Reportage
Epic Summers: In some mountain villages of Uttarakhand, the Ramleela saga unfolds in the summer months
In Wan, Dumak, Thaing and a few other mountain villages in Uttarakhand, Ravana has to wait till the summer before he is given a fiery send-off.
Barkha Kumari
Linked by MGNREGA: A postgraduate student, a qualified teacher and migrant brick kiln labourers in Odisha
COVID-19 has crushed hopes and careers even before they took off. But, what has sustained the economically underprivileged is MGNREGA work. In Balangir, 400,000 active workers have been engaged for 20,000 projects.
Rakhi Ghosh
Warli on the wall: The Warli tribe in Maharashtra’s Ganjad draws from life to create unique art
In Ganjad village in Palghar district, a group of Warli artists keeps the craft alive with residencies and live art shows. The tribe also struggles to stop the unethical commercialisation of its art.
Devyani Nighoskar
Nourishing change: In Unnao, UP, an initiative to prevent stubble burning
The ‘Parali Do Khaad Lo’ (manure for crop residue) initiative offers farmers one trolley of manure from shelters for stray cattle against two trolleys of stubble. So far, 354 metric tonnes of stubble have been collected by the district authorities.
Sumit Yadav
Déjà vu: In one of Delhi’s oldest jhuggi cluster Lal Bagh, Dalit and denotified tribe families face eviction, yet again
An August 31 order of the Supreme Court of India is set to evict over 250,000 slum dwellers in the national capital. Of these, about 1,200 belong to the Dalit Kapadiya community and Mahavat denotified nomadic tribe, many of whom have been displaced in the past, too. For now, there is no resettlement plan.
Suchitra
Poll party: Candidates for the gram panchayat elections in Uttar Pradesh open the charm tap
Elections are to be held in 2021 for pradhans in 58,758 gram panchayats, 75 zilla panchayats and 821 area panchayats. And, after four years of being ignored, villagers are discovering they exist, and how!
Kushal Mishra
Left Behind: Disabled children in Kashmir struggle to keep up with their studies amid pandemic
Over 83,000 disabled students are enrolled in educational institutions in J&K, of which more than 40,000 kids are in schools in the Kashmir region. These children are unable to access education in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mudassir Kuloo
In Deep Waters: Urban local bodies need to mitigate the impact of floods in the cities
The National Disaster Management Authority came out with a well researched document on the guidelines for ‘Management of Urban Flooding’ in 2010, yet floods continue to wreak havoc in urban India.
Himanshu Thakkar
Onion Tears: The price of onion might have come down, but is expected to climb steeply again
Heavy rains in September and October have ruined onion crop in Maharashtra, India’s top onion producing state. While farmers stare at huge losses, another steep rise in onion price is expected. A Gaon Connection report from Nashik, Maharashtra.
Tanvi Deshpande
Choked: Hari Phuljhari, a documentary film, analyses air pollution through the firecracker ban in Delhi
A 2018 Supreme Court ruling regulated the bursting of firecrackers in Delhi. But the very same year, 5 million firecrackers were set off. The documentary Hari Phuljhari by Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy analyses the ground reality and public perception.