Tribal power

Finally, the Orissa Government seems to have got up to realise that it needed to put in place a comprehensive resettlement and rehabilitation policy to adequately compensate the tribals who are being displaced by various industries that are coming up in the State. The tribal agitation following the killing of 12 innocent tribal men and women in police firinghas helped in bringing the problems of tribals to the centre-stage of the State's polictics. One only hopes to see that the tribals will get a better deal in the days to come.

Tribal killing

Tribals in Orissa are now up in arms against the State Government's apathy towards those displaced by various industries in the past. As many as 12 tribal men and women were gunned down by the police on January 2 when wthy opposed construction of a boundary wall for the proposed steel plant of Tata Steel at Kalinga Nagar in Jajpur district. Since then the tribals are strongly opposing mineral-based industrialisation by displacing them from their land and homes.