maraa

Having studied a Social Communication Media Course in Mumbai, she joined VOICES, to bring out a publication on Community Media and stuck on there a little more than two years. She had the opportunity to get hands on experience with community radio, video and theatre, both in Bangalore and rural Karnataka. She is one of the founding members of Masrah, an eight year old theatre group. Passionate about travel, Ekta has also worked as Research Manager for The Blue Yonder, a responsible tourism company where she identified communities to work with in Karnataka and Rajasthan. Studying art, media and culture, meeting people, writing and photography are her keen interests. All in all, the journeys are always more important than destinations for her.

Jurmil Morcha, a people’s front from Rajnandgaon district in Chhattisgarh travelled across Bangalore tirelessly from the 3rd to 5th of December doing precisely this. Using a traditional folk form Pandavani, Budan Bhai, leader of Jurmil Morcha says, “Pandavani was used to tell the Mahabharat in ancient times. I will use it to tell people today’s Mahabharat, our fight and struggle with the Kauravas, the State.”

Bengaluru Pride 2008
The most colourful march Bangalore has seen…

June 29, 2008

We didn’t even know about the Pride, until one of our friends talked to us about making the march colourful. That was an exciting thing to do – make a march colourful. From a distance, we must look like the rainbow, someone [...]

A paper by Pritham Chakravarthy on Theatre Activism for the Journal of National Folklore.

Pritham Chakravarthy in Bangalore
Pritham K Chakravarthy is a theatre performer, activist, playwright and an independent researcher. She specialises in single woman performances focusing on gender and sexuality. Her piece on transgender community of Chennai, "Nirvanam" was featured in The Edinburgh International Festival 2002 and has travelled extensively in the USA and UK [...]

The first event organised by Maraa, the Vayali folk drummers performed at a popular Karaoke bar, Opus, in Bangalore. A cultural exchange of sorts, equally fascinating for both performer and audience!

Radio Active (RA), is the first and only functional community radio station in Bangalore. Housed in Mahaveer Jain college, RA operates currently on 107.8 MHz and radiates its programmes at 100 W.
With FM technology, it is accessible to the common woman, and aims to engage its communities with relevant programming on areas like health, education, [...]

The Deccan Development Society (DDS), is a two-decade old grassroots organization working in about 75 villages with women’s Sanghams (voluntary village level associations of the poor) in Medak District of Andhra Pradesh. The 5000 women members of the Society represent the poorest of the poor in their village communities. Most of them are dalits, the [...]

MYRADA is a non Governmental organisation managing rural development programmes in 3 States of South India – Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
While the objective is to help the poor help themselves, MYRADA achieves this by forming Self Help Affinity Groups (SHGs) and through partnerships with NGOs and other organisations.
MYRADA has many resource centres that [...]