-TheWire.in Since coming into effect 21 years ago, PESA has been grossly misused and underutilised, disenfranchising Adivasi communities all over the country. In India, tribal communities have had a long history of struggle, including during the colonial rule. In fact, the tribal war for independence has largely been ignored in the popular history of independent India. Today, most of us are not aware that the war of independence started as early as...

-The Hindu A recent Anthropological Survey of India (AnSI) publication has brought to the fore startling revelations about the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) in the country inc- luding the fact that no base line surveys have been conducted among more than half of such groups. “Our findings revealed shocking facts, of the 75 PVTGs, base line surveys exists for about 40 groups, even after declaring them as PVTGs,” states the publication:...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Accused of diluting the RTI Act and weakening the architecture of accountability, the Narendra Modi government has gone into overdrive to dispute the allegation that comes at a time it is already under attack for injecting further opacity into political funding. Some erroneous media reports on the proposed RTI Rules, 2017 - circulated by the department of personnel and training (DoPT) on March 31 and open for consultations...

-VillageSquare.in Recent amendments to laws that govern the use of land owned by tribals in Jharkhand has led to a rash of protests because local communities feel that they might lose their land and livelihoods to industrial development Last year in May, when the Jharkhand government announced to remove handcuffs from all the statues and pictures of Birsa Munda, the indigenous people of the state lauded the newly appointed first non-tribal chief...

Political commentaries and analyses about the recently concluded assembly elections in 5 states is not yet over. However, amidst the big debates and discussions on development and changing social dynamics, insufficient attention is being paid to the nutritional data that has been released early this year. Among the 5 states where assembly polls were conducted recently, it is the state of Uttar Pradesh that has the highest proportion of adult...