Author Archives: anaarkali

When the girl was in class seven her mother died. This was a shock for her because she had no idea how to handle the situation. During the first two – three days there were many relatives to perform rituals and provide solace. Then one by one they went away. The young girl, her fatherContinue reading “Growing up Motherless”

The village was aligned along a main road from east to west. The houses were constructed on both sides. There were small lanes from the road after every eight houses or so to go out from the houses easily to the fields for agriculture work, to the jungle for fire wood, timber and other forestContinue reading “How Green Was the Village”

There was a bonded labourer who worked for his maternal uncle who was a Zamindar (big landlord) in the village. This was before the village was submerged by the construction of a dam on a big river nearby. The labourer’s subsistence needs were taken care of by his uncle and the landlord also bore theContinue reading “Cruelty of Development”

The Mahila Jagat Lihaaz Samiti (Majlis) or Society for Respect for Women and the Earth, a collective of Dalit and Adivasi women organising action for the rights of women and environmental conservation, has initiated a programme of gynaecological health camps for women residing in slums in the city of Indore in Madhya Pradesh. The programmeContinue reading “In Search of Women's Health”

I have been working intensively on gender and reproductive rights and health of under privileged women in Indore city for two years now and I have published a training manual on the same based on the results of this ongoing work which can be accessed here –https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nxs_PuUjhd9MjdIaCMNYsjVDWWK22pzZ/view

The factors which affect nutrition levels are food, inheritability, genetic predisposition, clean water, sanitation, disease conditions, geography and human development etc. According to the economist Arvind Panagaria, the processes of nutritional outcomes are shaped more by food intake, inheritability of poor nutrition across generation and genetic predisposition towards a shorter stature. However, the economist SonaldeContinue reading “Factors Affecting Nutritional levels And Their Relative Importance”

I met an old Barela tribal lady from village Jamasi in Bagli Tehsil of Dewas district in Madhya Pradesh in India. Her name is Kunjaribai. She has many children still alive. She is a small farmer and very active lady. She always works with her husband in her farm and produces many things for theirContinue reading “The Story of an Old Tribal Woman”

I first had an online voice through the yahoogroup CGNet – http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chhattisgarh-net/ . This is an online group of people interested in the development of the state of Chhattisgarh in India. For the first time I could get my views published in a public forum on a regular basis as otherwise I rarely get to write inContinue reading “My Online Experience”

Early in the morning, the police came to arrest Sursibai but they didn’t recognise her so they asked someone to find out where she was. Sursibai was on her way to fill drinking water from the hand pump in her village Jamasi in Dewas District of Madhya Pradesh in India. The people were aware aboutContinue reading “A Woman Adivasi Activist Goes to Jail”

On one occasion, in 1994, a group of people were going to celebrate their socio- cultural meet that was organised in Chhattisgarh in India. Around three hundred men and women set out from Dhar, Alirajpur and Barwani districts of western part of Madhya Pradesh in India. This area is known as Malwa-Nimar region in theContinue reading “Women Travel Ticketless to Win the World!!”