Nine of 10 mud-eating children are in the last stage of malnutrition. Eight of 10 people are deprived of every national social-security net and live with starvation and hunger. The average life span is 40 In April, the Hindustan Times revealed acute deprivation in the Uttar Pradesh village of Ganne, part of the former constituency of India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.   Now, a Supreme Court inquiry team that visited the area...

Tradition is hard to follow in the current jet age. The struggle to survive combined with the hectic demands of the modern day living are fast leaving behind the traditional cultural values which have been treasured by our ancestors. The exception to an extent was the rural Jharkhand. Even amidst the electronic blitzkrieg and cacophonic sounds emerging even from mobile phones the traditional music during various local festivals is still...

A team of experts from the Indian government has released a damning report on the activities of FTSE 100 company Vedanta Resources, and its plans to mine for bauxite on tribal land in Orissa, India. The report says Vedanta has broken the law and appears to have violated a Supreme Court order. It concludes that the company’s proposed bauxite mine ‘may lead to the destruction of the Dongria Kondh as a...

A United Nations report titled The State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples says the indigenous people and tribes worldwide are facing extinction and exploitation due to threats of displacement and dispossession of their lands, territories and resources. It takes note of the displacement of thousands of families of the Santhal Adivasis in the Indian State of Jharkhand as a result of extraction of minerals, without proper compensation or economic security. The...

At a time when there is growing concern about the causes of increasing discontent and alienation among tribals, it is important to recall a very important law for improving the governance of the Scheduled Areas in such a way as to protect the interests of tribals. The reference here is to the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act 1996 (briefly called the PESA law). If this Act had been properly...