There has been a rising trend of tribal people from other states being brought into Tamil Nadu and forced to labour for long hours and low wages in work such as sugarcane harvesting. The Tamil Nadu government has been urged to act against bonded labour and provide proper facilities to the...
The Music Academy has announced awards for 2023 for some exponents of Carnatic music. There are scores of music aficionados and even general fans who eagerly wait for this award announcement every year. Bombay Jayashree has been chosen for this year's Sangeetha Kalanidhi Award. She joins Sudha...
The Oscar award for The Elephant Whisperers, a documentary short film, is a global tribute to the tribal people living in harmony with nature and wildlife in the Nilgiris. The film tells the life story of the couple Bomman and Bellie of the Kattunayakan tribe, who work at an elephant care...
People of various marginalised scheduled tribes such as Irulars and Narikuravars, who find a place only on the peripheries of various towns, have been living in mud huts or makeshift tents, exposed to rain and shine, for generations. Their dwellings are virtually open spaces; only that they...
Vadivel Gopal and Masi Sadaiyan were going about their routine work in Karur, catching snakes, when they heard the news that they had been awarded the fourth-highest civilian award of the country, the Padma Shri. The duo from one of the most marginalised and oppressed communities, the Irulars,...
The Pongal festival ingrained in the popular imagination conjures up images of cooking rice in an open fire, buffaloes and cows being decorated and celebrated and people meticulously arranging sugarcane, turmeric leaves, flowers and other paraphernalia. In tribal villages of the Western Ghats,...
As the winter sun was gradually turning intense in the sky, it seemed like everything was falling into place for 25-year-old Arvind Raj on Monday. The annual Pongal jallikattu was gaining pace and it was his home turf, as the youngster hailed from Palamedu village. Arvind was one among the...
Born in Puducherry, historian Dr J B Prashant More developed an interest in the life of iconic Tamil poet Subramania Bharati, who stayed incognito in Puducherry from 1908 to 1918. More has written books on the life history of the poet in French, English and Tamil. More speaks to Dr Badri...
The Book Fair in January is an important event in the cultural calendar of Chennai. The 46th edition of the Chennai Book Fair took off at YMCA Grounds, Nandanam on January 6 and will go on till January 22. This time, the first edition of an international book fair is also being hosted in...
The movement to restore stolen artefacts including precious 1,000-year-old antiquities to their countries of origin is set to gather momentum in 2023, with India making new claims to museums abroad and individual collectors. Potentially, they would attract cultural tourists, both national and...
