Bermo, a small town in the Bokaro district, is part of the East Bokaro Coalfield in Jharkhand. As one leaves the Ranchi-Giridih highway to reach these coal mines, hundreds of…
An emblem of the British mining history, canary birds were used to indicate when dangerous gases were collected in a mine, signalling danger for humans. While this use of the…
Sitaram Oraon, a tribal farmer in the Ghagara block of Gumla district in Jharkhand, grows watermelon, potato and other crops on his farm. He uses solar powered energy to irrigate…
Birsuni Oraon is a tribal woman in her 50s, living in Guniya village in the Gumla district of Jharkhand. Until a few months ago, she would usually be occupied with…
Mohan Sundi, 35, belongs to the Ho tribal community of a remote Roro village in the West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand. Roro is at the foothills of a mountain where…
Tulsa Bai is a 60-year-old woman from the Dumerpani village in the Kanker district of Chhattisgarh. She uses a stick to move from one place to another. It's not just…
Panchanan Mandal is a resident of Chalkari village in Petarwar Block in Bokaro district in Jharkhand. He has been waiting for a job at Central Coal Limited (CCL) since 1984…
Chednga Oraon lived in Raikera village in the Gumla district of Jharkhand. He had just turned 55 years old in 2021. On November 9 the same year, he stepped out,…
Panchayat (rural administration) elections to democratically elect a mukhiya (panchayat leader) for local governance have been delayed in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand for more than a year because…
In the village of Nongtraw in Meghalaya, one of the world's wettest region, honey is quite sought after by the Khasi indigenous community who go to the forest to collect…
India is planning to seek the assistance of nearly one billion U.S. dollars (about Rs. 75 billion or Rs. 7,500 crores) from the World Bank to develop a comprehensive framework…
Ramu Malto (name changed) is a member of Sauria Paharia, a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) from Jharkhand. He would pride himself on the proximity to the historic Rajmahal hills,…
Parmeshwari Devi is a farmer who owns agricultural land in the Khunti district of Jharkhand. A few years ago, she would often lament that she was not able to fully…
The Damodar river, once known as the “sorrow of Bengal” for its frequent flooding, is still causing pain to millions of people dependent on it. The river was recently in…
“The rule of mechanisation has come, it will snatch away the work from every hand, wake up workers and farmers. There is unemployment, it will grow, alas the working people…
The impacts of armed conflicts on wildlife globally are underestimated, according to recent research which calls for urgent attention to conflict resiliency in conservation plans for a wide suite of…
Shilpa Gayen shudders to recall the moment when she almost lost her life after strong winds blowing in her village brought down her mud house on May 26, the day…
“I have never seen this kind of a forest fire before. This year, the fire entered our village, and I could see that it was just 100 meters away from…
The Piparwar opencast mine in Jharkhand was once the largest coal-producing mine in the state and had damaged the local ecology. Now, after about 30 years of mining operations being…
It is the silver jubilee year of the Panchayat (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 that was passed by the Indian parliament to empower people living in the fifth…
