Dreams of mega development herald disaster for the highly vulnerable Great Nicobar Island, the southernmost and largest landmass in the chain that makes up the Nicobar Islands. A Rs.72,000 (now Rs. 82,000) crore project that is planned for the development of this island will result in destroying both the island’s delicate rainforest ecosystem and its indigenous people. In The Great Nicobar Betrayal, Pankaj Sekhsaria, one of the best known chroniclers of contemporary issues in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, has compiled a set of articles written by various experts across publications that examine the proposed project from multiple angles - environmental, geological, impact on local communities, law, due process, and ecology. Together, these pieces shed light on the magnitude of the disaster that will be unleashed on this pristine place if the project comes through. The book is a warning and a catalogue of the manmade catastrophe that lurks on the horizon, one that will destroy more than the tsunami of December 2004 ever did.
In the presentation Sekhsaria underlines both the fragility and vulnerability of the island and also explain why he and many others have called the project a mega folly and an unprecedented disaster.
Zoom Link: https://icts-res-in.zoom.us/j/97905541987?pwd=SipMVsuivvuXWz1ekg5jq7LYlbpJel.1
Meeting ID: 979 0554 1987
Passcode: 714382