To Smt Sarada Muraleedharan Chief Secretary Govt of Kerala Dear Smt Muraleedharan, I have come across a distressing news report that indicated "forest department officials responsible for demolishing three tribal huts at…
It has come to our attention that the Home Ministry of Chhattisgarh Government, via a circular dated 30 October 2024 has banned Moolwasi Bachao Manch, Bastar, stating it to be…
On Gandhi Jayanti yesterday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched 'Dharti Aaba Janjati Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan' in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand. In this campaign, schemes worth Rs 83,300 crores will be implemented for…
To Dr G.S Bhardwaj,Additional Director General of Forests (Project Tiger),Member Secretary,National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) New Delhi Subject: Objection to the NTCA's directive for the relocation of tribal communities from…
On August 21, Dalit organizations across the country have called for a Bharat Bandh. This protest is in response to the Supreme Court’s order on August 1, which granted state…
According to the Home Minister, Amit Shah, 250 security camps have been established in Bastar after 2019. There are camps roughly at a distance of every 2 or 5 km,…
On August 9, 2001, in Colombia, riot police and private security forces from the Cerrejón coal mine — one of the largest open-pit coal mines in the world — surrounded…
Early in the morning, after getting out of bed, I often pick up my mobile phone. While checking my missed calls and messages, I noticed two messages in the form…
by Dr Khwaja Ziyauddin and Dr Md Afroz August 9 is Adivasi Divas, a celebration of the indigenous peoples of India that draws attention to their ongoing struggles and the…
On 23rd March 2024, on Bhagat Singh-Rajguru-Sukhdev’s martyrdom day, Forum Against Corporatization and Militarization (FACAM) conducted Adivasi Adhikar Sabha at Ambedkar Bhawan, Delhi. FACAM is a joint platform of 15+…
As we moved a away from the starting point of the Bundelkhand Expressway and a famous pilgrimage site into a side-road, the hills of Chirakut here appeared to be more…
Welfare schemes meant for the scheduled castes have a very high priority in India in any development framework committed to social justice. However recent data confirm the need for better…
The Odisha Government has recently proposed to bring a major change in the Odisha Scheduled Areas Transfer of Immovable Property (by STs) Regulation, 1956. The amendment aims at allowing a…
Today the Modi government is celebrating ‘Tribal Pride Day’ across the country in the name of ‘Virsa Munda Jayanti.’ According to an article published by Union Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun…
In the vast tapestry of the 21st century world, a multitude of tribal communities, numbering a staggering 370 million, dot various corners of the globe, with India alone harboring 104…
It is well known that RSS has always been calling Adivasis as Vanvasis (forest dwellers) instead of Adivasis. There is a great trick behind this which needs to be understood.…
Last year, I had the opportunity to work with the youth from the indigenous/ tribal more aptly called the Adivasi communities in India in the Nilgiris Biosphere Reserve across the…
Abstract Determining Scheduled Areas under the Fifth Schedule of Article 244 of the Constitution has been left largely to administrative and political interpretations. Mired in ambiguities, most often adverse, this…
There is so much cacophony on ‘development’, that shrieking voices dissolve the milder ones, as bulldozers transform landscapes, and brush away healing sources of life along with the people who…
All-India Fact-Finding Team observes grave violations of Adivasi rights in Nagarahole Tiger Reserve, even as PM ‘celebrates’ 50 years of ‘Project Tiger’. Calls for immediate measures to uphold rights of Adivasis…
To Smt Droupadi Murmu President of India Rashtrapati Bhawan Subject:- Migrant Gutti Koyas (Murias) in Telangana facing a humanitarian crisis- Urgent need for recognition of their Constitutional rights in Telangana, AP,…
To Ms Leena Nandan Secretary Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change (MEFCC) Govt of India Dear Ms Nandan, I understand that your Ministry has taken action to introduce a…
Rahul Gandhi’s in one of his recent statements about Adivasis said “The people of BJP don’t call you Adivasi. What do they call you? Vanvasi. They don’t tell you that…
At a time of increasing economic inequalities and ecological ruin, the search for alternative development paradigms has increased and an important aspect of these efforts has been to learn more…
Book review : Being Adivasis: Existence, Entitlements, Exclusion edited by Abhay Flavian Xaxa and G. N. Devy, New Delhi, Penguin, 2021, 208 pp., 699 (Hardcover), ISBN 9780670093007 …
