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Explore a featured selection of my writing work below.
@GI_weltweit •

The Changing Face of Independent Journalism in India

Corporate interests pull strings on the freedom of press. Freelancers bleed for stories without support. In India’s conflict areas and rural areas, brave voices do not hold back. Can independent journalists break free?


By Aatreyee Dhar





Big money has tightened its grip on India's free press in recent years. Reliance, Ambani, and Adani exemplify this trend of concentrated media ownership and control. Accurate information and trusted news are now more essential than ever...
PARI - People's Archive of Rural India •

The last elephant of Dampa

“One jab of its tusk destroyed seven bags of harvest.”A year has passed but Rampara has not forgotten the damage caused by the lone elephant in his home in village Damparengpui.Seven bags of produce equal five tin containers of mustard, which is about 10-12 kilos. Here in Mizoram, tin cans are traditionally referenced to measure scale or weight of bags used to store food.“The mustard is bad now, after the elephant licked it,” he adds. The elephant also destroyed the paddy stored inside his bambo...
Myanmar Now •

New limits on movement upend lives, long-held traditions on India-Myanmar border

Ending practices of free movement in one of the world’s most underdeveloped border regions has impacted livelihoods and threatened age-old cultural connections among communities in northeast India and neighbouring parts of Myanmar. . .

Ending practices of free movement in one of the world’s most underdeveloped border regions has impacted livelihoods and threatened age-old cultural connections among communities in northeast India and neighbouring parts of Myanmar. . .
BehanBox •

Why Meghalaya’s Women Seed-Guardians Are Resisting Commercial Hybridisation - BehanBox

The consequences of global warming weigh on Rimaia’s mind. Last year, there was a rare but intense rainfall during the planting season, and she had to struggle through mud on her way home with the freshly sowed indigenous bean seeds that she had salvaged. By the time she reached home, the seeds were damaged. “I waited for a week to check whether I could save the seeds I collected. But they were all gone. They gave in to the deluge. And there was a significant loss,” says Rimaia, the secretary of...
BehanBox •

How Arunachal’s Women Healers Are Conserving Rare, Endangered Plants - BehanBox

“When I was a child, my village was totally cut off from the rest of the world. There were no hospitals or reliable communication. My community used herbal medicine to treat snake-bites, dog bites and fever. So many of these herbs are difficult to source these days. Climate change is one such big threat to these plants,” Yanung says. The Botanical Survey of India has documented more than 8000 medicinal plants across the country. Based on species rarity and endemism, India has two botanical hotsp...
Inter Press Service •

How Mongolia Can Expedite It’s Just Transition Plans to Include Its Nomads

ULAANBAATAR, Jul 9 2025 (IPS) - Youth activist Gereltuya Bayanmukh still reflects on the events in her formative years that inspired her to become a climate activist. When she was a child, she would visit her grandparents in a village 20 km to the south of the border between Russia and Mongolia.
She was happy to see each of the nomadic people in their traditional gers power up their settlements using solar power.
“I remember seeing my neighbors own a solar panel and a battery to accumulate pow...
Indiaspend •

Why India Is Struggling To Be A World Leader In Bamboo

Agartala, Tripura: Adiram Reang, an indigenous farmer who belongs to the Autonomous District Council (ADC) village of Bagmara, in Dhalai district, 125 km from the state capital Agartala, wanted to own Kanak Kaich bamboo plantations. But when he found out about Tripura's State Bamboo Mission (TSBM), about 15 years back, he decided it would not be a profitable venture. “From what I heard, the beneficiaries griped about the thorny quality bamboo that is not in demand for sale outside the state,” he...
BBC •

The indigenous community protecting Himalayan sacred cattle in India

IIn the eastern foothills of India's Himalayas, livestock farmer Yang Ering Moyong slips on a baggy shirt and trousers and heads out in the early morning. As she stomps through the dense shrubbery in the hills surrounding the village of Mirem, she lets out a high-pitched call summoning her mithuns, a semi-wild and endangered cattle species, back from the woods.
The 39-year-old mother of two, who is a member of the indigenous Adi tribe of Arunachal Pradesh, is the only female herder in her villag...
Village Square •

How a pungent delicacy is supporting Tripura’s indigenous community

Smoking, sun-drying, fermenting, pickling… Centuries ago, long before the advent of modern refrigeration, ingenious methods were employed to preserve food. In Tripura, one such culinary tradition that has stood the test of time is the art of making berma — fermented fish.


