing crops and even looms, leaving many residents with no option but wage labour. Expensive embankments don't help

September 20, 2023 | Wahidur Rahman and Pankaj Das
‘Who drowned Delhi?’
and • Central Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi

‘Who drowned Delhi?’

The capital is getting a facelift as it gears up to host the G20 meet on September 8, 2023. But the sprucing up is selective. Those residents of Delhi who have been displaced by the recent Yamuna floods and on-going development projects on its banks, are now living on public roads, and told to ‘stay out of sight’

September 6, 2023 | Shalini Singh
Mumbai's Adivasis stand up to be counted
and • Mumbai Suburban, Maharashtra

Mumbai's Adivasis stand up to be counted

On World Indigenous People’s Day, Adivasis who live in and around Mumbai’s Aarey forest gathered for a show of strength and solidarity

September 2, 2023 | Ishita Pradeep
When elephants come calling in Birbhum
, and • Birbhum, West Bengal

When elephants come calling in Birbhum

In Patalpur village, it's only the family of farmers, Ujjwal and Chandana Das who are still holding out against annual raids that devastate their crops and destroy their home. The rest of the village has left

July 28, 2023 | Sayan Sarkar

‘Where will we go leaving everything behind?’

At the Deocha Pachami coal mine in West Bengal, women are at the forefront of the protest to save their land and livelihoods. An artist tells us the story of their determined fight through a series of illustrations

July 6, 2023 | Labani Jangi

In Kuno Park – no one gets the lion’s share

It’s been 23 years since mainly Sahariya Adivasi and Dalit families in forest villages of Madhya Pradesh’s Sheopur district were displaced from their homes to make way for lions…that have still not arrived

July 4, 2022 | Priti David

In Kuno: Cheetahs in, Adivasis out
and • Sheopur, Madhya Pradesh

In Kuno: Cheetahs in, Adivasis out

The Sahariya Adivasis of Bagcha village in Madhya Pradesh’s Sheopur district will be displaced to make a home for the African cheetah – a move fraught with livelihood loss and ecological risk

April 25, 2022 | Priti David

A Palghar village battles a national highway

The Warli Adivasis of Nimbavali were tricked into giving up their land and homes for the Mumbai-Vadodara expressway, but the project tore through the village and the compensation was inadequate

March 16, 2022 | Mamata Pared

Chased by development in Chikapar

Little Chikapar in Koraput, Odisha, was probably the only village in the world to have taken on the Army, Air Force and Navy – and lost

November 18, 2021 | P. Sainath

When the mountain crashed down on Mirgaon

Many weeks after a landslide flattened their village, the people of Mirgaon in Maharashtra are still staying in a local school. This is their third displacement – the first was by the Koyna Dam – and they are exhausted

September 9, 2021 | Hrushikesh Patil

Mudumalai Adivasis – displaced by deceit
and • The Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu

Mudumalai Adivasis – displaced by deceit

Adivasi families of the seven hamlets within the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve's buffer zone speak of coercion and cheating after they took a compensation package and moved out of their ancestral homes

January 21, 2020 | Priti David

Bridge over troubled squatters
• Kolkata, West Bengal

Bridge over troubled squatters

A month after the decades-old Tallah basti in north Kolkata was demolished to make way for bridge repairs, the families who were shunted out to transit sheds continue to seek fair rehabilitation

December 12, 2019 | Smita Khator

Pardhi school bulldozed by Prosperity Highway

A school in Amravati district, Maharashtra, started by a Phanse Pardhi teacher for kids from his long-stigmatised and impoverished community, was demolished on June 6, leaving them anxious and uncertain

June 17, 2019 | Jyoti Shinoli

Flattened by Prosperity in Chiradpada

Four Katkari Adivasi families living for decades just outside Chiradpada village in Thane district could soon lose their huts and livelihoods when a viaduct of the Mumbai-Nagpur Samruddhi Highway runs through their hamlet

March 27, 2019 | Jyoti Shinoli

‘At least here we have our land’
and • Panna, Madhya Pradesh

‘At least here we have our land’

The residents of Rampura, a small village in the buffer zone of the Panna Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh, have been asked to move. But, they say, with no allocation of alternative land, where will we go?

March 22, 2019 | Maithreyi Kamalanathan

Living on the streets, looking for work

On the cold winter streets of the country's capital, seasonal migrants from Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and other states set up temporary 'homes' and try and find work at construction sites and other places

February 07, 2019 | Purusottam Thakur

Soaring land prices, falling farm fortunes
and • Guntur, Andhra Pradesh

Soaring land prices, falling farm fortunes

With the Andhra government's takeover of land for Amaravati, many landless villagers have lost farm work, forcing young men to seek wages at sand quarries near the Krishna river, and leaving women unemployed

January 21, 2019 | Rahul Maganti

‘Let the state give us the jobs it promised’

With the Andhra government's takeover of land for Amaravati, many landless villagers have lost farm work, forcing young men to seek wages at sand quarries near the Krishna river, and leaving women unemployed

