Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed

2 weeks ago | frontline.thehindu.com | Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed |Vivek Katju |Vaishna Roy

The monsoon rain hammered the black tarpaulin canopy where 40 Jenu Kuruba, a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group who are historically honey gatherers (jenu means honey in Kannada), huddled against the chill in their newly formed hamlet in the foothills of the Western Ghats. When Frontline visited them in late May, it was exactly 24 days after the group had set up camp just inside the boundary of Nagarahole National Park, a 643 sq. km.

1 month ago | frontline.thehindu.com | Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed |Gowhar Geelani |Vaishna Roy

A narrow lane abutting Sri Guru Singh Sabha, the largest gurdwara in Bengaluru, located on the periphery of Ulsoor Lake in central Bengaluru, leads to a dense warren of bylanes which are collectively known as M.V. Garden. In one of these minuscule bylanes, in mid-May, a knot of women surrounded Munishame Gowda holding aloft their Aadhaar cards, ration cards, and Scheduled Caste certificates.

1 month ago | frontline.thehindu.com | Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed |Gowhar Geelani |Vaishna Roy

With the Union government announcing that caste will be recorded in the next—though significantly delayed—decennial Census, there is renewed focus on the status of Karnataka’s Socio-Economic and Educational Survey conducted in 2015, which also documented the respondents’ caste. States like Bihar and Telangana announced and swiftly conducted this exercise over the past year and also put out the findings in the public domain.

2 months ago | frontline.thehindu.com | Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed |Divya Gandhi |Vaishna Roy

On January 8, six naxalites who were active in Karnataka surrendered in the presence of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. At the event, the Chief Minister announced that with this, Karnataka had become “naxal-free”. The last naxalite who remained active surrendered three weeks later, on February 1, reinforcing the government’s declaration that the armed struggle of the naxalites had ended in Karnataka after its four-decade-long journey since the 1980s.

Mar 25, 2025 | frontline.thehindu.com | Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed |Vaishna Roy

A well-known Kannada poet and writer who hails from Mudnakudu village of Chamarajanagar district in southern Karnataka, Mudnakudu Chinnaswamy is a prominent Dalit voice in the Kannada world of letters. His prodigious corpus of 50 books, which includes poetry collections, essay compilations, plays, and collections of short stories, has helped him carve a niche for himself.