by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Image for representation (Image: PTI)
Ahmedabad : Hundreds of tribals from six districts of Gujarat gathered here at the Sabarmati riverfront and took out a rally demanding implementation of Forest Rights Act (FRA), Food Security Act (FSA) and MNREGA.
They handed over a memorandum to the Ahmedabad collector, seeking land ownership under
Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006.
Leading the protest march of around 7,000 to 8,000 tribals, who came from the eastern belt districts of Banaskantha, Sabarkantha, Aravalli, Mahisagar, Dahod and Panchmahals, the Eklavya Sangathan threw light on the protesters’ demands.
According to Eklavya Sangathan, only 40 per cent or 73,921 tribals have been given Jamin Adhikar Patras (land rights certificate). Whereas, the rightful claims under Forest Rights Act of as many as 1,08,948 others have been rejected for various reasons.
A total of 73921 (40.4%) farmers have been given such Adhikar Patras, according to the Gujarat government data.
“They cannot reject a claim, when an application is already verified by the Gram Sabha and submitted at block office,” Bansi Solanki, the convener of the Eklavya organisation, told IANS.
The protesters also demanded their rights under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee Act (MNREGA) and Food Security Act (FSA).
“The tribals are being denied their rights under MNREGA and FSA also in tribal regions for years. We have been demanding our rights for several years but to no avail. We are giving Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani a last chance and hope he takes action. Otherwise, we will show our strength in the forthcoming general elections,” Paulomee Mistry, general secretary of Eklayva Sangathan asserted.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Entrepreneurship, Home-Based Business, Women Entrepreneur
By Kushagra Dixit,
Bandha Tola (Kanha Tiger Reserve) : Dependent on the forest for their day-to-day needs, women of Bandha Tola faced an uncertain future when their whole village, along with hundreds of other such Baiga tribal villages, was moved out of their traditional habitat in the jungles of this famous tiger reserve in central India’s Madhya Pradesh state. But today they feel empowered and foresee a bright future for their forest-dependent tribe and cherish the fact that, despite being relocated, their culture and traditions are alive and flourishing.
Their confidence stems from a small but powerful initiative to market the rare tribal jewellery, handmade by Baiga women, outside this tribal belt for the first time in history.
A brainchild of the Kanha Tiger Reserve’s administration and the Last Wilderness Foundation (LWF), this initiative is not only improving the lives of one of the poorest tribes of India and giving them confidence to compete with others, but it has also brought tribal jewellery into homes of people who have started appreciating the dying art.
“The response is outstanding as people love it and the demand has increased,” say the forest officials.
Sunita Dhurve, a 25-year-old mother of one, says she had no idea that people from big cities would like their work. “It’s as if they liked our culture.”
“We (Baiga) make our own jewellery. It hardly takes a few hours to make these necklaces. If we work as labourers, it gets us Rs 100 for an entire day’s work, time and energy; beside there is no honour as those contractors and other people from big cities look down upon us. But to make necklaces is something we can do at home while doing other household chores,” Dhurve told this IANS correspondent.
She makes necklaces and bracelets from the material provided by the Last Wilderness Foundation, which also collects the artefacts from her to sell them at souvenir shops and e-marketplaces.
Started in October 2017 with just one Baiga woman, the project has gained momentum over the last year and currently around 50 women from three different villages — all situated less than 10 km from the forest’s core area — make colourful bracelets and necklaces, earning their own livelihood.
“It’s great to have our own source of income. Now I am not dependent on my husband for money. I have my own savings and I don’t have to make him happy for every small thing that I need,” quips Sanju Bopche, another tribal woman.
She adds that the first things she bought from her savings was some make-up for herself and a toy for her son from the weekly market at a nearby town.
Even as women feel empowered just by doing what they had always loved to do, a new sense of awakening is evident as they now think of future in terms of more wages for their craftsmanship and entrepreneurship.
