“Webinaron- ‘Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on tribal communities’.”

• The first speaker for the session shall be Dr Jagannath Ambagudia.

Dr Jagannath Ambagudia is Dean, School of Social Sciences and Humanities, and Associate Professor at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Guwahati Campus. Previously, he taught at Rajdhani College, University of Delhi and National Law School of India University, Bangalore. His area of interest lies on various dynamics of Adivasi society, especially on the issues of social discrimination, social exclusion and inclusion, marginalization, development, deprivation, preferential treatment, distributive justice and community conflict.

He is the author of ‘Adivasis, Migrants and the State in India’ (London and New York: Routledge) and has edited the volume, ‘Handbook of Tribal Politics in India’ along with Prof. Virginius Xaxa.

Dr Jagannath Ambagudia shall discuss on how the emergency-like pandemic situation has affected the tribal community as a whole and how they have managed to cope up with the same.

• The second speaker for the session is Mr Sandeep Kumar Pattnaik.

Mr. Sandeep Kumar Pattnaik works with Center For Public Policy Alternatives (CPPA), Bhubaneswar, Odisha. He was associated with the National Center for Advocacy Studies. (NCAS) Pune, India for more than a decade. He is currently engaged in undertaking capacity building programmes on People-centred advocacy, action research, writing policy and legislative briefs on the rights of tribals, dalits, women, children and landless labourers over land, forest and other natural resources. He is involved in undertaking research and organizing public hearings of the displaced persons by mining, dams and industrial expansion, conducting fact-finding studies on the forced eviction of indigenous people from their land and also filing cases in non-judicial redress forums. He is in the steering committee members of the International Campaign for the Ratification of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic Social Cultural Rights (ICESCR).

Mr. Sandeep Kumar Pattnaik shall enlighten us on the topic, “Community control over natural resources?: Challenges and Way forward amid Covid 19”

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