Lessons in survival

Due to the Coronavirus pandemic: Low-cost private schools and Montessori schools struggle to keep afloat having to revamp their operations to suit the online mode of learning Chandrakant Singh runs Ideal Radiant Public School, a low-cost middle school in Delhi’s Uttam Nagar. He started this school 20 years ago as an educator with a vision […]

Slogans pierce the night calm

On the night of Bhoomi Pujan, Northeast Delhi’s fragile calm shatters It’s been six months since the February carnage in Delhi’s Northeast district. While life is limping back to normal after the pandemic-induced lockdown, the tremors of the riots are still being felt. The Muslim women of Subhash Mohalla in North Ghonda felt it first […]

Witnesses cry foul

In the murder of Shahid Alam during the Delhi riots, police seem to be fabricating evidence In the first week of June, the Delhi police filed a chargesheet into the murder of 25-year-old Shahid Alam, an autodriver from Mustafabad in Northeast Delhi. On February 24, Alam had climbed to the roof of Saptarishi Ispat and […]

Lockdown fallout: Despair and poverty

From Chennai to Gurugram, migrants tell a similar story of poverty, desperation, and a government that left them in the lurch The one who came back “My hope is that the government does not impose another lockdown or we will perish,” says an anguished Shakoor Ahmed as he adjusts the mask on his face. He’s […]

No monitoring the Monitor 

With myths and misconceptions surrounding it, the Indian Monitor lizard often becomes the target of scared locals who see it as a threat  Last week, a Chandan Goira (Indian Monitor lizard) entered a house in Sesaipura village of Madhya Pradesh. Panicked villagers contacted the rescue team which took away the reptile . However, the time […]

Hindi through the backdoor

The NEP seeks to promote Hindi and vernacular languages at a time when English is the aspirational language of the poor and Dalits are using it to escape discrimination The New Education Policy (NEP), recently approved by the Union Cabinet, proposes to bring some radical changes in the Indian education system. While the policy has […]

When rescue is a tweet away

During the lockdown, social media emerged as an effective tool to move authorities to help bonded labour, especially when migrants themselves made videos about their predicament   An owner of a brick kiln in UP’s Azamgarh intercepted his labourers as they walked to another site. The five labourers, including a woman, had been demanding to be […]

Treading cautiously on Eid

Amidst the rising number of Coronavirus cases in the country, Muslims in India celebrated Eid-ul Adha while trying stick to the government guidelines which often differed from state to state As the Coronavirus pandemic keeps unfolding, the very definition of a normal life has been changing. For as long as there is no viable treatment […]