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Sikkim

Cover Story elsewhere in Himachal area. But still awaits permission from the Indian authorities to leave Dharamsala and return to Rumtek Monastery, the traditional seat of the Karmapas in India. Truly, a long wait for the people of Sikkim.

tribal and backward communities. The Loktak hydel project in Manipur displaced around 20,000 people as their villages went under water. The Pagladiya Dam Project of lower Assam is going to displace 1,50,000 people, but according to official estimate it would affect only 18,000 persons. Likewise, Tipaimukh project is displacing 40,000 people. In Arunachal Pradesh more than 20,000 would be displaced by the Siang project. In recent times, the Indian government is planning to set up a number development projects like dams in Northeast, contributing further towards the problem of internal displacement as well as ethnic conflicts. Are we ready for it?

Karmapa’s escape

It was a cosmic design and the 17th Karmapa, Orgen Trinley Dorji was just following his inner call as he prepared himself for the karmic inevitability. It was 11 pm on December 28, 1999, the Tibetan year of the rabbit, the supreme master of the Karma Kagyu sect of Tibetan Buddhism opened his bedroom window and disappeared in the dark. Over the following week, the 14-year old 17th Karma completes an arduous

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Sikkim

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ACT against dams

task of traveling to India’s Mcleodganj in Himachal Pradesh from the Tsurphu Monastery in Tibet, from the clutches of Chinese colonialists. Soon his great escape Tibet became public and the state, which was to be most excited, was Sikkim and one the greatest moments for the scores of Buddhists who have been missing his direct blessings till then. The Karmapa’s escape to India is the third event of its type. In 1959,

the 14th (and present) Dalai Lama had escaped Chinese iniquity to Nehru’s India. Earlier, in 1909, the 13th Dalai Lama had come to Lord Minto’s colonial government with similar complaints. Later it was learnt that after months of careful planning, on December 28, the fourteen-year-old Karmapa pretended to enter into a solitary retreat, and instead, donned civilian garb and slipped out a window. Leaving Tsurphu Monastery with a handful of attendants, he began a daring escape by car, foot, horseback, helicopter, train and taxi, a heroic journey, which was to become the stuff of headlines throughout the world. On January 5, 2000 he arrived, to the great surprise and overwhelming joy of the Buddhist world, in Dharamsala. But his mysterious escape from Tibet became a point of many debates and thus raised many an eyebrow over in the paradigm of diplomacy. Indian government allowed him everywhere. He has been permitted to engage in tours to Buddhist sites in India, and annually travels to Bodhgaya and Sarnath for important Kagyu ceremonies over which he presides. He has also travelled to Ladakh, Tibetan settlements in southern India, Calcutta and

Movements against dams in India no more a new thing, more so, when Medha Pateker like personalities join hands together with those against the Narmada dam and float Narmada Bachaw Andolan. But when only a hand few of people with extreme courage to iniate a movement against dam in a Lepcha reserve in North Sikkim, it is bound to draw international attention. Under the umbrella of the Affected Citizens of Teesta (ACT), a group of anti-dam activists were protesting against the implementation of hydel projects in Dzongu, a Lepcha reserve in North Sikkim. The activists, mostly from the Lepcha community, are having an eleven-point charter of demands that include a certified copy of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) studies report prepared by the Forest, Wild Life and Environment Management Department, government of Sikkim, and a certified copy of the Catch-

ment Area Treatment Plan prepared by the Forest, Wild Life and Environment Management Department of Sikkim government and approved by the Ministry of Environment and Forest, government of India. The French parliamentarian Jean Lassalle, who is also the president of the World Mountain People Association, an international network of mountaindwellers active in more than 70 countries, shot a letter to Prime Minister

Dr Manmohan Singh pointing out the contradiction involved in declaring a place a national park (Kanchendzonga National Park in Dzongu) and allowing its biodiversity to be destroyed by the proposed dams (the Panan hydroelectric project is coming up there). They were on fast for quite since June 20 but did not stop till the world around them took serious view of this matter. Hats off to you guys!!!

Split in NSCN – a new

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