terça-feira, março 07, 2006

Jagdalpur & Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India

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Tuesday March 21 2006

The Holi festival in the northern Indian city of Allahabad; photos by Jitendra Prakash, Kamal Kishore & Parth Sanyal (I wish I could find out more about these photographers!). The tradition of Holi heralds the beginning of spring, festival of colours, people running around and painting each other - I like this.


Sorting and drying chilies, also near Ahmedabad, photos by Amit Dave - speaking of chilies, it looks like he has an eye for the ladies as well, lovely!


Sunday, March 12, 2006

Images from Chhattisgarh, around Raipur tken by Kamal Kishore: Maoist violence around Dharbaguda; a relief camp in Dharbaguda; trains in Raipur; the village of Mana.


Saturday, March 11, 2006


Kolkata(2), and Adlaj(2) villages.

International Women's Day is just passed, survived more like. People like Margaret Wente who probably see it for what it is, write something I would say is balanced the day before, and then find something to praise on the day itself, I guess they are surviving too. More and more you find discussions of aid descending into feminist politics, well you know, they give the seeds and fertilizer to the farmers, 'mostly women'; the women get Aids from their callous husbands, I guess the men get it from the air, no, no, of course the men get it because they are all evil promiscuous truck drivers. The micro-credit is all around women, the "hope of Africa" is the women. I don't believe this. It is un-balanced; and so, to me, it does not make sense.

I don't say I 'survived' the day because I am an un-caring male chauvinist pig by the way. I am not. It is a big subject, I am tired of it.

Tuesday, March 7, 2006



I saw the picture of two women and a girl and an infant girl walking to get water at Reuters; look at them - smiling and strong; and I wondered where Jagdalpur is?

According to Google Earth, Chhattisgarh is in Illinois (as usual), but it turns out all those consonants are really in the name of the Indian State so a regular Google brought up maps. India is divided into States and Districts.

The provenance of all of the images in this post is embedded in the .jpg files - if you want to see where they came from, download the image and look at Properties.

The Yahoo Picture Search is a step up from Reuters, they include links to related news items, so I heard about the struggle between the Indian government and Maoist Naxalites in the same area, almost 900 dead in 2005 - that's in the whole of India mind you so it's no so bad eh? The Maoists reserve special violence for photographers apparently.

I tried to find something on the photographers; Kamal Kishore, Jitendra Prakash, and Amit Dave; but could discover nothing about them except that they have lots of namesakes and have taken lots of photographs.


Jagdalpur, Chhattisgarh state, India. With her toe up and her arm held shyly behind her back for the photographer. Unlike the inmates at Sheriff Joe Arpaio's outdoor jail in Maricopa County Arizona, men working in India are not ashamed to wear pink - I guess they have other priorities. When I was working in Brasilian shipyards I watched the arc-welders, with minimal protection like this guy, sleeves rolled up and nothing at all for bystanders. At least he is wearing long pants.


brick works at Tharvai (1), Gadopur (3), and Adlaj (3), three villages near the northern Indian city of Allahabad, in Uttar Pradesh state, India.

GULF TIMES: RAIPUR - Maoist attacks kill six in Chhattisgarh, Tuesday, 7 March, 2006
At least six civilians were killed and 15 injured when Maoist rebels carried out two attacks in the eastern state of Chhattisgarh, police said yesterday. The attacks came less than a week after Maoists set off a land mine under a truck in the same area, killing 55 people in one of the worst acts of violence in their four decades-old insurgency.

Maoists attacked a police station in Basagura in Dantewada district of southern Chhattisgarh on Sunday night, some 550km by road south of the state capital, Raipur. “Police repulsed the attack, then the rebels stormed into Basagura village and killed four tribals and injured 15 others,” Sant Kumar Paswan, additional director general of state police said in Raipur. The police said the toll could rise as 12 people were in a serious condition.

Yesterday, the rebels detonated a bomb on a minibus in Timarpur, around 7km from the previous night’s attack, police said. At least two passengers were killed. Police said they were awaiting further details.

Violence in Chhattisgarh, one of India’s poorest states, has mounted since the state government set up and started funding an anti-Maoist movement, the Salwa Judum (March for Peace) among local tribal villagers in the forested south of the state last year. The land mine attack last week targeted members of the group, prompting angry villagers to claim officials had brought them into the frontlines of the battle against the Maoists but had failed to provide adequate protection.

The federal home ministry said last month that Maoist violence was also on the rise nationally, with 892 people killed last year compared to 653 in 2004. Maoists operate in at least nine of India’s 29 states.

HINDUSTAN TIMES: RAIPUR - Four villagers killed by Naxalites in Chhattisgarh, March 8, 2006
Four villagers were axed to death and many others injured in attacks by Maoists in the wee hours on Wednesday in Dewarpali village of Dantewada district, police said. The armed Naxalites cordoned off the village and assaulted the people who had opposed them and participated in Salwa Judum or peace campaign against the ultras, State Intelligence chief SK Paswan said. Some of the villagers were later attacked with axe, in which four villagers were killed, he said.

Recently, the Naxalites have killed CRPF, CISF and Naga jawans and also the villagers in Dantewada district who were involved in anti-Naxal movement.

Meanwhile, Naxalites have released five photographers who were abducted on Tuesday from Kanker district, Paswan said. The photographers were kidnapped from two different places -- Durg and Kondal police station areas -- when they were taking photographs of villagers for the recently launched National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme, he said. They were let off with a warning not to photograph the villagers and their digital cameras had been seized by the Naxalites, he added.

THE TIMES OF INDIA: RAIPUR - Six killed in Chhattisgarh Maoist attacks, Monday, March 06, 2006
Six people were killed and at least 15 injured in two separate attacks by Maoist rebels in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh on Monday, police said. The rebels blasted a 25-seater minibus in Timarpur village of the district, 550 km from Raipur, killing two passengers on the spot at around 11 am on Monday. Police have reached the spot. Information on the injured is yet to be received.

The other incident took place overnight when Maoists attacked a tribal stronghold in Basagura village, barely seven kilometres from Timarpur, in the same district. Four tribals were killed and 15 injured, 12 of them seriously. Sant Kumar Paswan, the Chhattisgarh additional director general of police, said the toll could go up.

The last major Maoist attack took place in the state Feb 28 in Dantewada in which nearly 30 people were killed. The unofficial toll was even higher at over 50.

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