Posts tagged Rajasthan

Why rehabilitation is as vital as rescue for child trafficking survivors

0 Comments read Features
Photo Credit (captured via video link): ©Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 29.03.2021 (IPS): Twelve-year-old Babloo’s (Name changed) parents, who worked as daily wage agricultural labourers in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, were finding it difficult to feed their family of six. They had recently lost their eldest son to sudden illness, when a distant relative convinced them to send Babloo with him to work in a city. He promised to pay Rs 5000 (US$70) a month, a significant amount for the impoverished family.

The relative took Babloo and his 14-year-old cousin from the village and handed them to a trafficker, who took them by rail to Jaipur, capital of the western Indian state of Rajasthan, nearly 1200 kilometre away from their home.

“We were locked in a small room. The windows were sealed and there was no natural light. There were 10 other children already there. We were made to grind glass stones and then stick the stone embellishments and beads on lac bangles from 6am till midnight everyday”, Babloo tells IPS via Zoom from his village in Nawada district in southern Bihar.

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Joining the dots

1 Comment read Indigenous, Travel
Anangu Aboriginal artist Sarah Dalby. Photo Credit: © Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

The colours and lines of Aboriginal art in Australia’s outback take the author back to the deserts of her birthplace in Rajasthan.

Uluru (Australia), 15 October 2016 (The Hindu): In the grainy red sand, Anangu Aboriginal artist Sarah Dalby, 42, glides her fingers to draw a collection of symbols to demonstrate how the Aborigines have been passing knowledge about their land, culture and traditions from one generation to the next. It is a warm spring afternoon in Yulara, the resort town in Australia’s Red Centre desert, and I am in the town square for a 90-minute Maruku Arts dot painting workshop.

Dalby draws concentric circles, linking them with lines to depict a journey from one place to another. She then etches crescent-like shapes, representing men and women squatting on the ground, and envelopes them with more symbols that embody desert flora and fauna. Continue reading →

Hungry sands no more

0 Comments read Environment & Development, Features, Gender
Aladini Sanwera of Hamir Nada village , near Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, grows enough on her land to feed her family thanks to water brought by the Indira Gandhi Canal Project. Photo Credit: © Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

Mohangarh, (Jaisalmer District, Rajasthan, India), 29.03.2012 (The Hindu Businessline): Not long ago, the remote communities in Jaisalmer district eked out a living from a single annual crop of millet (bajra), dependent on the mercy of rain gods. The 48 degree centigrade heat of the harsh summer sun, frequent sandstorms and no water posed a major challenge for survival. Droughts and the spectre of camel and livestock bones strewn on the sand dunes was a common phenomenon. But the advent of the Indira Gandhi Canal Project (IGNP) in the mid-1980s transformed the landscape and its inhabitants.

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