India … Modi … Adani … the Gond … & The Washington Post …

… very gratified to be a part of a significant political and environmental story crafted and published yesterday by The Washington Post.

The story … by journalists Gerry Shih, Karishma Mehrotra and Anant Gupta and accompanied by two of my images from Chhattisgarh, India … is entitled “India Cracks Down on Critics of Coal”. The lengthy story documents how India’s Modi government is using state power to help Gutam Adani expand his coal operations in the country and silence the voices of NGO’s and other critics both Internationally and internally.

A large focus of the story is the destruction of the Hasdeo Arand forest in Chhattisgarh state central India by the expansion of open cut coal mines already operating or planned … with Adani a major player. It also documents the special relationship between Gutam Adani and India Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the impacts on any opposition to coal expansion.

In 2019 I wrote and illustrated a story on the impact of the destruction of the Hasdeo Arand, the effects on the Gond tribal people who have called it home for centuries and the plans for many more coal mines in the pristine forest area, home to elephants, jaguars and other wild life. The story was featured in The Guardian (main story and a photo gallery) and several other International publications including CNN, Italy’s ‘Corriere Della Sera’ newspaper, ‘Orion’ environmental magazine and more. The Washington Post story updates the situation in my original story and expands into how the Indian government is cracking down on any dissent, be it International NGO’s or Indian Nationals, as Adani and others carve up the profits from unbridled coal expansion.

It is a worrying, troublesome but important and fascinating read … highly recommended … and may be found here … https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/06/05/india-coal-adani-modi-crackdown/  (no subscription required). My two supporting images from the Hasdeo Arand forest are shown below.

Images © Brian Cassey – publication The Washington Post

The Washington Post story on India crack down on critics of coal - Adani & the Gond - images by Brian Cassey
The Washington Post story on India crack down on critics of coal - Adani & the Gond - images by Brian Cassey

Covid, Adani, Global Climate Catastrophe … CNN and Me …

… great to be part of a massive Covid-19 story of global importance just published on CNN.

The story entitled ‘The One Chance We Have’ delves into the story of how … during the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent confusion and devastation of the global economy … fossil fuel producing countries are injecting taxpayer money into propping up polluting industries that are hastening an earlier climate catastrophe. 

The story uses vignettes from four fossil fuel producing countries … Canada, Poland, Australia and India … to substantiate the premise that ‘The pandemic gave the world a golden opportunity to fix the climate crisis. We’re about to waste it.’

My work appears in the ‘India’ segment … and comprises six of the images I made just on a year ago in Chhattisgarh … set amongst a lengthy story (somewhat based on my original words but ‘updated’) on the destruction of the Hasdeo Arand forest and the Gond tribal population by Indian mining giant Adani hand in hand with Modi’s government.

My images and words from Chhattisgarh have previously been published in The Guardian (here and here), in Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera (here) and elsewhere.  Very gratifying to see the work picked up again.

I must stress that this current story on CNN is a great and incredibly important piece of journalism and is well worth a look (at the images) and a good long read. Please do … there is far too much in the story to go into here and the implications for the future of the planet are chilling. 

I’m joined pictorially in the piece (in the ‘Australian’ section of the story) by Aussie based colleagues David Maurice Smith and Matthew Abbott. Hi Guys !

Thanks CNN for the important story and for using my work to help illustrate it. Thanks yet again to my fixer/friend Srienivas Akella from Mumbai … brilliant travelling with you.

Below … images (3 of my 6) © Brian Cassey … from the CNN story ‘The One Chance We Have’.

CNN story 'The One Chance We Have' on Covid-19 pandemic hastening a global climate catastrophe - images by Brian Cassey

CNN story 'The One Chance We Have' on Covid-19 pandemic hastening a global climate catastrophe - images by Brian Cassey