“India is home to nearly 20 Cr. [200 million] traditional forest-dwelling Adivasis and OTFDs [other forest dwelling communities], who derive their subsistence and livelihoods from forest and forest resources over several generations and thousands of years.” – Research team (Sayantani Satpathi, Shambhavi Singh & Subhodeep Basu) in “Revisiting the Forest Rights Act: Status of Implementation with respect to Land Tenures and Collection of Minor Forest Produce” (Bharat Rural Livelihoods Foundation New Delhi, 12 July 2019)
https://www.academia.edu/41756309
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=10151
ASHOKA, ELEPHANT BOY, Age 17Excerpts from Mother India’s Children by Edward Rice Sometimes India reminds me of the ocean. It looks like one great undifferentiated mass of people, like so many identical waves. To the tourists who jump from Calcutta to the Taj Mahal in Agra and then to Bombay, it is. All Indians look … Read more
Rights for forgotten tribes Predictably, public discourse on the Gujjar-state-Mina (as the census spells them) standoff in Rajasthan has centred on two, or, at best, three issues […] It is easy to forget, in the midst of all this noise, that the Minas are not the only Scheduled Tribes (STs) in Rajasthan. But everyone, ranging from … Read more
Source: Lachman Khubchandani in Indigenous Peoples: Responding to Human Ecology (pp. 14-15) | Free eBook download | Backup >> Indigenous Peoples: Responding to Human EcologyAuthor : Lachman KhubchandaniPublisher : Bhasha Centre and CIIL, 2009Pages : 130 Indigenous Peoples reflects on the current development crises in a framework of human ecology and discusses how Adivasis have responded. … Read more
Did you know? Three-quarters of the land-based environment and about 66% of the marine environment have been significantly altered by human actions. 1 million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction. | Learn more: https://www.un.org/en/observances/biological-diversity-day >> There is very little evidence that ecotourism in its present form is sustainable […] Tourism is inherently … Read more
The Green Revolution has changed life in Indian villages, but the main beneficiaries were the landlords. Daily labourers remain poor and marginalised. The limits of using ever more fertiliser and pesticides are becoming apparent. Many farmers are confused because extension services want them to re-consider practices they were told to abandon not that long ago. A … Read more