Note - Following is an excerpt from a Guest Lecture by Anshuman Sahoo at Jagan Nath University, Haryana in February 2017 on 'Information, Development, and Blogging - A short talk'.
“In the dense reserved forests of Sundargarh in Odisha, India, lives one of the most ancient tribes of the Indian subcontinent, the ‘Paudi Bhuinyans’. Shy and reserved by nature, and total strangers to the modern technologies, they are considered to be one of the most underdeveloped communities in the country. I was sent there by an organisation to conduct some field study regarding the impact of some recently enacted legislations on their day-to-day lives. However, I went a step ahead and contacted some local NGOs to work towards various community rights in the locality. Within a month, there was a visible difference. Almost all the villagers had got the title of their land rights, had written receipts for every transaction they had with government officials, and formed associations within themselves …
“In the dense reserved forests of Sundargarh in Odisha, India, lives one of the most ancient tribes of the Indian subcontinent, the ‘Paudi Bhuinyans’. Shy and reserved by nature, and total strangers to the modern technologies, they are considered to be one of the most underdeveloped communities in the country. I was sent there by an organisation to conduct some field study regarding the impact of some recently enacted legislations on their day-to-day lives. However, I went a step ahead and contacted some local NGOs to work towards various community rights in the locality. Within a month, there was a visible difference. Almost all the villagers had got the title of their land rights, had written receipts for every transaction they had with government officials, and formed associations within themselves …