TRIBALS â 2007 - Indian Social Institute

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esources hindered them from securing proper education and health facilities at an early age. Thesurvey was conducted by the Tribal Research and Cultural foundation, a national organisationworking on Indian tribes. Extreme poverty, child labour, early marriage and nomadic way of lifewas leading to the bleak future of lakhs of nomadic Gujjar children residing in the Himalayanrange of Jammu & Kashmir, said Dr. Javaid Rahi, national secretary of the foundation.Summarising the concluded survey, he said that out of 100 nomad houses of Gujjar andBakerwal tribe surveyed in Poonch, Rajouri, Baramulla and Kupwara districts, a total of 74 percent Gujjar children between the age of 7 to 15 were engaged in physical labour. According to thesurvey the worst condition was of the children belonging to Ajjhari Gujjar (Shepherd) and ManjhiiGujjar (Buffalo keeper) tribes, 83 per cent of whom had not been to school and only 17 per centwere getting education at religious institutes. Atleast 17 per cent Gujjar children whoseforefathers were bonded labourers called Ajhrais among the Bakerwal tribe were doing the same.It was unfortunate that no governmental or NGO had brought the situation into light till date. Thenational literacy mission launched by the government in 1988 with the objective of all-rounddevelopment of poor children in India had failed to touch the Gujjar tribe, it said. (The Hindu15/11/07)From mountains to plains, Orissa tribals journey to protest against mining (6)NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 16: Representatives of the Dongria Kondhs, a primitive communitywith a total population of 12,000 residing on Niyamgiri mountains in Orissa, have come to Delhiwith a mission. They want to ensure that the Government does not give permission to VedantaResources to mine bauxite in the Niyamgiri hills. They have met a few parliamentarians andrepresentatives from the President’s office. They are awaiting appointments from the PrimeMinister and Sonia Gandhi’s office. The Supreme Court that has been hearing the case since2004, has decided to reserve the judgment for now. The SC bench comprising CJI K GBalakrishnan and Justices Arijit Pasayat and S H Kapadia had concluded the hearings of thecase by asking the company to give a written undertaking within a week that it would set aside5% of its net profits for tribal welfare. “These mountains are our life . We don’t know where to goonce the mining starts,” says Jeetu, one of the handful of those tribals who is educated and canspeak a few English words. “We cannot understand why our arguments were not heard in the lasthearing in the Supreme Court,” he added. They consider the mountains to be sacred. Theclearnace, if granted, will negate the findings of the Central Empowered Committee (CEC),appointed by the Court. They had pointed out that the forest land was cleared in violation of theForest Conservation Act for the Vedanta refinery. The hills were also repository of richbiodiversity and should not be destroyed for mining. Alternative sources could have been foundfor the refinery, they had contended. Based on the CEC report, last week, Norway Pension Funddecided to withdraw investments in the UK-listed Vedanta for alleged environmental and humanrights violations. Rallying under the banner of Kashipur Solidarity Group, the representatives ofthe tribals said in Delhi, “Allowing Vedanta Alumina Ltd to mine Niyamgiri hills would open thefloodgates for several mining projects and reinforce the view that adivasis can be sacrificed forprojects whose gains for the people at large will be minimum or even non-existent.” (IndianExpress 17/11/07)Death stalks tribals as drugs prove ineffective (6)GADIGUDA (ADILABAD DT.): Only providence can put people at so much disadvantage as in thecase of tribals of Narnoor mandal that accounted for a majority of the over 130 deaths have takenplace due to seasonal diseases over the last five months. People of this area, mostly children, arestruck with fevers including the malarial kind, their condition made worse by many other factorsthat should have been taken care of right at the beginning of the epidemic season. Though thereis some effort by the Health department to provide treatment at the ’door step’, deaths areoccurring at regular intervals. Medical teams that have been deployed in this remote area havefound the potency of the drugs going begging as children were found to be pale and moreimportantly famished. “How can a child bear the rather severe effect of drugs like chloroquine onempty stomach”, questioned a member of a medical team deputed to the villages. The case ofGadiguda where children and others have continued to die of fevers since June can serve as anexample of what went wrong and how it could be rectified. Mesram Dev Rao, the local Mandal
Parishad Territorial Constituency member, who suffering from ‘fever and cold’ said hediscontinued the medication because after the first dose of chloroquine he felt nausea . Hisneighbour Atram Sakrubai was unable to talk because of weakness. While Kanaka Jangubaisuffered since one month, her younger sister Anasuya could not return to her hostel post Diwalibecause of fever. Five children of Kanaka Maruthi are passing through the same hell. The listseems to be endless. The Medical Officer at Gadiguda Primary Health Centre (PHC) actuallyholds its additional charge that means he has to divide his time between the PHCs of his postingand of his charge. The medicine kit that special teams going around incorporate standard drugslike paracetamol, chloroquine used to cure fevers. There are no energisers that can take care ofthe ‘empty stomach’ for the time being. Food packets can be of much use under suchcircumstances. Besides, there has to be a mobile facility for carrying out diagnostic tests on thespot so that the treatment can be selective and not the present blanket kind. Communication hasto be improved. Consider the services of the EMRI’s 108 ambulance