[LINK] "In Jungles of India, New Phone App Helps Indigenous Tribes Embroiled in Maoist Insurgency"

[rfmcdonald]

National Geographic's Anthony Loyd shares news of a new phone app that might give India's adivasi tribes a greater chance to survive the Naxalite uprisings that affect many of their territories.

An Android app designed to give voice to tribes at the heart of India's Maoist insurgency was launched September 20 as part of a campaign by activists to end the conflict through the combination of oral tradition and new technology.

The new app allows tribes living in the remote jungle interior of the Dandakaranya forest to become citizen journalists, posting and sharing pictures and stories on CGNet Swara, a mobile phone-based reporting platform cofounded by Indian digital activist Shubhranshu Choudhary and American computer scientist Bill Thies.

"We're trying to reach out with this new technology to solve so many of the smaller problems that have given rise to such anger in this area," explained Choudhary, winner of this year's Google Digital Activism Award.

"We want to bring hope back to a society where hopelessness has led [many to] resort to violence."

The conflict, pitting Maoist cadres—better known as Naxalites—against Indian security forces, is centered in India's mineral-rich heartland and has cost more than 10,000 lives over the past decade.

Exploiting popular discontent among impoverished rural communities and marginalized tribes, the Naxalites have seeded themselves in Dandakaranya, the 39,000-square-mile (100,000-square-kilometer) forest that encompasses parts of several Indian states, including Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and Andhra Pradesh.