Tongam Rina

Not even bullets can silence Tongam Rina --- in July 2012 she received one in the stomach which grazed her spinal cord. A gunman and his accomplices waited for her at the entrance to the Arunachal Times in Itanagal, the capital of Arunachal Pradesh state. Almost 2 years later, the man assumed to be behind the attack was arrested and later released. The reason invoked, but never confirmed: Rina, the newspaper’s associate editor, had not highlighted him and his activities in her paper. Now recovered from her injuries, she continues her fight against endemic corruption and against the 150 dam projects in the pipeline in the border region.