By: Rina Chandran,
Date: 14 July 2016
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
India's ambitious plans to develop infrastructure, mining and renewable energy threaten to force more of the most marginalised groups from their homes, widening inequality and fanning tensions, a global research group warned on Thursday.
Development activities uproot about 15 million people in their own countries every year, with India accounting for some of the highest numbers of those displaced, the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) said in a report.
About 65 million people were displaced in India by dams, highways, mines, power plants and airports between 1950 and 2005, the IDMC said, but less than a fifth of those have been resettled, leading to protests, hunger strikes and conflict.
India's development plans, requiring 11 million hectares of land over the next 15 years, are likely to stoke tensions, IDMC cautioned.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's plan to create 100 "smart cities" that provide hi-tech solutions to urban living, will also lead to "significant" displacement, it said.
"Development is set to continue causing displacement, and on an unprecedented scale," said IDMC, which is part of the Norwegian Refugee ...