In Jungles of India, New Phone App Helps Indigenous Tribes Embroiled in Maoist Insurgency
An Indian digital activist and a student in Seattle designed a way to empower people in the remote forests of northeast India.
BHANPUR, India—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