While the foundation provides them all the material that they require, they earn some Rs 50-100 per piece. The jewellery is, however, sold for Rs 600 to Rs 1,000 at different souvenir shops and resorts in Mukki zone of the Kanha Tiger Reserve, as well as on e-commerce platforms.
For 16-year-old Indravati, who learnt jewellery-making from her mother Pramodini, Rs 50 or Rs 100 is not enough.
“It may be enough for people living in a forest village, but I know that people in cities pay a lot more for similar craftsmanship. I have saved Rs 6,000 in the last three months. But it would have been more if I could market it myself,” says Indravati.
However, for the foundation and the forest department, the initiative is aimed at preserving the Baiga culture and to reduce their dependence on the forests by empowering them and giving them confidence to start their own entrepreneurial ventures, says S.K. Khare, assistant director of Kanha Tiger Reserve.
He added that the initiative has also built a sense of trust among the people of Baiga community and the forest department.
All the tribal jewellery is customised for urban users. “The necklace is a 20-lined moong-dana necklace while the original that most of the tribal women wear is 40 or more. Similarly, the bracelet is something that tribals generally don’t wear, but it has received a good response,” Khare said.
“It’s a brilliant experience and it is for the first time that their jewellery is being marketed and the souvenir shops have something local to offer. We had received a really good response, but the best response came from online stores and foreign visitors,” said Vidya Venkatesh of Last Wilderness Foundation.
Currently there are only two types of jewellery being made by the Baiga women for marketing: Necklaces and bracelets. Venkatesh said since the project has received great response, they are now looking for expansion by adding two more products — a four-lined anklet and a “Bichaula”, a kind of skin-tight necklace with silver coins.
“These tribal women held workshops for the tourists this season. Their confidence level is high and they are slowly learning the worth of their work and art. It’s a great leap of change for these ladies who earlier used to run away on seeing a forest guard,” said Venkatesh.
(The weekly feature series is part of a positive-journalism project of IANS and the Frank Islam Foundation. Kushagra Dixit can be reached at kushagra.d@ians.in )
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Entrepreneurship, News, Social Entrepreneur
A midwife conducting basic tests on a pregnant woman
By Mohammed Shafeeq,
Hyderabad : The scenic beauty of Araku Valley in Andhra Pradesh is in stark contrast to the lives of indigenous tribes people inhabiting the region. Living in virtual destitution, these tribals — like their counterparts scattered in remote locations across the rest of India — lack access to basic amenities like safe drinking water, healthcare and education. Till a few years ago, some of these habitations were not even covered in the national census and nobody knew they even existed.
But efforts of a leading NGO over the last seven years have yielded results in 181 habitations around Araku. This is testified by the fact that no maternal deaths have been reported here over the last two years — a giant step forward for a place where maternal mortality was double the national average.
Before emerging as a tourist destination about a decade ago, Araku, 100 km from the port city of Visakhapatnam, was an area that was the redoubt of Maoist extremists. Politicians and officials used to stay away from this forested area in the Eastern Ghats.
The population in scattered and inaccessible hamlets was suffering from malnutrition, leading to high maternal mortality and neonatal mortality rates. Some traditional practices of the tribals and deliveries at home were also contributing to this situation.
When the NGO Piramal Swasthya, the health vertical of Piramal Foundation, launched the Asara Tribal Health Programme in 2011, maternal mortality in this tribal area was over 400 per 100,000 live births as against the then national average of around 200.
No maternal deaths have been reported over the last two years while the percentage of institutional deliveries has risen from 18 per cent to 68 per cent. The neonatal mortality rate too has come down from 37 to 10 per 100,000 live births, say the officials of Piramal Swasthya.
The agents behind this change are Auxillary Nurse Midwives (ANMs) like P. Padma who toil selflessly to help the pregnant women in these remote hamlets. The 27-year-old has been working with the NGO for six years and has attended about 3,000 women. She has seen the transformation.
