The people of Plachimada, in Kerala , rallied together on Friday April 22nd, for the third aniversary of the Plachimada Coca Cola plant, and an accompanying 3 year, 24hrs day 7days a week, protest vigil outside it's gates, to publicly show it's opposition to the corporation's existing and planned environmental degredation in the area.

This has been the most recent of ongoing opposition to Coca-Cola's inethical conduct in India, where they have been alleged to have caused severe water shortages, water and land pollution, the distribution of toxic waste as fertilizer, and for the sale drinks containing high levels of pesticides | 1 | 2. Coca-Cola is further negligent as it has not reported any of the damages it has made, continuing operations. Tens of thousands of community members, have been participating in and International Campaign to Hold Coca-Cola Accountable for it's conduct, with plants in Mehdiganj, Uttar Pradesh, Sivaganga, Tamil Nadu Kaladera, Rajastan, facing increasing resistance to their operations as community members demand they are shut-down.

[ India Resource Centre | Take Action | Coca-Cola in India [PDF] | killercoke | Stolen Generation ]

Bhubaneshwar (Orissa): Demanding Orissa be declared an Organic State, more than 3000 tribal women today made a bonfire of hybrid and genetically modified seeds of cotton and other crops -- calling it the launch of a seed satyagrah...
The New Seed Bill in the offing, they said, runs counter to the Plant Varieties Protection and Farmers' Right Act (PVPFA), 2001Farmer's rights are now being taken away through the Seed Bill. This clearly demonstrates that the government is being run by the multinational seed companies. Orissa Nari Samaj (ONS), the tribal women's organisation with a membership of close to 200,000 demanded the scrapping of the proposed Seed Bill, and wanted to government to recognise the rights of the people in respect of indigenous seeds.

The Patents (Amendment) Ordinance amends the Indian Patents Act, 1970 for the third time to introduce product patent protection for drugs, food and chemicals. However, it equally affects the interests of the farmers by granting patent protection to GMOs especially the seeds of Genetically Modified crops.

[ IMC Biotech | Article - Sowing The Seeds Of Dictatorship | Vandana Shiva | Gene Campaign ]

Nepal: All communication links were cut after the King Gyanendra's announcement of suspending parliament and fundamental rights, on Tuesday, 1st of february.
Airlinks have been closed, roads blocked, other transport links delayed. Armed security forces in riot gear are deployed. Leaders of major political parties, trade unions and student organisations are under house arrest or detained. Army is stationed in the editorial offices of all national dailies in order to censor. Outside of Kathmandu, the Maoist strike is apparently observed.

A student demonstration at Prithvi Narayan Campus in Pokhara was fired on by a military helicopter gunship leaving several protestors badly injured if not dead; all FM radio broadcasts outside of Kathmandu are blocked and those broadcasting in Kathmandu play only entertainment-oriented programmes; the BBC FM station recently established in Kathmandu is forbidden from broadcasting the news in Nepali; news stands outside of the Valley have been closed; and a 72-hour blockade on long-distance public bus travel in and out of Kathmandu is in place.

[ full report][ International Nepal Solidarity Network ] [ report updates ] [ Nepal Blog ] [ Zmag Coverage 1 | 2 ] [Reporters without borders ] [ Amnesty international Statement ]

"No one, I repeat no one will be allowed to stand in the way of Orissa's industrialisation and the people's progress".
- Naveen Patnaik(Chief Minister of Orisa)

The Police in the East Indian state of Orissa have laid siege to a group of dalit and adivasi (tribal) villages around Kashipur that have successfully kept the Utkal Alumina Industries Ltd (UAIL) from mining Baphlimali – a mountain held sacred by local adivasis -- for 12 years now. Since December 1, 2004, a witchhunt has been on for indigenous and dalit leaders and their key supporters, and a massive police operation has been launched to terrorise people into allowing the bauxite mining and alumina refining project to come up. The Aditya Birla group and Canadian mining multinational Alcan are the major shareholders in the project. Norsk Hydro (a Norwegian company that had a stake in UAIL in 2000 withdrew from the project following criticism in Norway for its complicity in human rights abuses in Kashipur, Orissa.

Related Articles:-

• Un-shining India an article by Kalpana Sharma
• Kashipur Alert by Mining Watch Canada
• Asia Pacefic Forum Audio interview
• A Background Note
• Appeal From PSSP

A gigantic landslide in the Himalayas has created a potentially disastrous flood situation in the upper reaches of the Sutlej.

Now thatched roofing is being replaced with asbestos in haste, following the fire tragedy in a school in Kumbakonan, 350 km from Chennai. The replacement found for a thatched roof in the state is one with asbestos sheets, which is a cancer causing material, and it is going to have disastrous consequences for health.

Silent Valley National Park Twenty years of constant efforts towards conservation of the Silent Valley National Park and its buffer areas by the Government of Kerala and the Ministry of Environment and Forests, the Silent Valley HEP has been revived in the form of proposed Pathrakadavu HEP...

Three days ago the Narmada Bachao Andolan began an occupation of the back entrance to the State Building of Maharashtra in Mumbai, India. Their demands are over 20 years old and include an end to big dam construction on the Narmada River and satisfactory compensation, rehabilitation, and resettlement of Adivasis (tribal peoples) who have been displaced by flooding of their villages.

The current protest is in response to the recent Narmada Control Authority decision to allow the construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam to continue to a height of 110 meters. At least 12,000 families in Madhya Pradesh will face submergence and displacement without any resettlement, while at least 3000 tribal families in Maharashtra are in their villages and 2000 oustees are yet to be declared as oustees and resettled.

Since the beginning of big dam construction after Independence, around 55 million people have been flooded out of their villages. Most of these people have never received any substantive or just compensation or resettlement assistance from the Indian government.

Read:The Greater Common Good by Arundhati Roy
Watch:Video of Narmada Submergence

[Background | Take Action]

The week of meetings, speeches, protests, cultural events is underway in Mumbai. The WSF has addressed thousand of issues including child labor, indigenous struggles, homelessness, the G-20, art and resistance video, queers and sex workers, the coca cola boycott, songs and more songs of resistance, linking rivers, South Korean migrant workers, the dalits [es] (untouchables), testimonials about the dowry system, and a poetry book released for the forum. Artisans held workshops on candle making. There have even been calls for uniting WSF and MR. A critical issue has been the Iraq War and the presence of US military bases around the world.

A major theme by many activists is how to defeat Bush in 2004 and a broader call for a boycott campaign against US corporations which benifit from the occupation of Iraq.

To wrap up the week Mumbai Resistance will hold a protest and the WSF will be holding a less militant rally.

Photos from the WSF:
•   Slums of Mumbai
•   Stands and exhibits
•   Posters of the WSF
•   Posters of the WSF
•   Anti-War Posters of the WSF
•   Women's Issues Posters of the WSF
•   Photos of cultural Resistance
•   Mumbai Resistance 2004
•   More Mumbai Resistance 2004
•   Art and Resistance
•   Queer and Sex Workers March
•   Opening Day
•   People of the World Social Forum
•   Amnesty International
•   Anti-WSF cartoons