Berma’s potently pungent presence in Tripura’s kitchens is indispensable. Among the Tripuris, the largest indigenous community in the state, dried and fermented silver barb fish, locally known as puti, holds a special signif...
Village Square •

Assam villagers ward off elephants with draw of lots

An unconventional form of community engagement is quietly reshaping the conservation landscape in Assam’s Manas National Park, where elephants roam and forests whisper tales of ancient wisdom. It’s not through protests or petitions but via an unexpected avenue: a yearly lottery.


This isn’t your typical raffle. Residents of more than 160 villages, home to farmers, participate in this ritual that transcends mere chance. Their stakes? The safeguarding of solar-powered electric fences along the p...
Village Square •

How bamboo farming is transforming lives in Tripura

Sivaji Ray, a humble farmer with less than a hectare of land to his name in Brahmakunda village of West Tripura district in Tripura, can claim big achievements. He embarked on a journey 18 years ago, moving from timber cultivation to bamboo farming, showing how adaptation in the face of change can transform life.


In 2006, he received a modest sum of Rs 6,000 and a handful of seeds of kanak kaich (Bambusa affinis) — a local bamboo variety — from the state’s agricultural department. Little did...
Village Square •

Display of India-Bangladesh friendship at Tripura’s Akhaura post

Akhaura, 10 km from Agartala, serves as a vital land port connecting India and Bangladesh. A zero line, marked near Agartala-Akhaura check post, symbolises camaraderie. On Bangladesh's Victory Day, guards exchange greetings, sweets, and flowers.





Before the elaborate ceremony begins at the zero line, the area is cleared of visitors. An emcee ensures silence among the seated crowd before the performance starts, celebrating both peaceful moments and friendly rivalry.


Also Read: Turtuk vil...
Village Square •

In Tripura, balladeers of snake goddess battle drug crisis with music

The rhythmic heartbeat of tradition echoes after 8pm in Jolaibari village, around 98km from Agartala. Sudipta Roy, a 25-year-old medicine salesman, concludes his workday and converges with his band in a chosen rendezvous — be it the community hall of the nearby Ram Thakur ashram, the village marriage hall, or a band member’s house to fight drug abuse in Tripura.


In a setting reminiscent of a baithak (seated gathering) session, the lead singer weaves verses from the Manasa Mangal Kavya into th...
BehanBox •

How Assam’s Human-Elephant Conflict Is Impacting Women’s Physical And Mental Health

Sagunbari, Assam: For years, Archana Rai would wake at night in terror every time she heard a bamboo stalk snap or the bark of a banana tree being stripped. She would be gripped by the fear that elephants were rampaging through her family’s fields in Sagunbari 2, a village in the Udalguri district of Assam. She would wake her husband and together they would climb the stilt outside their home and keep watch over their paddy fields. Rai’s fear was not unreasonable. She still remembers the night of

This plastic recycling unit is a ‘silver lining’ in Guwahati’s burgeoning waste problem; here’s how

These initiatives incorporate everyone in the circular economy— from ragpickers to informal workers and even residents — in reducing at least 10% of the waste in Guwahati’s landfill

In the recycling unit, plastic from landfills, which is wet and contaminated, goes through a rigorous washing and blowing process before being sent to sorting by female staffers. Photo: Aatreyee Dhar.

For 12 hours a day with up to two hours of break, Sukla Ghosh sits hunched over a stock of translucent plastic wast
The BMJ •

India’s crackdown on child marriage has endangered women’s health

Fatima (name changed), 16, didn’t set out to marry while she was still in high school. Her religious parents had worried about her being one of the prettiest girls in their village in the Barpeta district of Assam. The way they saw it, Fatima marrying would prevent many men from courting her. So, when a marriage proposal arrived from a distant cousin, Fatima wed.

