Protesting farmers, who have been holding their fort at the Singhu border for over 20 days, are keeping monotony and boredom at bay by adding new books to their reading list -- day after day.
Twenty days on, life has settled into a routine for protesting farmers who are devising ways to crack the code of living through an agitation with no immediate end in sight.
For these women, who describe themselves as homemakers, farmworkers and protesters all rolled into one, any suggestion that farmers are about being alpha males because it requires physical labour is met with scorn.
The protesting farmers dubbed the three laws as "anti-farmer" and claimed they infringe upon their basic right to sell their produce at MSP.
'How can one bring jihad into a relationship? How can one be restricted on the grounds of religion in marital things?'
Hundreds of artisans every Dussehra would earn enough this season to see them through the entire year. Not this time though with COVID-19 continuing its spread and fear of contracting the disease keeping most people away from festivities.
Two months after TikTok ban: Influencers busy rebuilding their fan base as homegrown apps enjoy 'gold rush'.
Declaring that the time had come to reopen Delhi, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Sunday evening, "Self-employed people like technicians, plumbers, electricians, mechanics, sanitation workers, domestic helps, and people involved with laundry and ironing are allowed to work."
The journey of getting used to a new way of life -- without domestic help, without the necessity of dressing up to step out and just staying cooped up indoors -- has been out of the ordinary, equal parts good, bad and ugly.
The most commonly asked questions relate to symptoms and prevention -- 'Will summer kill the coronavirus?', 'Should outside food and non-veg food be avoided?', 'Does smoking affect chances of recovery?', 'Are face masks useful?', 'Are hand sanitisers better than soap?', 'Are elders in my family more susceptible?'
Amid the crisis has risen an outpouring of empathy from ordinary people across India led by the civil society, who have stepped up to help migrant labourers, domestic helps, construction workers, and small scale workers who were left jobless because of the nationwide lockdown.
Bingeing on action movies, hours-long video calls to his wife and watching "less TV news" helped a coronavirus survivor in successfully getting through the tense isolation period in hospital.
A solitary patch of violet stands out in what are walls blackened high with soot, a reminder of a room that was once coloured with shades of content and is now littered with the detritus of a riot -- except for a bed on which sits Nazar Mohammad. His three-storey home in northeast Delhi's Shiv Vihar Phase 7, one of the worst-hit areas in the recent riots, tells the story of not just three days of clashes but also of hope rising from the ashes of violence.
As the sun sets over the charred ruins of what was a bustling neighbourhood till only two weeks ago and the shadows lengthen into night, panic escalates in northeast Delhi's riot-scarred locality of Shiv Vihar.
"People in India are showing their angst, their concerns, their worries about the future of India. Everybody wants development, what has Modi done? He has done his own development rather than development of the country," he added.
Watches, pens, shawls, shirts or even shoes, the former finance minister had a penchant for all of them and his collection consisted of the choicest of brands ranging from "Patek Phillipe (in watches) to Mont Blanc (in pens)".
Volunteers dressed as clowns visit hospitals and old-age homes to spread cheer and dispel the gloom of ill health and old age.
The festival is billed as the largest gathering of humanity on earth, with 110 million people expected to attend over 49 days. But for the thousands who get lost among the crowds, help is at hand and has been since 1946.
Traditionally the biggest of all the sacred bathing days in the 50-day long Mela, Mauni Amavasya this time holds greater significance as it falls on a Monday and that too during the Kumbh - a rather rare combination on many accounts.
Security measures have been heightened in Prayagraj and surrounding areas for the auspicious occasion.
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