The environmental group researched the project in an attempt to find out whether the expressway's construction would provide as much support to the region's economy as the companies and government officials claimed. When the facts did not match up, Saldahna said his group alerted the local population, educating those whom the route would affect. In the end, a non-violent grassroots resistance movement succeeded in keeping the corporations out. For this reason, his group attacks almost any and all local problems brought about by India's booming globalization process. Jobs are being lost in the hundreds of thousands.
Jobs allow families to exist and families are what societies are made of.
Within the last month, he said, seven farmers have committed suicide in Karnataka alone. Coconut plantations are razed by the acre to make way for power plants and other foreign-imposed projects, the activist said. But Saldahna also sees hope for the local populations of his country, citing a case in 1999 when farmers protested the proposed construction of a U.S.-owned Cogentrix power plant.