A year later, on 3 February 2023, the Assam government launched a crackdown on child marriage across the state, arresting over 4000 p
the Guardian •

Can 3D-printed tiger teeth help save our rarest animals from extinction?

In the lowland rainforests of Arunachal Pradesh in north-east India, tigers, clouded leopards, eagles and hornbills dot the landscape. The area is also home to the Nyishi community, the largest Indigenous tribe in the state, where the men traditionally don a byopa, an elaborate handwoven cane cap with the upper beak and casque of a great hornbill attached to the top edge, and an eagle’s claw at the back. They also wield a machete fitted either with the short, squat jaw of the clouded leopard or
The Third Pole •

India’s successful Project Tiger could do even better, say experts

Fifty years after the launch of Project Tiger in India, the country hosts 75% of the world’s wild tigers, with the numbers increasing from 2,967 to 3,167 from 2018 to 2022 according to the Status of Tigers 2022 report. The growth in numbers, though, hides the fact that tiger numbers are not rising everywhere in India, that other endangered species and forest dwelling human communities have been neglected in the single-minded focus on preserving the tiger.

Nonetheless, India’s success in raising
The Third Pole •

Assam’s rural solar scheme fails to keep the lights on

Two summers have gone by since Taslima* and her classmates last saw the fans in their classroom stir the air. Their home state of Assam in northeast India is getting hotter, but for the students of the Indadiya Islamia Madrassa on Chalakura Char, a river island 280km away from Assam’s capital city Guwahati, there has been no respite from the heat. Nor have they had electric light to aid their studies.

This is despite the fact that solar panels were installed at the madrassa (an Islamic religiou
The Telegraph •

How climate change is accelerating the advance of a devastating brain infection

Satish Das can remember little of the early days he spent in hospital. Consumed by an intense fever that rewired his brain and warped reality, Das struggled to even remember the name of his son and wife. For days, doctors poked at him with needles and prescribed a cocktail of drugs to ease his pain. Tests later revealed that the 56-year-old, a village farmer from the Brahmaputra valley of Assam, a northeastern state in India, had been infected with the Japanese Encephalitis virus (JEV), which ha
Indiaspend •

As Tigers In Assam's Protected Areas Rise, So Does The Potential Of Human-Tiger Conflicts

Kachariveti 1, Assam: One day in 2011, when sunlight was fading over the man-made ponds-turned-fisheries of Kachariveti 1, bordering the western range of Assam's Orang National Park, Jalal Uddin, a farmer, was setting up fishing poles and attaching lures--mainly frogs. Early next morning, when he re-visited to check for catch, he sensed someone desperately scratching at him. He brushed it aside as an attempt by his friends to distract him for fun.


When he noticed his friends standing a few fe
BOOM •

The Hypocrisy In Sadhguru's Night Safari In Assam's Kaziranga As Locals Face Bullet Threats | BOOM

ASSAM- For nineteen-year old Rijumoni Pegu, a woman from the indigenous Mising tribe who lives near Agoratuli range of the Kaziranga National Park, foraging wild herbs holds a legacy of a land that belonged to them. Once or twice a week, she joins the village womenfolk to gather edible finds in the woods such as Indian Chestnut vine (Noi-tenga) and Fiddlehead fern (Dhekia) for her traditional fare. The plant parts are preserved to be used in a ritual observed to pacify 'Dobur Uie' or spirits tha
The Third Pole •

4 innovations that can be part of India and Bangladesh’s flood defences

Over a short period in May and June, intense rains lashed Assam, in northeastern India, and Bangladesh. As well as landslides, several rivers in the Ganga-Brahmaputra basin burst their banks. The swiftness with which floodwaters submerged towns and villages caught residents and officials off-guard.

Scientists say the problem will only increase as the impacts of climate change grow. After analysing 35 years of flooding data, a 2018 research paper concluded that rivers in the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Me
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