Anti-dam crusader Medha Patkar on Thursday added more decibels to the raging anti-mega dam agitation in Assam and said that it was now snowballing into national movement for the mass support it had generated.
She termed ouster of Yadav and Bhushan from the party's national executive as 'not justifiable, questionable and condemnable'
Miffed over the show-cause notice, the Narmada Bachao Andolan leader, a veteran of many agitations across the country, called it an attempt to target activists.
Social activist and Aam Aadmi Party candidate for upcoming Lok Sabha elections from the Mumbai northeast seat, Medha Patkar said her decision to enter the electoral fray was very tough.
The police stopped Patkar and informed her that she could not proceed to Dhar, but as she refused to relent, she was placed under arrest.
All of them, including Patkar, were taken to hospitals by the administration, police said.
"Our arrest is against the law as no written order was shown to us," Yadav said.
Stating that the Aam Aadmi Party has reduced itself to a "tamasha", veteran social activist Medha Patkar on Saturday resigned from the party as its internal turbulence reached a flashpoint with the ouster of founding members Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav from a key panel of the fledgling outfit.
As many as 37 farmer leaders, including Rakesh Tikait, Yogendra Yadav, Darshan Pal and Gurnam Singh Chaduni, have been named in a first information report in connection with the violence during the tractor parade that left 300 police personnel injured even as two farmer unions on Wednesday withdrew from the agitation against the farm laws.
The new ordinance on land acquisition will allow land grabbers to deprive millions, destroy agriculture, horticulture, rivers, forests, tree cover and mangroves to extract minerals as well as ground water, without replenishment at a pace that will not leave anything for the next generation, warns activist Medha Patkar.
'I dreaded meeting him these days because every time he'd say: We have to fight this government, even if it means going to jail.' 'He'd been in jails run by the British, he'd also been in jails in independent India, now he was ready to go to jail under this government.'
Patkar said she expected some concrete action from the Centre on the Narmada Bachao Andolan's demand for rehabilitation of the project-affected people and reversal of the decision to raise the height of the Sardar Sarovar dam.
A look at the careers of Zubin Mehta, Sam Pitroda, Medha Patkar and Jagdish N Bhagwati.
Social activist Medha Patkar, who was protesting the eviction of slum-dwellers from Golibar in suburban Khar in Mumbai ended her fast on the ninth day on Saturday after the Maharashtra government agreed to her demands.
Terming the recent calamity in Uttarakhand as a man-made disaster, activist Medha Patkar has said it is time to rethink the concept of development. "This disaster has been caused by unplanned development. It is the result of mindless misuse of the state's natural resources. The dams, barrages and tunnels built in the name of hydel projects have impacted the course of the rivers which led to the tragedy," Patkar said.
Narmada Bachao Andolan leader Medha Patkar on Monday trained her guns on Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and slammed his government for "committing excesses" on tribals, who have lost their land to the Sardar Sarovar Project in the state.
Social activist Medha Patkar has said that offensive by security forces against Maoist rebels in the country is hurting people's interests. Talking to reporters in New Delhi on Tuesday, Patkar said, "The offensive was only encouraging violence. This is definite that Central and state government, whether it is Chhattisgarh or West Bengal, are collectively formulating a strategy, which is useless and is not heading towards solving the crisis but is encouraging violence."
Narmada Bachao Andolan activist Medha Patkar has told the Supreme Court that she is seeking transfer of a criminal defamation case against her outside Gujarat as there was threat to her life in the state from the respondent.
Social activist Medha Patkar on Wednesday expressed confidence that the Jan Lokpal Bill, now being studied by a Parliamentary Standing Committee, will finally come into effect as it has public support.
"The police not only arrested us, but also beat up some of our members mercilessly. We have not come here to break the law. Why is the police stopping us from moving freely in an independent democratic country," Patkar sought to know.
In a determined voice, she told rediff.com, "I beckon the people of the state and voluntary organisations to launch a well-concerted protest to counter the injustice meted out to the people of Nandigram. We cannot just sit idle and let a government destroy a state."
Singh said the BJP will resist setting up of industries in high-yielding crop land and had also asked the Maharashtra government not to do so. "We want industrialisation on barren land."
Special economic zones may have got the green signal from the group of ministers, but it is now being termed as unconstitutional.
She has accused the government of concentrating only on the fishing community.
Activist Medha Patkar on Tuesday suggested that Anna Hazare may have taken the decision to disband his team in view of his "concerns" about getting involved with their proposed political front.
Citing examples of alleged corruption, she claimed that families affected from Sardar Sarovar and Indira Sagar project had been forced or lured by officials to prepare fake registries to avail benefits of the state government's special rehabilitation package (SRP).
Social activist Medha Patkar and Trinamool Congress chief Mamta Banerjee continued their hunger strike on Tuesday while TC threatened to launch a long-drawn movement against the Tatas' proposed car project on a farmland in Singur.
Six out of 11 Narmada Bachao Andolan activists called off their hunger strike following an appeal by their leader Medha Patkar who, however, is continuing with her fast.
'Arundhati Roy is like a ballerina performing on a high wire, cool, supremely at ease but conscious of all the adoring eyes on her,' notes P Vijaya Kumar.
AAP candidates from Mumbai, Medha Patkar and Meera Sanyal, are poised to play a crucial and complementary role. While Patkar gives voice to the suffering of people at the grassroots, Sanyal is articulating the key principles that could build a more just and equitable society or economy, says Rajni Bakshi.
Social activist Aruna Roy in a letter to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi expressed her displeasure over the arrests of Medha Patkar and other campaigners and over the violation of right to peaceful protest. Here's the full text of the letter.
For someone who is such an indefatigable litigant, what is stopping Mr Saxena from using the law to depose Mr Kejriwal? Maybe we will get the answer after May 25, notes Aditi Phadnis.
Social activist Medha Patkar -- who recently concluded her own hunger strike over the issue of removal of slums in Mumbai on Friday said that Yoga guru Baba Ramdev's agitation was "expensive".
Medha Patkar's makeover is a professional one. She has switched jobs. The brave grassroots activist -- who has devoted her life to protests for innumerable causes that affect or strengthen the poor, attracting national, as well as global attention -- has always doggedly fought for support. Today, Vaihayasi Pande Daniel discovers, she is fighting for a commodity far more tricky and slippery. Votes.
Team Anna's core committee met in Monday at Ghaziabad amidst suggestions that the anti-corruption movement should not target a single political party in the future.
The abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019 paved the way for outsiders to contest polls in the Union Territory.
The killing of a policeman taken hostage by Maoists will erode the credibility of the Naxals, but the handling of the situation by the Nitish Kumar government is also questionable, feels social activist Medha Patkar.
Later, a delegation led by Patkar and comprising social activists Praful Bidwai and Swami Agnivesh met Kumar. But unsatisfied with her reply, the demonstrators refused to leave the premises till they got a "final answer".
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