Birhor
Indian Government Ignores Educated Birhor Boys
Nine teenage Birhor boys are now working in laboring jobs rather than in the kinds of positions they were promised when they enrolled 11 years ago at the Bokaro Steel school for underprivileged tribal children. According to a news report in The Telegraph of Calcutta last Thursday, the boys have written to the governor of […]
Peaceful Societies in India Champion Women’s Rights
Michelle Bachelet argues that a much stronger economic and political role for women in India will not only be the right thing to do, it will send an important message to the world. She summarized her thoughts on the subject during a speech in New Delhi at the beginning of October. The former president of […]
New Guerilla Strategy in Rural India
The tribal people of Lohardaga district in India’s Jharkhand state, particularly the Birhor, have been suffering lately from attacks by Maoist guerilla groups. The latest strategy by the terrorists has been to forbid merchants from entering the local villages. The guerillas also demand levies from both the local people and the outside traders. They appear […]
Birhor Boys Go to School
A group of fourteen six and seven year old Birhor boys have been brought to the Bokaro Steel Limited (BSL) complex in Bokaro, India, for an education, and they are now running wild—like children almost everywhere. According to a Times of India report on the new arrivals, the youngsters from the villages of Tulbul, Khakhanda, […]
Conclusion to Birhor Tragedy of 2008
The Wall Street Journal’s “India Real Time” blog is publishing a series of six investigative reports on starvation in India, one of which, last week, described the terrible mass deaths of October 2008 in a Birhor village. That tragic episode prompted a flood of attention for the formerly obscure tribal group, and the news media […]
Birhor Crafts at a Trade Show
A Birhor stall at a big trade fair in Jamshedpur, the largest city in northeastern India’s Jharkhand state, was a hit with visitors to the show in recent weeks. In an industrial center famed for Tata Steel works and other major businesses, a local NGO persuaded five Birhor people from a remote village to come […]
Birhor Leaves for Dinner Plates
Birhor women have traditionally collected the leaves from saal trees in northeastern India to use as dinner plates for their families, but they have recently been trained to also fabricate them into commercial products. Ratan Kumar, the Deputy Commissioner for the Lohardaga District of Jharkhand state, is taking credit for initiating the training project among […]
Birhor Contraceptives and Cell Phones
Birhor women are experts in the use of native plants for contraceptive purposes, according to a news story last week in The Pioneer, an English language daily paper from India. In one of three stories about the Birhor carried by the paper during the course of the week, Ashis Sinha wrote that the Birhor avidly continue […]
Birhor Society Still Imperiled
The socio-economic conditions of the Birhor have been back in the news in India last week, with three different articles published relating to their food security, demographic conditions, and lack of forest environment, all of which may affect their survival. The first report, published at the beginning of the week, discussed the death of 55 […]
Birhor Youth Will Attend College
Sitaram Shikari, an 18-year old from a village in West Bengal State of India, may be the first young Birhor person to be accepted into college as an undergraduate student. Raised in the village of Bhupatinagar, in Bagmundi town, the Purulia District of West Bengal, the young man has completed his schooling and has found […]