“The situation in the tribal hamlets was pathetic as women were reluctant to come to hospitals for delivery. A major reason for this was the superstition among tribals. Piramal Swasthya has removed the superstitions and motivated the women,” Padma told IANS.
Padma travels 12-13 km in a four-wheeler and, when the road ends, she goes on a bike driven by a “pilot”, covering another 11 km. When this narrow path also ends, she hikes across mountains and valleys for another 12-13 km to the last habitation of Araku.
This is what she does every day, explains Vishal Phanse, Chief Executive Officer, Piramal Swasthya.
Once in the habitation, the ANM identifies every pregnant woman, conducts basic tests, provides counselling on healthy practices and fixes an appointment for consultation with a specialist at the telemedicine centre. The next day, a four-wheeler is sent to pick up all pregnant women registered and get them to the telemedicine centre, where an expert gynaecologist sitting in Hyderabad provides the consultation through teleconferencing. Free medication, along with nutrition supplements, is also provided to the expectant mother and she is then dropped back to her habitation.
“If a woman can’t walk we arrange ‘palki’ (a kind of palanquin) to bring her till the four-wheeler to take her to the telemedicine centre,” Padma said. Last month, a woman delivered a baby on the palki in Colliguda village. She helped the woman and later safely transported her and the newborn to the hospital.
ANMs support the women and children through their pregnancy, child birth and neonatal period while keeping the government machinery in the loop.
Piramal Swasthya overcame all odds to achieve its goal of ending preventable deaths in 181 habitations, serving 49,000 pregnant women.
Adding some more interventions like training traditional birth attendants and health education of adolescent girls, it is now expanding the programme across 11 “mandals” or blocks comprising 1,179 habitations in the tribal belt of Visakhapatnam district to reach 2.5 lakh population.
It is currently running six telemedicine centres and plans to add five more. The NGO will also be opening two more community nutrition hubs in addition to existing one, where women are educated about a healthy and nutritious diet and trained in the use of traditional and locally available food items.
Based on the learning in Visakhapatnam, the NGO wants to create something which can be replicated in the entire tribal belt of India. More than 10 percent of India’s population is tribal and among them maternal mortality is two-and-a-half times the national average.
“If what works in Araku, works in Visakhapatnam, then we can replicate it in the entire tribal belt of the country,” said Phanse.
Niti Aayog, India’s policy think-tank, is looking at this model with key interest as to how they can scale it up.
“In fact, a lot of people including the United Nations, governments in states and at the Centre are looking at it. We had a lot of visitors trying to understand how we managed to do this. We ourselves are learning every day. Technology is a great enabler if you have to scale it up at the national level.”
Phanse believes that 80 percent of what worked in Araku can be replicated in tribal areas across the country and 20 percent could be local customisation that they have to work on.
What worked for Piramal Swasthya in Araku? “We have doctors, public health professionals and experts with the youngest aged 26 and the oldest 78. That’s the kind of expertise we have with actual feet on the ground. Our actuality to work with them, for them, staying with them and understanding them is what I think has worked best for us,” said Phanse.
“If you want make anything sustainable in healthcare you have to create health seeking behaviour in the community. We were successful because we changed the community,” he added.
Phanse feels that the community engagement and participation in the programme is key to its success.
For Piramal, winning the trust of the local community was the key challenge. As Araku was an extremist stronghold, gaining the trust of locals took time.
Most of the 38 people that work for the organisation are from the local community who are wedded to the cause. Forging the local partnership by using the services of dedicated individuals who can speak the language of the community ensured smooth implementation.
With 4,000 employees in just its health vertical, Piramal Swasthya is prehaps the largest NGO in India, implementing 29 healthcare projects in 16 states.
