Media
Ministry of Textiles approved 18 R&D projects valuing INR 46.74 Crores across different areas of Technical Textiles
- September 28, 2023
Source: Press Information Bureau
Union Minister of Textiles, Commerce and Industry and Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Shri Piyush Goyal said that Industry and Institute’s pro-active and robust engagement is essential for the indigenous development of technical textiles in India, while chairing the 7th Meeting of the Mission Steering Group (MSG) of National Technical Textiles Mission in New Delhi on 28 September 2023. Ministry of Textiles approved 18 R&D projects worth INR 46.74 crores across key strategic areas of Geotech, Protech, Indutech, Sustainable Textiles, Sportech, Smart E-Textiles, Meditech segments during the 7th MSG meeting.
Indigenous Children at High Risk of Being in Child Labour
- September 27, 2023
Source: ILO Newsroom
A new analysis by the International Labour Organization (ILO) reveals that children from indigenous communities face a significant risk of child labour and often don’t have access to education. According to the findings, indigenous children face educational disadvantages, making them more vulnerable to child labour. In the studied countries, indigenous children have lower school attendance rates compared to others, especially indigenous girls. The “Issue paper on child labour and education exclusion among indigenous children ” shows that indigenous children are greatly overrepresented in hazardous jobs. Most of them work in agriculture, but are also found in construction, commerce, manufacturing, and domestic work
Why protection of genetic resources and traditional knowledge matters
- September 08, 2023
Source: Jakarta Post
Representatives of the 193 member nations of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) are gathering at WIPO headquarters to negotiate a proposed new regulation during the Intergovernmental Committee (IGC) Special Session this week. Their aim is to formulate a legal text or basic proposal for a diplomatic conference on intellectual property (IP), genetic resources (GR) and traditional knowledge (TK) associated with GR, scheduled for early 2024. If agreed upon, the legal instrument would provide for a more transparent, just and effective IP regime – one that would facilitate benefit-sharing and deter misappropriation of GR and associated TK. Such a system has been sorely missing from the global IP system, where cases of misappropriation of GR are common, usually at the expense of developing countries, including Indonesia.
‘Gujarat Declaration’ underlining outcome of the first WHO Traditional Medicine Global Summit 2023 released
- September 04, 2023
Source: Press Information Bureau
World Health Organization (WHO) has released the outcome document of first WHO Traditional Medicine Global Summit 2023 in form of “Gujarat Declaration”. The declaration reaffirmed global commitments towards indigenous knowledges, biodiversity and traditional, complementary and integrative medicine. WHO underlined that the application of rigorous scientific methods is needed to better understand, assess and, where appropriate, apply more holistic, context-specific, complex and personalized approaches for health and well-being for all. It reiterates that India as host of the WHO Global Traditional Medicine Centre at Jamnagar, Gujarat has an important role in scaling up WHO’s capacities to support member states and stakeholders in taking forward the summit action agenda and other relevant priorities.
Keeping Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Cultures Alive in Modern-Day Namibia
- September 04, 2023
Source: UNESCO
The world's indigenous people are the guardians of profound cultural traditions that have distinct languages and unique ancestral knowledge systems associated with the land that has been passed down through generations. The Khoisan – often also referred to as the ‘san’, is a collective term used to refer to the various indigenous hunter-gatherer tribes from regions around Southern Africa who depend on the natural environment to fulfill their basic daily needs. While the various Khoisan tribes are assimilated due to the click sound in their lingo and similar physical features, they have distinct groups with unique identities and varying dialects such as the Hai//om, Ju/'Hoansi, ! Xu (or Vasekele), Kwe (or Khwe), //Khau-/eisi, and Naro,! to name a few.
Philippines: Indigenous knowledge Takes on Climate Crisis
- September 03, 2023
Source: United Nation News
In the mountainous province of Bukidnon in the southern Philippines, local indigenous groups are being forced to adapt to the alarming impacts of climate change. With UN support, communities are making significant strides, using centuries-old knowledge to forge sustainable solutions. Climate change is exacting a heavy toll on Filipinos’ lives, properties, and livelihoods. Left unaddressed, it could hamper the country’s ambition of becoming an upper-middle-income country by 2040. Many farmers have reported longer and more severe periods of drought and rainfall than previously considered normal. Floods wiped out more than a dozen houses of community members along the Pulangi River in 2012 and 2013.
Year of millets: harnessing indigenous knowledge systems
- September 02, 2023
Source: The Hindustan Times
The International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, celebrated on 9 August every year, assumed relevance with the International Year of Millets being observed in 2023. The convergence spurred exciting conversations on revisiting the linkage between traditional grains, nutrition, resilience and food sovereignty. The dialogue around millet is connecting the dots from local to global, and India, with its growing leadership narrative from the global south, is shaping policy conversations and knowledge exchanges that link the farm to fork, or should we say seeds to empowerment?
Traditional knowledge systems, interlinked repositories: Nations discuss priority areas
- August 29, 2023
Source: Indian Express
Traditional and indigenous knowledge systems should be taken into account with contemporary science to foster evidence-based innovations that are culturally inspired and locally relevant, recommended an outcome document on 28 August 2023 as the G20-Chief Science Advisers’ Roundtable (CSAR) meetings concluded in Gandhinagar. Principal Scientific Adviser Prof Ajay Kumar Sood said no specific model was discussed but what is important is to bring the traditional knowledge in the framework based on evidence-driven evaluations. Meanwhile, G20 countries also acknowledged the need to enable “immediate and universal access to appropriate publicly funded scholarly scientific knowledge to communities within and beyond G20 members”.
WHO Global Summit Signifies Increased Role of India in the Field of Traditional Medicine
- August 21, 2023
Source: Press Information Bureau
Union Minister of Ayush Shri Sarbananda Sonowal said that the first ever Global Summit on traditional medicine organised by World Health Organisation, and co-hosted by Ministry of Ayush, in Gandhinagar has proved to be historic in many ways. He said “the main outcomes of the global summit will be soon released by World Health Organisation in the form of Gujarat declaration. In the summit, WHO also has shared the initial findings of the global survey on Traditional Medicine that clearly indicates that the reach of Traditional Medicine is on rise across the globe. As per WHO the final survey will be released in November this Year”. The Union Minister Mr Sonowal elaborated on the Ministry of Ayush efforts on expanding the scope and work of Indian Systems of Traditional Medicine and said that five bilateral meet with Nepal, Malaysia, Qatar, Venezuela and Cuba proved very successful. India has invited all the countries involved in bilateral meet to share best practices and benefit from the work going on in India in the field of Traditional Medicine. These bilateral meetings has provided an opportunity for renewing of ties, and also exploring various initiatives for research, practices, education and training in the field of Ayurveda and other Traditional Medicine system.
Union Cabinet approves new Central Sector Scheme ‘PM Vishwakarma’ to support traditional artisans and craftspeople of rural and urban India
- August 16, 2023
Source: Press Information Bureau
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi approved a new Central Sector Scheme “PM Vishwakarma” with a financial outlay of Rs.13,000 crore for a period of five years (FY 2023-24 to FY 2027-28) on 16 August 2023. The scheme aims to strengthen and nurture the Guru-Shishya parampara or family-based practice of traditional skills by artisans and craftspeople working with their hands and tools. The scheme also aims at improving the quality, as well as the reach of products and services of artisans and craftspeople and to ensure that the Vishwakarmas are integrated with the domestic and global value chains.