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The Indian government has major plans for the Narmada River that starts in the Amarkantah plateau in Madhya Pradesh and runs out into the Arabian sea in Gujarat. These include 3200 dams of various sizes (30 of them large) along Narmada and her tributaries. This project will incur major environmental damage but and displace many thousands of people causing economic and social hardship.

On the night of 2nd - 3rd December 1984 40 tones of Methyl Iso Cyanate and other lethal gases leaked from Union Carbide's Bhopal Factory. This remains the worst industrial accident ever. It is estimated that 8 000 people died in the immediate aftermath, that the death toll to date is 16 000 and that 500 000 people's health has been adversely effected. The "gas effected" people of Bhopal still fight for justice and compensation.

Adivasi, which translates literally as 'first people', is a term that the tribes of India use to describe themselves. There are an estimated 220 million Indigenous people in the world, 67.7 million are in India, more than any other country. However, the Indian government have claimed there is no Indigenous people in India, or rather, the whole Hindu population is indigenous. As globalization and development projects affect India the Adivasi are coming under increasing pressure since their land and villages stand in the way of mining, dam and forestry projects.

Sunderlal Bahuguna was introduced to Gandhi's home rule movement at the age of 13, now at the age of 74 he is revered as one of the founding fathers of Indian's environmental movement. He was a founder and evangelist of the Chipko movement popularly known as 'tree hugging' around the world. For the last ten years Bahuguna has been campaigning against the construction of a large dam that will flood his native Tehri-Garhwal.