A river’s worthy son

VEERBHADRA MISHRA 1938-2013

Cooperative in spirit

Innovative administrator

I first met R Gopalakrishnan when he was the district collector of Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh. This was in the 1980s when India was in the throes of a crippling drought. Jhabua looked like a moonscape—nothing but arid and thirsty land and desperate people. Anil Agarwal had gone there for a meeting of tribal groups, fighting for their rights over forestland. I had accompanied him.

A recorder of history

Emaciated people begging for food, heaps of skeletons and dogs foraging on carcasses. The images remind us of a terrible period in Indian history: the Bengal Famine.  

The Earth’s Reporter

When Robert Paul Lamb died at his London home on 13 February 2012, the world lost a planetary-scale story teller. For over 30 years, he reported about the state of our planet using its most pervasive medium: broadcast television.

Farmer who nearly became Jat-Mahatma

Mahendra Singh Tikait, a small-time farmer from western Uttar Pradesh’s Jat belt who rose to become a formidable leader in his region and symbolised farmer power for about a decade, then got reduced to irrelevance due to a lack of political tact and a parochial worldview, died on May 15 after a prolonged battle with bone cancer. He was 75.

Gandhian to the core

ABOUT 15 years ago, I read in a newspaper how handloom weavers of Varanasi were mortgaging their daughters to moneylenders because of poor income. The government supported mill cloth at the time. When I discussed the matter with Lakshmi, he had tears in his eyes. Tears because he had spent much of his life trying to support artisans, but the government failed to recognise his efforts.

A red politician who saw opportunity in green

Jyoti basu, the cpi(m) stalwart who served as West Bengal chief minister for 23 years, never gave long speeches on environment. But his deeds spoke louder than words. Many of the steps he took to protect the environment served as the model. He was given a high ranking among chief ministers surveyed for green credentials by the Centre for Science and Environment, a Delhi non-profit, in 1999.

The voice of fishers

On december 30 , 2009, fishing communities lost a friend in Harekrishna Debnath, the chairperson of the National Fishworkers’ Forum (nff) that represents fishers’ associations of all coastal states in India. Debnath, 60, died of lung cancer.

Interpreter of myth

i hate travellers and explorers, Claude Levi-Strauss wrote in a 1955 work, Tristes Tropiques. It is regarded his most influential work. Perhaps the most influential anthropologist of our times, Levi-Strauss passed away in Paris on October 30.