After taking the oath of office of the President of India, Droupadi Murmu said: “My election is proof of the fact that the poor in India can have dreams and …
How will you feel if someone promises to remove an injustice you have suffered for years, but in the end leaves you suffering even more than before? Something similar appears…
Letter to the Prime Minister on the occasion of the Janjatiya Gaurav Divas (national Tribal Day) on November 15, 2021 To Shri Narendra D Modi Prime Minister Dear Shri Modi,…
Thousands of Adivasis involved in the “Pathalgari Movement” were criminalized for fighting for their collective rights to self-determination and protection of their lands, territories, and natural resources in Jharkhand State…
Podu cultivation is a traditional way of “shifting agriculture” in forests being practiced from ages and generation to generation. Lakhs of forest dwellers are solely dependent on this type of…
In 1996 India took a great step forward in terms of empowering rural tribal communities, a step which moreover was very much in continuity with Gandhian traditions of gram swaraj…
The population of Tribals (Scheduled Tribes) in Uttar Pradesh is 11.35 lakhs of which 80% are landless. That is why the Forest Rights Act - 2006 and Rules 2008…
Written by K.M. Seethi & Elizabeth Abraham The social landscape and livelihood options in the tribal habitats in Kerala have changed tremendously in the last several decades. This transformation has…
Many commentators on land and forest rights, including former senior government officials, have expressed serious concern at the land alienation suffered by tribal farmers and the dilution of…
Written by Aman Rathi, Ashutosh Rungta and Darpan Jain It was a fine morning, about 4 AM, in a remote village named Beliyapal, in the state of Chhattisgarh. Shiv Kumari,…
One million animal and plant species face extinction due to human activity, according to the United Nations. Now, think about cultural production—art and literature that we have invested to address…
In the not-too-distant past, there was a very senior official . He was an official of his own kind, very devoted to the welfare of the poorest people. He led…
Commemorating 25th anniversary of spark ignited in Padmagiri-Pandaripani landmark struggle This week we commemorate 25 years since the launching of the peasant struggle in Padmagiri Pandaripani in Malkangiri in Orissa…
Co-Written by Dr. Anamika Roy, Dr. Chandrima Chatterjee & Dr. Parul Malik The tribal population of India comprises of the indigenous people dwelling in the hinterlands who are sometimes extremely…
MAHILA KISAN ADHIKAAR MANCH (MAKAAM) or Forum for Women Farmers’ Rights condemns and expresses deep concern over the increasing incidence of violence, harassment and atrocities against adivasi and other traditional…
by Pranab Doley, Jacinta Kerketta, Deme Oraon, Gladson Dungdung, Sharanya and Rajaraman Sundaresan A recent protest, through a petition endorsed by around 300 Adivasi leaders, academics, activists, environmental groups and…
The 24th edition of the Kolkata international film festival, held in November 2018, showed a surprisingly large number of films from Australia, which has never been counted among the foremost…
Co-Written by Dibyendu Chaudhuri and Parijat Ghosh Deskilling is a process of elimination of skilled labour within an economy. Separation of intelligence from muscle helps ruling class dominating both…
Whereas previously SC affirmed indigenous people’s inalienable rights to their land, it now orders their eviction from their land unilaterally There are three significant SC judgments on the indigenous…
Today, the Campaign for Survival and Dignity, a national platform of adivasi and forest dwellers' organisations, decided on a national Wave of Struggle over the next two weeks against…
The Human Rights Forum (HRF) rejects the atrocious February 13 order of the Supreme Court that calls for eviction in a summary and time-bound manner of those whose claims for…
A Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra has ordered eviction of Adivasis and other forest dwelling communities from the ‘forest’ regions whose claims for entitlement have been rejected…
Supreme Court Order for Eviction of a million forest dwellers in more than 16 states perpetuates ‘Historical Injustice’ ! BJP-led Union government jeopardizes the interests of country's forest dependent people…
Today we celebrate World Indigeneous people’s day but in the backyard of the biggest democracy of the world is the systematic isolation and displacement of millions of adivasis in the…
Not many people may have witnessed the beauty of forests, but it is certainly something that everyone knows something about. In the narrative of climate change and the destruction wrought…
One does not have to read Marx to understand how debt-based money in the form of credit to corporations, - chosen by banks on the basis of their ability to…
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