A love story noted for gracefully navigating between tribal society and modernity: Kurukh language film “Edpa Kana” (Going Home) – Jharkhand

A young man loves a young woman of his own tribe but a different religion. They speak Kurukh but it seems a global audience in Kerala has understood them well, proving that the language of good cinema is universal. Edpa Kana (Going Home) is the first Kurukh language film to win a special jury mention … Read more

Embarking on a collaborative process: “The tapestry” of a common Scandinavian-Santal heritage spanning 150-years – Norway

Tone Bleie is Professor of Public Planning and Cultural Understanding at the University of Tromsø, in Northern-Norway. […] The Bodding Symposium is one of the current initiatives under this umbrella initiative. Another is an ongoing book project, which aims at rewriting the history of the Scandinavian-Santal pastoral enlightenment legacy – making the book readable and available … Read more

Training women as Health Workers and resource persons : Ashwini’s Community Health Programme for the tribal communities of Gudalur Valley (Nilgiri) – Tamil Nadu

A health program for the people by the people | For up-to-date information about Ashwini’s Community Health Programme, click here >> The intervention on the Health situation of Adivasis started with the training of tribal women as Health Workers. Tribal women, who were till the other day, considered only as manual workers, suddenly became the … Read more

“Take up the Green cause”: Kalakshetra has demonstrated the scope for creating an artificial forest with a wide variety of flora and fauna – Tamil Nadu

A Tamil couplet from Kannappar Kuravanji of Thozuvoor Markanda Naavalar I meditate on the divine forces of the wilderness, to whom the forest rituals are offered. O Mannaru Saami, O Mother Maari, Chamundi, Irulan, Sangile Karuppan – Your though delights me. Quoted from Pidhana – The Canopy of Life (Chennai, 2014, ISBN: 978-81-921627-3-7). This richly illustrated publication tells the story of the … Read more

The importance of one’s mother-tongue in primary education: Suitable teaching methods and textbooks

Imagine yourself as a child attending school only to realize that you cannot understand anything said by your teachers (and vice-versa) … Yet this has long been the unenviable situation faced by “tribal” children all over the world including India, a country whose constitution protects the right of children to learn through their mother tongue: Across the region, … Read more