The UN REDD program obscures the realities experienced by local communities through its representations to the public. They employ words with environmentally-friendly connotations to describe what includes environmentally-damaging activities.

Coalgate[1] was stupefying enough for me to watch Kala Pathar – the Yash Chopra classic about coal miners again. In the film a catharsis seeking Amitabh Bachchan, tells Rakhee, the resident mining town doctor, “Pain is my destiny and I can’t avoid it.”