Modernity

“Our vital traditions are being lost. They are bing ‘modernized’.” – A tribal mother’s concerns (interviewed for Survival International) in “Factory Schools: Destroying Indigenous People in the Name of Education” (accessed 28 March 2021)
https://www.survivalinternational.org/about/factoryschools
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=34514

“Name/Place/Animal/Thing”: National award winning film on the formerly nomadic Hakki Pikki tribal community – Karnataka

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The Hakki Pikkis (literally meaning bird hunters in Kannada) are a nomadic tribe of hunter-gatherers that once roamed the forests of the country. Nita Sathyendran, The Hindu, Thiruvananthapuram, 18 April 2018 | Read the full report here >> Film on Hakki Pikki tribals wins national awardNitin R. on his debut film, ‘Name/Place/Animal/Thing’ that won the … Read more

Vibrant contemporary writing from the north-eastern region: Overcoming marginalisation of culture and literature

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The poets from the north-eastern region have to meet the double challenge of truth and liberty, of identity and unity, of cultural loss and recovery, of ethnic specificity and aesthetic universality. ONLY in the last one decade or so has the vibrant contemporary writing from the north-eastern region written in many languages, including English—Assamese perhaps … Read more

Poet and novelist Mamang Dai: A member of a tribe of “ten thousand messengers / carrying the whispers of the world” – Arunachal Pradesh

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Mamang Dai (India, 1957) is a poet and novelist. She lives in Itanagar in the North-east Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. She has one collection of poetry, River Poems, to her credit. Her next collection, Midsummer-Survival Lyrics, is due for publication in 2011. She writes in English. […] Dai’s poetic world is one of river, forest and … Read more

“Our hunting, our economy and even our festivities were interlinked to iron smelting”: The Asur community’s last custodians of a traditional technique – Jharkhand

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Laldeo Asur passes his days basking in the mellow winter sun, his 70-year-old body now too frail for the rigours of village life. But it is not his advancing age he is too concerned about but the advance of modernity on his tribe, the Asurs. Laldeo knows that after him there will be none to … Read more

Fact checking | “Consent from tribals” for projects that affect sacred places of worship: Find up-to-date information on revised decision

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NEW DELHI: The government has diluted its stand on requiring consent from tribals before handing over their forestlands for projects in an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court on the Vedanta case. The changed policy cited in the affidavit of the government, contrary to existing regulations, could now make it easy for hundreds of other … Read more