Old seeds festival “a pleasing sight and important”: Traditional farming methods not forgotten – Andhra Pradesh

Amazing variety of seeds protected by tribal people of Agency | Read the full article >> For people living in the plains variety is a few types of vegetables, paddy and millets and one believes that chemical fertilizers and pesticides alone can increase the yield and protect the crops. But a visit to the annual … Read more

India’s tribal citizens and the country’s urban mainstream: In search for schooling, work, food and dignity at home – Comment from New Delhi

Fragile lives, ferocious changes: The story of my Adivasi maidby Renuka Narayan An important position paper with policy recommendations on India’s tribal citizens is currently under consideration with Government. Its outcome interests me because though they don’t make them more ‘mainstream’ than I, my life as an urban gipsy startles friends who have lived in one house … Read more

A significant cultural moment among the Bodos: The literary rebirth of a compelling character in Indira Goswami’s novel “The Bronze Sword of Thengphakhri Tehsildar” – Assam

Indira Goswami’s novel on the legendary Bodo heroine Thengphakhri was not just about the life of a forgotten heroine, but also an attempt to reignite interest in an under-represented region of Assam’s history. I don’t remember exactly when Indira Goswami had announced to the Assamese media that she was orking on a novel about the … Read more

“Why India Needs Scheduled Tribes to Educate its Future Judges”: Adivasi rights and the the Indian constitution

The rights of adivasis in the Indian constitution are not an act of benevolence to “mainstream and uplift them” but a recognition that the “mainstream” of Indian society has many streams that flow into it, each of them equally valid. | To read the full essay by Nandini Sundar, click here >> […] At the … Read more

“A celebration of variety” in contrast with conservatism and separatism: Tagore’s pioneer work for rural education – Nobel Prize awardee Amartya Sen

Tagore and His Indiaby Amartya Sen, nobelprize.org (with permission from The New York Review, first published 28 August 2001) Voice of Bengal Rabindranath Tagore, who died in 1941 at the age of eighty, is a towering figure in the millennium-old literature of Bengal. Anyone who becomes familiar with this large and flourishing tradition will be impressed by the … Read more