SOCIAL WORKER Seema Prakash was apprehensive about her assignment when she first came to Khalwa block of Madhya Pradesh two decades ago.
As part of the Right to Food campaign, an initiative taken up by civil society organisations across the country to work on hunger and malnutrition, she had to figure out how to educate the communities on nutrition and food security. What she did not expect, however, was that she would not even be able to talk to people.
Khalwa block, located in Khandwa district, is dominated by the Korku tribal community, a Scheduled Tribe. This tribe mostly lives in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, and has its own language.
"The Korku language, according to the People's Linguistic Survey of India, is among languages that are nearly lost. It has no script and is written in Devanagri or English. But several words are different from Hindi or other languages that are more commonly known," says Prakash.
This story is from the January 16, 2025 edition of Down To Earth.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the January 16, 2025 edition of Down To Earth.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
CLIMATE SHAPES SPECIES
Gradual changes in a population that lives in a region with environmental shifts give rise to new species
LEAFY GOODNESS
Leaves of the bottle gourd can be a healthy green addition to the plate
'Story of human origin is still not figured out or over'
Fifty years ago, the discovery of a partial skeleton amid the barren desert landscape of northern Ethiopia transformed our understanding of where humans came from, and how we developed into Homo sapiens. \"Lucy\" was first spotted on November 24, 1974, by the American paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson and his student assistant Tom Gray. Named after the Beatles' Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, a popular song in the their team's camp at the time, it was immediately clear she was a female, because of her small adult size, and that she had walked upright, unlike chimpanzees. Lucy was also very old-at almost 3.2 million years, she was anointed as the then-earliest known (distant) ancestor of modern humans. Over the following decades, rather fittingly given her name, she became a \"paleo-rock star\", going on a US tour from 2006 following a deal with the Ethiopian authorities.
Deadly discharge
Residents of an industrial cluster blame effluent and sewage treatment plants for discharging poorly treated water that contaminates the area, causes skin diseases
US drug regulator faces Trump heat
FAILED REPUBLICAN presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is making more news now than during his doomed attempt to get the party nomination for president. Ramaswamy's decision to throw in the towel and back Donald Trump after his campaign went nowhere showed acumen, the kind he is famous for in the investment world.
Distorted picture
India's groundwater recovery may be misleading, as new assessment methods inflate annual recharge figures and discontinue on-ground verification
A MAKE OR BREAK YEAR
Expect some stiff targets, radical policy measures and rapid innovations as polycrisis reaches a crescendo this year
Commons in crisis
A landmark 2011 Supreme Court ruling to protect shared resources deepens struggles for India's marginalised communities
Europe faces Russian natural gas supply cuts
UKRAINE'S PRIME Minister Denys Shmyhal said on December 16, 2024, that its gas transit agreement with Russia will expire on January 1, 2025, and will not be renewed. The agreement was to allow transit of natural gas to Europe amid the RussiaUkraine conflict.
Preserving a voice
Non-profit in Madhya Pradesh documents Korku language, makes education accessible for the tribal community
