Category: Community Blog

Dharna Blog August 13, Day 18 The dharna site was quiet today, the mood steady but resigned to waiting. Meanwhile Rasheeda bi, Shalini, Rachna and Sathyu were able to get around 20-25 more endorsements of our petition by parliamentarians, and the personal secretaries of some MPs helped us access other parliamentarians. It was hard to…

Dharna Blog Day 21 – 16 August 2010 Rachna and Shalini set out early morning for the Parliament.  They have been visiting the Parliament since last week in order to get endorsements from different Members of Parliaments. A week later, both of them seem to know a lot more of the Parliament and its many…

Dharna Blog Day 17: 11 August, 2010 Braving the humidity and heat all of us once again marched to Jantar Mantar in the morning from our night home, the shelter house at St’ Columbus School.  Once there, Mamu, Vikas and others put up the temporary tent and we all sat down together for our morning…

Dharna Blog Day 16 – Aug 10, 2010 Part 2 (political update by Kaveri) Shalini and Rachna went to the parliament today morning. The night before, Sandeep Dixit had informed us that there was to be a discussion on the gas disaster in Lok Sabha, and we’d send him some relevant documents. However, we didn’t…

Dharna Blog Day 15, Aug 9 –by Garima Today was an exceptionally cheerful day at the dharna sthal as about 70 new faces from Bhopal had replaced the previous batch. Sakina and Sana did yet another round of AIIMS hospital for Sana’s tumor operation and have finally been given a date for the operation. They…

Dharna Blog Day 16: Aug 10, 2010 – part 1 (Life at the Dharna) by A.R. Corwin It’s hard to tell from the photos the exact atmosphere of the Dharna. Sitting in Jantar Mantar on a humid day, only part of the area shaded by a nearby tree, where the temperature reached 97 degrees F/…

Dharna Blog Day 14: August 8 The world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming it. –Helen Keller More than what I see in the physical presence of the dharna is what I try and understand about the feelings of the people who have been here at the dharna this year. I…

Dharna Blog Day 12: Aug 6, 2010 As with many days, the day began with the dawn of interacting with the children of Delhi. Unlike most days, they came to us. Students from the Millenium School came to visit Jantar Mantar, not our dharna per se. The students were walking around Jantar Mantar and they…

Dharna Blog Day 8: 2.08.10 Today our dharna took a dramatic turn as a fresh batch of around 150 people came in from Bhopal, fresh with determination and strength. Some like Bano Aapa, were returning, having been in the first group that inaugurated this dharna on July 26. This group joined some people who had…

Dharna Blog Day 13: Aug 7, 2010 Rachna and Shalini visited parliamentarian Abni Roy who has been to the dharna sthal and been very supportive up to now. He wrote a detailed letter to the Prime Minister asking for a set of steps to be taken around Bhopal, based on our demands. The girls wanted…

Dharna Blog Day 11: Aug 5, 2010 The morning began once again with a visit to St Mary’s School by Rachna, Yasmeen and Safreen. The school didn’t have electricity, so no film screening was possible, and the children described the gas disaster instead and talked about the issues they faced. The big event of the…

Dharna Blog Day 10: 4.08.2010 Today we went about the laborious process of reassembling Sana’s documents, lost as they were when the police raided the dharna sthal on August 2. This took all day, with the help of Arun Paswan, an aide of Ram Vilas Paswan, and involved much standing in interminable queues of people…

Dharna Blog Day 9: 3.08.10 The oppressive humidity of the last few days was offset today by a cool breeze, making the Bhopal dharna sthal positively enjoyable today. Much exchanging of notes about losses, bruises and confusion from our eviction by the police last night took place. BJP party workers came over again to sit…