India plans 280m mega-dam

STOCKPILE: LATEST MOVE IN COUNTRY'S CONTEST WITH CHINA OVER HIMALAYAN WATER

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CONTESTED. A woman walks past farmlands facing potential risk of submersion owing to the Siang Upper multipurpose project on the Siang River, a proposed hydroelectric mega-dam project, at Riew village in the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, India. Picture: AFP

(AFP)

On a football field ringed by misty mountains, the air rang with fiery speeches as tribesmen protested a planned mega-dam — India's latest move in its contest with China over Himalayan water.

India says the proposed new structure could counteract rival China's building of a likely record-breaking dam upstream in Tibet by stockpiling water and guarding against releases of weaponised torrents.

But for those at one of the possible sites for what would be India's largest dam, the project feels like a death sentence.

"We will fight till the end of time," said Tapir Jamoh, a resident of the thatch-hut village of Riew, raising a bow loaded with a poison-tipped arrow in a gesture of defiance against authorities. "We will not let a dam be built."

Jamoh's homelands of the Adi people are in the far-flung northeastern corner of India, divided from Tibet and Myanmar by soaring snowy peaks.