-Firstpost.com For marginalised communities, modern education is a precious asset and a way for acquiring socio-economic mobility in an unequal society In the past few weeks, several students belonging to marginalised communities such as Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) have received offers to study in prestigious universities abroad including Royal Holloway London, Oxford University, SOAS, London, among others. However, privatisation in education has meant that the amount of wealth required for...

-IndiaSpend.com To set up big commercial, tourism and shipping projects in the islands, the Centre has taken measures that could affect the region's unique biodiversity and ethnicity New Delhi: The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are often pictured as a lush, tropical tourist paradise. But recent government moves may strip the protections that the ecologically and ethnically significant archipelago enjoys, in order to make way for big business, shipping and tourism projects, documents...

-The Hindu With basic survival at stake, the vulnerable Sabar tribe of Lalgarh have little stomach for elections A tube well and a few houses under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana are new additions to Punapani village in Lalgarh, which lost seven people of the Sabar community in November 2018, reportedly due to hunger and malnutrition. Election posters and flags are not visible in Sabar basti which is part of the Jhargram Assembly...

Preliminary findings of a survey among 3,994 respondents from 11 states reveal that most vulnerable households and communities, such as SCs, STs, OBCs, PVTGs, slum dwellers, daily wage labourers, farmers, single women headed households, etc. continue to witness depressed incomes during September-October in comparison to their income levels prior to the lockdown. The face-to-face survey conducted by the Right to Food Campaign and Center for Equity Studies (instead of telephonic...

-IndiaSpend.com Garhwa district, Jharkhand: Bhagiya Birjia is in a fix. Each month, the 42-year-old farm labourer gets 35 kg food grains under Antyodaya Anna Yojana--a scheme meant to provide food security for the poorest Indians--on account of being a member of the Birjia tribe, designated a ‘Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group’ (PVTG). But she is forced to share the grains with seven members of her brother’s family, who live a short walk away...