Landless Kol tribe forest dwellers: Permission required to plant or use trees such as neem, amla and mahua – Uttar Pradesh

Though the Kols are anthropologically tribal, they are recognized as a Scheduled Caste in Uttar Pradesh. Not only has this deprived them of their traditional source of living-the forest, it has largely left them dependant and landless, languishing in silica quarries and sand mines. The Kols mainly inhabit the backward Bundelkhand and Baghelkhand regions bordering … Read more

An environment minister’s call for a change in the colonial outlook: “Forests, tribal forest dwellers and life forms living in forests complement one another and are not rivals”

Forests, tribals and wildlife are not rivals, says [former] environment minister Anil Madhav Dave addressing senior-level forest officers at the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) in Dehradun The meeting of state forest secretaries to develop mitigation measures for faster green clearances for projects in wildlife habitats, which began today, saw the environment minister Anil Madhav Dave … Read more

Updates on the Convention on Biodiversity: Conservation to be “connected to livelihood” – Hyderabad biodiversity pledge

Goa villages to document biodiversity PANAJI: Goa has become the second State after Kerala to constitute Biodiversity Management Committees in most of its village panchayats, according to Pradip V. Sarmokadam, Member Secretary, Goa State Biodiversity Board.The move is aimed at forming People’s Biodiversity Registers (PBRs) in villages, which as many as 75 villages are already … Read more

An education programme for children from 62 tribal groups: Enabling “Bhasa Sikshak” language teachers to combine children’s mother tongue with Odia and English – Odisha

Source: Bhasa Sikshaks who teach tribal children in Odisha innovatively by Natasha Badhwar, The Hindu (Magazine), 23 April 2016Address: https://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/natasha-badhwar-on-bhasa-sikshaks-who-teach-tribal-children-in-odisha-innovatively/article8508587.eceDate Visited: 9 August 2020 To be taught in a language other than one’s own has a negative effect on learning. [Starting a child’s education in the mother tongue] allows teachers and students to interact naturally and … Read more

“Tribal communities have a much deeper and a live sense of nature, living organisms, climate and material”: Veteran architect Narendra Dengle on architecture as an art – Maharashtra

Source: “Poetry in architecture” by Harish Kabra, The Hindu, July 29, 2007Address: https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-sundaymagazine/poetry-in-architecture/article2275459.eceDate Visited: 27 December 2020 There are 16 tribes in Nagaland, each with different architectural traditions. Each has responded efficiently to climatic challenges, dovetailed with cultural needs and providing a nurturing matrix for ordinary life. That each produced uniquely beautiful buildings is not … Read more