At home in a cave

M Suchitra and photographer Ajeeb Komachi trekked deep into Kerala's Nilambur valley to catch Cholanaickan tribals at home A 100-kilometre bus ride from Kozhikode had brought Ajeeb and me to Nilambur, a small town in Kerala's Malappuram district on the

Catching them young

Immediately after being voted back to power, Chhattisgarh’s chief minister Raman Singh extolled the virtues of Salwa Judum. The counterinsurgency civil militia campaign has now found a mention in school textbooks in the state.

Playback

In the last week of January, a large crowd gathered at a former torture centre in the Chile's capital Santiago. The detention centre of the former dictator, Augusto Pinochet, had turned into a theatre. A group of former political prisoners in Chile performed four plays written in torture camps and in exile between 1973 and 1980. "I think awareness of life becomes intense when you face death," said Chilean playwright scar Castro, who directed the plays.

DIG Jehangir

Got a complaint? Ring the bell The plaque at the rusted iron gate announces Tirhut Range Police Residence, Chakkar Maidan, Muzaffarpur. Under it is a palm-size icon of a bell, which looks more like a quaint advertisement. A careful look shows an electric bell in the middle of the icon. Whoever presses it would have the deputy inspector general (dig) of police at his or her service, listening to grievances.

News 360° - Briefs

new constitution Bolivia reforms land holding Bolivians approved a new constitution granting more power to the country's indigenous majority. In a separate referendum, they overwhelmingly supported a measure limiting future private landholdings to 5,000 hectares.

Mother's little helper

Creches at construction sites lend a hand to migrant women workers

In their voices

Half a century of films about indigenous peoples have been removed from forgotten corners, recorded on compact discs and launched in the Mexican market. State bookshops and offices of the government's National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples have been selling the dvd-format series titled "El cine indigenista" (roughly, films on indigenous people).

Jottings amid struggle

The mainstream media sees 2008 as a year of wars, terror strikes, financial meltdown. There is lip service to incidents of human rights violations. But 2008 was also a year of struggle. It was another year when common men and women registered their protest against untrammelled industrialization. This little diary by the Delhi-based ngo, Kriti, documents their struggle.

Chidambaram soft on Salwa Judum

Calls civilian militia 'useful'

In Court

Victory for the aborigines: An Australian court on December 17 upheld an appeal by the country's indigenous inhabitants to halt the expansion of the McArthur River zinc mine by Switzerland-based Xstrata mining group. Aborigines from Australia's Northern Territory had appealed against the local government's approval of Xstrata's plan to divert the McArthur river to allow it to replace a depleted underground mine with an open pit mine.