Society, Culture and Peace

Enhancing socio-cultural well-being, ensuring justice and equity

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Featured here are initiatives to enhance social and cultural aspects of human life: the revival and progressive use of visual, performing, and other arts, of the myriad crafts of the country, of threatened or submerged languages, of food and cuisine diversity, and other such cultural traits and processes. They also cover the various struggles and constructive movements to achieve social justice, to reduce inequalities and inequities of various kinds including caste, class, gender, ethnicity, and religion, and to create dignity in living for those currently oppressed and exploited. Finally, they include movements to generate ethical living and thinking, and spread values such as simplicity, honesty, frugality, and tolerance.

The women fighting for the endangered storks of Assam

More than 100,000 women in the villages of Assam have become a driving force behind a grassroots effort to conserve an endangered species of stork, which was once viewed as a bad omen.

Thirty years of resistance

The National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM), a coalition of organisations across India, has been actively resisting injustices, defending rights, and building alliances over the last 30 years.

Weaving traditions: how the women weavers of Adichilthotti sustain their craft

The initiative exemplifies the values of meaningful work and livelihoods for the women, as well as sustaining their close relationship with the forests surrounding them.

Escalating heat, boiling questions

As extreme heat events become more frequent and intense, it is vital that climate change adaptation measures act at the structural and local level, supporting communities to develop innovative, localised coping mechanisms to climate impacts.

In rural India, kaleidoscopic saris protect precious crops

Villagers in Ramgad upcycle their old saris as an affordable and sustainable material to protect their crops from animals during winter. Photographer Indrajit Khambe documents these vibrant saris.

The Kutchi Weave: A district’s inter-woven response to complex crises 

One can take inspiration from the interwoven model of responses across an entire district and that too done with so much love and compassion and an unending spirit of seva (service).

Orans in Peril

The Degrai Oran in western Rajasthan sustains an intricate network of social, economic, cultural, and ecological relations between humans and non-humans. This photo essay captures how local communities are defending their sacred landscapes so-called green development.

दस्तकारों की उम्मीद है खमीर (In Hindi)

खमीर ने पारंपरिक हस्तकलाओं के संरक्षण व संवर्धन के साथ आजीविका भी प्रदान की है, जिसमें निरंतर नवाचार भी किया जा रहा है

Vikalp Sangam on Social Well-being and Justice

What do terms like well-being and justice mean to me personally as an individual in the arena of personal relationships and as a social being in the arena of my socio-political engagements and interventions?