Easing the pain of handloom weavers, building inclusivity for transpeople, and a musician’s quest for a healthy planet–our top stories of the week

Handloom weavers, on an average, lift anywhere between 20 kg and 45 kg of weight with manual pedals, around 5,000-8,000 times a day. As they do this continuously, they end up with knee and back pain. By the age of 45, most of them cannot weave anymore, and they do not have other skills to earn a livelihood. 

Hyderabad-based innovator Sivakumar Modha’s ‘Modha Pedal Operating Machine’ for all Jacquard-based handlooms is a machine that is fastened to a loom. Using its pedal switches, the weaver uses his big toe to work the motor fitted to it, and thereby feels no load on his knees and back.

The machine was launched in January last year, and it recently received the Jury’s Special award at the Aarohan Social Innovation Awards instituted by the Infosys Foundation.

Read more about Modha’s journey here.

Why trans lives continue to get lost in systemic violence

In 2020, when domestic crimes were exceptionally high owing to the lockdown, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) recorded a mere 236 crimes against transgender persons (0.006% of all crime victims). In 2023, NCRB claimed there had been no suicides in the transgender community in 19 metropolitan cities.

However, crimes against the trans community continue to be grossly underreported due to a fragile legal system and social dehumanisation. Experts and activists working on the ground say the appalling underreporting of these crimes can be attributed to the lack of documentation. They say gender sensitisation and trans rights must be included in the training of police personnel across the country. 

This singer-ecologist’s music is a love letter to the planet

Aditi Veena (Ditty), a musician from Goa, is on a mission to heal the planet. She and her crew cut down carbon emissions by choosing to travel together, rather than taking separate vehicles while touring, opting for trains instead of flights, eating locally, reducing their meat/dairy intake, staying with friends instead of at hotels, and carrying rechargeable batteries.

In an attempt to offset the carbon emissions caused by her tours, Ditty, who is also an urban ecologist, has planted an indigenous food forest with the help of local environmentalists at Pollam Farm in Hyderabad. This year too, she will collaborate with local environmentalists and artists to start important conversations around climate change, sacred ecology, communal regeneration, and transformation.

In other good news …

Collective kitchens gather steam in Kerala

In Kerala’s Ponnani, when some working couples realised that cooking was a time-consuming task, they decided to centralise the activity by identifying a piece of land with the facilities to prepare the food. 

The ‘sahakarana’ or ‘collective kitchen’ has gained traction among other office-going couples in Malappuram, and was introduced in Kozhikode a few months ago, says a report by The New Indian Express. 

Besides saving on time and cost, a sahakarana kitchen has health benefits, with close supervision of the ingredients that go into the food and the cooking methods employed.