*Friends,
Noted scholar, author and activist Smitu Kothari passed away today early
morning (India time 23rd March 6 a.m.). He died of a cardiac attack after
having undergone a heart surgery yesterday at AIIMS in Delhi. The cremation
will be held at Lodi Road electric Crematorium in South Delhi at 4pm on the
23rd March. *
**
*Smithu was attending a Delhi Solidarity Group meeting with Himalaya Niti
Abhiyan friends and others to discuss strategies and support for the
people's struggles in Himachal Pradesh against displacement, mining and
environmental destruction on the 20th afternoon, when he had a cardiac
attack. From Indian Social Institute, he was rushed to All India Institute
of Medical Sciences. He was discharged the same day as his ECG was found to
be normal. However, on 21st, doctors did detail investigations, where it was
found out that he had already developed a serious rupture on his main artery
and an immediate surgery was undertaken on the 22nd. However, that also
could not help him as he collapsed during post-operative care to a cardiac
arrest today early morning. *
Smitu Kothari is one of the founders of Lokayan ("Dialogue of the People"),
and Intercultural Resources, two centres in Delhi, India promoting exchange
between non-party political formations and concerned scholars and other
citizens from India and the rest of the world. Trained in physics,
communications and sociology, he is involved in ecological, cultural and
human rights issues striving to collectively forge a national and global
alternative that is socially just and ecologically sane. He has been a
visiting Professor at Cornell and Princeton Universities. He is President of
the International Group for Grassroots Initiatives and a Contributing Editor
of The Ecologist and of Development. He has published extensively on
critiques of contemporary economic and cultural development, the
relationship of nature, culture and democracy, developmental displacement,
people’s governance and social movements. Smitu was always a source of
inspiration and support to not just people's movements and struggles in
India, but also to voices of dissent and alternatives across the globe.
Among the books he has edited are: Voices of Struggle. Social Movements in
Asia (2006); Voices of Sanity, In Search of Democratic Space (2002); A
Watershed in Global Governance? An Independent Assessment of the World
Commission on Dams; The Value of Nature: Ecological Politics in India
(2003); Out of the Nuclear Shadow (with Zia Mian, 2001); Rethinking Human
Rights: Challenges for Theory and Action (1991); and, The Non-Party
Political Process: Uncertain Alternatives (with H. Sethi, 1988); He was
currently working on a new book, Ecological Justice: Nature, Culture and
Democracy.
--
Vijayan MJ
Delhi Forum
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