going waste just becausethe village does not have phone facility of any kind. (The Hindu 19/11/07)Ecologists “baffled” at Forest Act rules delay (6)NEW DELHI: Members of the Technical Support Group (TSG) have written to the Union TribalAffairs Minister to ensure speedy notification of the rules of the Scheduled Tribes And OtherTraditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition Of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 so that the legislation couldbe implemented. “As members of the TSG formed by your Ministry to draft the rules tooperationalise the Act, we are deeply disturbed by the baffling delay in the notification.” The Actwas passed unanimously by both Houses of Parliament 11 months ago and received Presidentialassent 10 days later. After the rules were drafted by the TSG (comprising ecologists,environmentalists, social scientists, government officials and social activists,) in May 2007, thegovernment held internal discussions and put out the MoTA Draft Rules for public scrutiny andcomment. The deadline for public comments was August 3. “The Act should not be seen as goingagainst the interests of conservation. It contains adequate safeguards for protecting flora/fauna inProtected Areas, going to the extent of permitting modification of the rights of forest dwellers(including physical relocation) in those areas within national parks and wildlife sanctuaries thatneed to be kept inviolate. However, this involves two steps, the prior and complete recognitionand vesting of rights, so that the residents of these areas are able to get full compensation incase they are subsequently displaced, followed by a case-by-case scientific and objectiveassessment including public consultation that human activity is harmful.” The longer the timelapse between the cut-off date of December 2005 and the notification, the more blurred theground situation would become. “There are already several reports of massive eviction of poorforest dwellers from areas occupied by them for generations, taking advantage of the delay in thenotification.” Signatories to the letter are Dr. S.R. Sankaran, chairperson, TSG on Rules, B.D.Sharma, Kumar Shiralkar, Madhav Gadgil, Madhu Sarin, Nandini Sundar, Pradip Prabhu, RamDayal Munda and Smita Gupta. (The Hindu 20/11/07)Chhattisgarh to nominate tribals to Assembly (6)Raipur: After having announced State language status for Chhattisgarhi, the Government is tryingto appoint a representative in the Assembly on the pattern of Anglo-Indians, on rotation from oneof the extremely backward tribal communities, sources said. The Tribal Advisory Council will senda proposal in this regard to the Central Government. This was decided at a meeting of the TribalAdvisory Council. The Chief Minister Raman Singh, sources said, strongly felt that a memberfrom the Baiga, Kamar, Birhore, Abujmadiya and Pahari Korba tribes should be appointed onrotation basis to the State Assembly. "The council will send its proposal but the final decision willbe taken by the Central Government," an official said. But we have initiated the process, headded. On November 1 the Government had announced official language status to Chhattisgarhiin the State. In fact with an eye on the Assembly polls the State Government is making an all outeffort to woo tribal voters accounting 32 per cent of the electorate. Besides, the tribal communityespecially from the remote areas had given massive support to the BJP in the previous Assemblypolls in 2003.(Pioneer 21/11/07)Adivasis, locals clash in Guwahati (6)
Page 8 and 9:
eported that around 30 per cent of
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Mr. Dinesh told PTI over phone. Pol
Page 12 and 13:
They said they will carry the logs
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designs as there was now awareness
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Rs 15,000 cr for Gujarat tribal dev
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the Janmanch leaders to the negotia
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Congress Committee submits that eve
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was formed to orchestrate the plans
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the highest green covers in the cou
Page 28 and 29: 10,48,669 tribal families go for lo
Page 30 and 31: play, was all praise for the stagec
Page 32 and 33: Bangalore, May 6: In a first-of-its
Page 34 and 35: we should not react to Mane and his
Page 36 and 37: Tribals happy over UNICEF project (
Page 38 and 39: the water for agricultural use to c
Page 40 and 41: Meanwhile, the Chhattisgarh Police
Page 42 and 43: Ratan and Dhirendra from Antarvelia
Page 44 and 45: festival was carried to numerous nu
Page 46 and 47: Addressing the gathering, prominent
Page 48 and 49: characterised by extreme poverty le
Page 51: Development Commissioner, Revenue S
Page 54 and 55: Tribal varsity Bill introduced in R
Page 56 and 57: 2006 gives rights to those who had
Page 58 and 59: government that the action against
Page 60 and 61: Rabindra Nath Jarika,VVM leader, Su
Page 62 and 63: Bhubaneswar : The tribals of backwa
Page 64 and 65: Jaipur : An interim order of the Ra
Page 66 and 67: Forest dwellers court arrest (6)New
Page 68 and 69: forest cover, it said. The matter w
Page 70 and 71: Minister promised them to look into
Page 72 and 73: Law Ministry officials, however, no
Page 74 and 75: and offered themselves for arrest.
Page 76 and 77: Salwa Judum. Home Minister Ram Vich
Page 80 and 81: Guwahati: One person was killed and
Page 82 and 83: Locals clashed with the rallyists w
Page 84 and 85: non-implementation of the Forest Ri
Page 86 and 87: gardens and Adivasi villages during
Page 88 and 89: state Government. But in the afterm
Page 90 and 91: have already claimed their rehabili
Page 92 and 93: educational institutions, markets a
Page 94 and 95: motivated to become his disciples.
Page 96 and 97: amenities," said Bratindi Jena of A
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TRIBALS â 2007 - Indian Social Institute