-Down to Earth The nomadic pastoral communities cannot afford to remain in their houses even during a pandemic The second wave of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has ravaged livelihoods of people in urban areas. Its has now quietly started to wreak havoc on the lives of people in rural areas. Across the country, villagers are brushing off symptoms of COVID-19 as seasonal flu. The crumbling health infrastructure fails to provide them...

-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...