In the middle of a busy school week, hundreds of students across Siang district sat down not for a math test or a history lesson — but to ask hard questions about a river they’ve grown up beside their whole lives. A school exhibition drive centred on the proposed Siang Upper Multipurpose Project, widely known … Read more
The Arunachal Pradesh government just made a move to fast-track one of the most controversial infrastructure projects in the state’s history — and it’s already stirring up fresh friction. The state Cabinet, on September 24, gave its approval to form an empowered high-level committee that will guide and coordinate the pre-feasibility report (PFR) survey for … Read more
They’ve had enough. The Adi Bane Kebang-United (ABK-U), the apex body of the Adi community in Arunachal Pradesh, has made its position crystal clear — the proposed Siang Upper Multipurpose Project (SUMP) must go. Not be reviewed. Not be paused. Gone. At a press conference held at the Arunachal Press Club in Itanagar on Tuesday, … Read more
The Siang River has flowed through the heart of Arunachal Pradesh for centuries — feeding farms, sustaining cultures, and binding the Adi people to their ancestral land. Now, a proposed mega-dam threatens to bury all of that under hundreds of metres of water. And the people who call this valley home are not going quietly. … Read more
The river doesn’t wait. And for the farming families of Mebo subdivision, that brutal truth has never felt more real. Severe erosion by the Siang river at the Borguli portion in East Siang district has taken an alarming turn, devouring several acres of wetland cultivation and leaving local farmers staring at the ruins of a … Read more
A human rights organisation has done something that rarely happens in Arunachal Pradesh’s development debates — it has openly sided with the people over the project. The Human Rights of Arunachal (HRA) on Thursday threw its weight behind the ongoing protests against the proposed Siang Upper Multipurpose Project (SUMP), calling on the state government to … Read more
When the Central Bureau of Investigation registered a case against Arunachal Pradesh lawyer and environmental activist Bhanu Tatak last month, many expected the community she had spent years defending to stay quiet. They were wrong. The Siang Indigenous Farmers’ Forum Youth Wing (SIFFYW) came out swinging on September 16, issuing a sharp condemnation of the … Read more
When a Chief Minister has to publicly say “nothing is being forced,” you already know the situation is tense. That’s exactly where Arunachal Pradesh stands right now over the proposed Siang Upper Multipurpose Project — a massive hydropower initiative that has split communities in the Upper Siang region right down the middle. Chief Minister Pema … Read more
Bhanu Tatak has spent years fighting to protect Arunachal’s rivers. Now, the Central Bureau of Investigation has come knocking — and the charges couldn’t be more loaded. It isn’t every day that an environmental activist ends up in the CBI’s crosshairs. But for Bhanu Tatak — lawyer, activist, and one of the most vocal voices … Read more
A road was blocked. A traditional ritual was performed. And a message was sent — loud and clear. On September 14, residents of Ugeng village in Arunachal Pradesh came out in large numbers to physically stop vehicles from moving towards the Siang area, in what is the latest and most visible act of resistance against … Read more