November 13, 2018 | Rahul Maganti

New capital city, old mechanisms of division

Displaced farmers with fertile ‘assigned’ land they have cultivated for decades at the site of Andhra's new capital Amaravati, are asking why they are being given less compensation than farmers with land titles

October 29, 2018 | Rahul Maganti

‘This is not a people’s capital’
and • Guntur, Andhra Pradesh

‘This is not a people’s capital’

Amaravati, the mega-city coming up in Andhra amid grand claims by the government, will displace thousands of farmers from fertile land. While many are resisting, others are giving in to land pooling schemes

October 5, 2018 | Rahul Maganti

Powerless in a power-surplus state
and • Srikakulam District, Andhra Pradesh

Powerless in a power-surplus state

Thousands of villagers in Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh will have to leave their land and livelihood to make way for a nuclear power plant – when the state has enough energy and the new capacity will cost a lot

September 14, 2018 | Rahul Maganti

'As if we had neither a village nor a country’
and • Mumbai Suburban, Maharashtra

'As if we had neither a village nor a country’

The Warlis have lived in the national park at Borivali in Mumbai for decades without adequate water or other facilities, fearing relocation. And in the struggle for a livelihood, they have also lost their distinctive art

August 22, 2018 | Apekshita Varshney

Displaced by the dam, homeless in Hukumpeta
and • West Godavari , Andhra Pradesh

Displaced by the dam, homeless in Hukumpeta

Two years after leaving Pydipaka village to make way for the Polavaram project, six Dalit families are still waiting for houses, while the Adivasis of Devaragondi have been uprooted from their traditional homeground

August 16, 2018 | Rahul Maganti

‘Our houses are vanishing. Nobody cares’
• South 24 Parganas, West Bengal

‘Our houses are vanishing. Nobody cares’

For decades, villagers from Ghoramara island in the Sundarbans have been migrating to Sagar island because the river and rain keep washing away their houses. They have received little help from the state

July 20, 2018 | Urvashi Sarkar

Polavaram’s dispossessed march with hope
and • West Godavari, Andhra Pradesh

Polavaram’s dispossessed march with hope

From July 10 to 16, a determined group of Adivasis marched from Cheeravalli village in West Godavari district to Eluru, protesting against the Polavaram project, which will displace and destroy their communities

July 19, 2018 | Rahul Maganti

Pydipaka families: and then there were ten
and • West Godavari , Andhra Pradesh

Pydipaka families: and then there were ten

Hundreds of villages will vanish over time due to the Polavaram project on the Godavari. In Pydipaka, ten families are refusing to move, demanding from the state at least the legally mandated resettlement package

May 28, 2018 | Rahul Maganti

Caged in concrete: an Adivasi urban nightmare

An Adivasi village within the megacity of Mumbai has been razed to make way for a Metro car depot, its inhabitants herded into matchbox-sized flats in an SRA building

March 6, 2018 | Jyoti Shinoli

‘Many families just vanished…’
and • Thane, Maharashtra

‘Many families just vanished…’

Adivasi and OBC families thrown off their land for the Bhatsa irrigation project in Maharashtra’s Thane district still wait for justice almost half a century later

November 16, 2017 | Jyoti Shinoli

On the ‘prosperity highway' to penury?
and • Aurangabad, Maharashtra

On the ‘prosperity highway' to penury?

Many in Marathwada are resisting the proposed Mumbai-Nagpur Samruddhi Highway, which the CM claims will transform the state's economy – though it will actually displace thousands of farmers in 354 villages

October 25, 2017 | Parth M.N.

Unquiet on the riverfront
and • Krishna, Andhra Pradesh

Unquiet on the riverfront

The fishing communities on the banks of the Krishna in Andhra Pradesh are being forced to leave their homes and livelihoods due to the state’s many riverside projects around Vijayawada and the 'new' Amaravati

October 18, 2017 | Rahul Maganti

The fallen homes of Anantapur
and • Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh

The fallen homes of Anantapur

A sudden demolition on August 3 in Vijayanagar colony of Anantapur town in Andhra Pradesh has left entire families – many of them daily wage workers or migrants – homeless and living out in the open

August 11, 2017 | Rahul M.

Struggles of the sandbar people

Hasan Ali is one of 2.4 million people who live on impermanent ‘chars’ or sandbars on the Brahmaputra – without basic necessities, frequently shifting home, their lives dictated by the flux of the mighty river

January 6, 2017 | Ratna Bharali Talukdar

Life in the company of coal
• Sidhi, Madhya Pradesh

Life in the company of coal

“The companies have destroyed the environment, agreed. But the government gives them the right to do it.”

January 26, 2015 | Parth M.N.

The poet-singer of Dhinkia

Back To South Korea (Go Back POSCO)

Sepember 20, 2014 | Purusottam Thakur

Worshipping a steel rath in Orissa

Trying to criminalise protesters seems a standard operating procedure in dealing with anti-displacement struggles in Orissa and beyond

July 25, 2014 | P. Sainath