Wedlock in lockdown

Women of marriageable age are under pressure from their parents to get married soon. Stuck at home due to the pandemic, they have no choice but to listen to harangues about how time is running out  The ongoing pandemic has negatively impacted normal life. Needless to say, this impact has not been uniform — some […]

Girl child at risk of dropout

With online classes hardly viable in poor families with two or three school going children, their education is bound to suffer. The risk of them being put to labour or married off is real   Manisha Tiwari lives in a village of Jharkhand’s Koderma district. Since March, when the lockdown was imposed to fight the spread […]

Together physically, virtually in another zone

During the pandemic, families are being forced to spend quality time together but each is involved in their own online world — WFH, video games and Netflix There’s always a silver lining. The pandemic has destroyed millions of livelihoods, the economy is in shambles and the future is at best uncertain. Despite this, there are […]

Memes go political

Apart from caricaturing public figures, memes appropriated for political propaganda have not really added gravitas to public debates. Rather, they have trivialised serious issues If we look at some famous “meme” of the last few weeks that grabbed a lot of attention on social media — one was “Rasode me kaun tha (Who was in […]

Online wars against a girl named Rhea

The story of three men united by their fever-pitch resentment towards Rhea Chakraborty, and their anger and grief at the death of a Bollywood star A picture posted on a popular Facebook group shows actor Rhea Chakraborty next to a coronavirus illustration. “Which virus is more dangerous?” shouts the text on the image. The caption says: “2020 worst […]

Mirror to millennial moods

Netflix’s ‘Masaba Masaba’ has its protagonist depicting the lives of young working women like never before — it may be a ficitonalised story of a famous mother and daughter, but it’s totally relatable When I started watching Netflix’s much-talked about “Masaba Masaba”, I did not have any expectations from it. Rather, I was only hoping […]

‘It’s a matter of life and death’, say Chandni Chowk traders

When two brothers running a jewellery showroom committed suicide due to inability to repay debt taken from private financiers, Patriot puts the whole modus operandi of loan sharks under the scanner and finds a dismal scenario Shopkeepers look around furtively to see if anyone else heard Patriot’s query about loan sharks. When they feel assured […]

Small traders, big problems

Small retailers in the informal sector kept the supply of essential commodities running during the lockdown. Now, in want of government support, they are losing market to online retail….   When everything was lockdown during the first few months of the pandemic, the convenient online retail where you get all you need at your doorstep wasn’t […]