Biodiversity project sparks a folk culture revival

For close to a decade now, the Greater Noida region has been seeing much ‘development’ — wider roads for smoother mobility between various pockets of the National Capital Region, and rapid campus construction to meet the growing demand for mushrooming universities. A chance discovery Last year, when Sharma’s team — which also includes Amit Kumar Tripathi, a botanist and post-doctoral research associate, and Mohd. The matter of pedagogy Sharma, Ahmad, and Tripathi have already put together a draft of a book that classifies the various strands of Chithara’s folk song traditions. Chandra’s second project, which she began at the start of this year, looks at women’s voices and expression through the folk songs that’ve existed in and around Gautam Buddha Nagar, which is now called the “industrial hub of U.P.” But as to why a team exclusively from the life sciences department went ahead with the Chithara project, which may have benefitted from the expertise of a team from a social-sciences department — especially since a robust one exists in-house — is not entirely clear. “Also, over the last 25-30 years, the scope of what we consider ‘biodiversity’ can be seen has having expanded,” he says — culture and ways of living, especially if related to the flora and fauna of the region, may well fall under their ambit.