The Todas, their cultural traditions and the Nilgiri biosphere – Tamil Nadu

Dharmalingam Venugopal (Honorary Director of Nilgiri Documentation Centre) writes in The Hindu, September 17, 2011: The Todas and the Kotas of the Nilgiris have managed to preserve their strikingly unique culture in the face of relentless development. […] The World Heritage Committee of the United Nations has deferred India’s request to declare the Western Ghats as … Read more

Reduce the trust deficit between the administration and the tribals in India’s “rurban” country: Former Minister for Rural Development

Source: “Cities and Migration”, UN-HabitatURL: https://unhabitat.org/gccm-cities-and-migrationDate Visited: 22 August 2023 Most Indian cities—of which 59 have populations of over a million people—lack adequate housing, sanitation, clean water, health care, education, public transport, trees and shade. According to the UN, in 2020 roughly half of India’s urban households lived in slums. This is a huge problem. … Read more

Listen patiently to the tribals, with their immense knowledge and creativity: The key to preserving nature while ending widespread exploitation and stigmatization of women

In contemporary practice, the tribal memory is greatly undermined. There is general insistence that tribal children attend schools where non-tribal children attend schools, that they use medicines manufactured for others and that they adopt common agricultural practices. All because the world has very little time to listen patiently to the tribals, with their immense knowledge … Read more

UNESCO World Heritage tag and the need for maintaining a “plant corridor” to save the original species and vegetation of Western Ghats from destruction

Source: Raviprasad Kamila in “Support Unesco tag to save Western Ghats (The Hindu, 11 August 2012)Address : https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Mangalore/article3753612.eceDate Visited: 11 October 2020

New light on hunter-gatherers in Narmada Valley, Indus Valley Civilisation and modern India’s cultural and linguistic diversity: Anthropological Museum Kolkata – West Bengal

A new museum in Kolkata tells the tale of how modern humans in the Indian subcontinent evolved from ancestors who arrived about 12.3 million years ago from Africa, during the Pleistocene era. Set up by the Anthropological Survey of India (AnSI), the museum traces the history of human evolution in this part of the world through … Read more