India ranks 131 among 188 countries on the Human Development Index (HDI) 2016 released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). India was placed behind countries like Gabon (109), Egypt (111), Indonesia (113), South Africa (119) and Iraq (121), among others. The government is working towards improving this rating by creating competition between states to perform better on key social indicators like infant mortality rate, maternal mortality rate and life expectancy.
(The weekly feature series is part of a positive-journalism project of IANS and the Frank Islam Foundation. Mohammed Shafeeq can be contacted at m.shafeeq@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Rahul Gandhi
New Delhi : Stressing that Adivasis in Gujarat were in bad condition, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Friday asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi “where did Rs 55,000 crore meant for Vanbandhu scheme go?”.
This was Gandhi’s 10th question as part of a Congress strategy wherein he would put one question daily to Modi ahead of the Gujarat Assembly polls.
“Grabbed the land of the Adivasis, their right over the forest was denied. Lakhs of legal documents for land ownership are stuck (have not been issued),” Gandhi tweeted.
“Neither schools are functional, nor do they have access to hospitals. Neither homeless has been provided a house, nor youth have jobs.
“Neglect left Adivasi society in tatters, Modiji where did Rs 55,000 crore for Vanbandhu scheme go?” asked Gandhi.
The scheme was launched in 2014 by the Centre for holistic development and welfare of the tribal population in India.
Gandhi has been putting one question every day in a bid to take on the Vijay Rupani-led government in Gujarat, where polling will take place on Saturday and December 14.
He previously put posers on unemployment among youth, women safety, education, health, “undue benefit” to power selling companies, state debt and the Prime Minister’s flagship ‘Housing for All’ scheme.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News
New Delhi : India is among the deadliest countries for defenders of rights related to land, territory, environment, rights NGO Amnesty International said on Tuesday.
In its global report ‘Deadly but Preventable Attacks: Killings and Enforced Disappearances of Those who Defend Human Rights’, released on Tuesday, the rights watchdog said: “In India, journalists, land rights activists, and those advocating the rights of ethnic and religious minorities, Dalits and Adivasis (tribal) are among those at risk of attack.”
Among the deadliest countries for this group of human rights defenders are Brazil, Colombia, the Philippines, India and Honduras, it said.
According to an Amnesty release, as many as 3,500 human rights defenders were killed worldwide since 1998 while the number in 2016 was 281– a significant increase from 156 defenders killed in 2015 and 136 in 2014.
Also, 48 journalists were killed worldwide in 2016, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The report included testimonies from human rights defenders as well as their relatives and colleagues in India, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Honduras, Indonesia, Kenya, Mauritania, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, South Sudan and Syria.
Many described how victims’ pleas for protection had been repeatedly ignored by the authorities and how the attackers had evaded justice, fueling a deadly cycle of impunity, it said.
Asmita Basu, Programmes Director at Amnesty International India, said human rights defenders were painted as a threat to development or traditional values.
“Human rights defenders, instead of being recognised and protected by the state, are
portrayed as ‘criminals’, ‘foreign agents’, ‘anti-nationals’ and ‘terrorists’, and painted as a threat to development or traditional values. Such labels are divisive, signal contempt for constitutional rights, and give a green light to further abuses,” she said, as per the release.
The report has brought together stories from around the world including that of journalist Gauri Lankesh, who was fatally shot outside her home in Bengaluru in September 2017.
It also mentioned Chhattisgarh’s Jailal Rathia, who had challenged the Adivasi land grabbing and later died of what was suspected as deliberate poisoning, and killing of Maharashtra Dalit activist Chandrakant Gaikwad.
The report focused on the gravest of violations against human rights defenders– killings and enforced disappearances.
“The motives behind these attacks are multiple and layered. Some people are attacked because of their legitimate activities, for example, as they stand up to powerful actors violating human rights, share information and raise awareness, or confront discriminatory public opinion and social norms. Others are attacked both for what they do and who they are,” it said.
The human rights defenders included those defending the rights of women, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people and indigenous peoples and minority groups, it added.
—IANS
