-RuralIndiaOnline.org Maharashtra police detained five traditional herders from Kachchh on January 7 suspecting these semi-nomadic pastoralists were smuggling camels to slaughterhouses in Hyderabad. Also detained: 58 camels “We have not confiscated these 58 camels,” asserts Inspector Ajay Akare, in charge of the Talegaon Dashasar police station in Amravati district. “We don’t have the powers to do so since Maharashtra has no specific law against cruelty to these animals.” “The camels,” he says, “are...

-Frontline The Living and Learning Design Centre in a Kutch village is about dialogue between contemporary designers and traditional artisans and about keeping crafts relevant. Kutch: “WHY here? Why a design centre of such sophistication in a small village off a highway?” The answer flashes in one’s mind at the same time: “Because that’s the most logical and relevant place for it.” The answer is validated a while later in a...

In a small pastoral vand (hamlet) in Kutch, Gujarat, 10 year old Ramu wakes up at five in the morning. His mother serves him a hasty breakfast of bajra rotis after which he is packed off to the pasturelands surrounding their small hamlet to graze the family's buffaloes. Since his village does not have a working school, grazing the livestock is gainful employment from the point of view of Ramu's...