Why was it so easy for students to get a college degree? asks Geetanjali Krishna.
The high-profile rape cases in Hathras, in Unnao (2018) and Kathua (2018) show that the infrastructure slated under the Nirbhaya Fund is either absent or inefficient, reports Geetanjali Krishna.
'With running water our two hands play, In and out the colourful soap dances away! It bubbles and froths between our fingers Under our nails it cleans and lingers Then all the soap we wash away!'
'Some people are natural born healers.' Geetanjali Krishna discovers that degrees don't matter in two tiny UP villages, healing does.
Khalid Saifullah created Missing Voters, an app which enables people to conveniently apply for voter cards.
'As the Aisi Taisi Democracy folk so aptly put it, time to choose who will s**** us most', says Geetanjali Krishna.
St Jude India ChildCare Centres is a unique organisation which runs residential homes for families of children who need to undergo long-term cancer treatment. Its 37 centres close to India's premier cancer hospitals give children a fighting chance against the disease.
'Twitterati on either side of the political fence needs to walk for a day or two in a chowkidar's shoes to understand how precariously India's unorganised sector teeters on the brink,' says Geetanjali Krishna.
'People like me worry about our next meal, not about what meat we eat... and we certainly don't have the luxury that you have, of holding vigils for faceless people we've never known.'
'Patriotism isn't (or shouldn't) be an unquestioning love for one's nation.' 'It is love for a nation in throes of change, love with a heart full of questions,' says Geetanjali Krishna.
'It is especially discouraging for young people in the development sector. I've noticed that many of them are actively considering other career options to escape this atmosphere.' Geetanjali Krishna reports.
At a time when the country's medical infrastructure has become incapable of handling the pressure of Covid's deadly second wave, a parallel wave of conmen, black marketers and counterfeiters can be witnessed across the country. Geetanjali Krishna reports.
No one was surprised when Rajendra Singh was found shot and killed in broad daylight, not far from the local police station, notes Geetanjali Krishna.
The dead boy was a first generation learner in a government school, with all odds stacked against him. While everyone celebrates this year's toppers, Geetanjali Krishna wonders about the failures, and how our system has failed them.
Their music, available online, sung in Hindi, English, Urdu and Marathi, displays a new grammar and vocabulary which expresses the language of the disempowered,
Coral reefs protect coastal areas from flooding and high waves, function as fish nurseries, provide subsistence food, and of course, draw in tourists
'One of the most important lessons I learnt from Babulal was on stoicism.' 'As a young man, he had lost the fingers of his right hand in an accident.' 'Without missing a beat, he taught himself to use the spade and shovel with his left hand and carried on working,' says Geetanjali Krishna.
'The social security system in India provides minimal support to the elderly poor,' says Geetanjali Krishna.
'Our throwaway culture today has little room for mochis and rafoogars who concealed rips and tears with imperceptible stitches and great skill,' says Geetanjali Krishna.
'I sighed, wondering what we'd eat if all farmers took jobs in the city and all their fields degenerated into land for sale,' notes Geetanjali Krishna.
'No one really knows whether it is somehow better to go raging and fighting into the dark night, or close one's eyes quietly and give in to fate.' 'But a funeral with music, tinsel and acceptance -- not unlike most New Year festivities -- seems like a better send-off than any other,' says Geetanjali Krishna.
'I don't know how long the small-scale handmade sector can survive,' a shoemaker from Hisar tells Geetanjali Krishna.
'Whether she pursued academics or art, there was one sort of tyranny she'd probably never escape -- her father's,' says Geetanjali Krishna.
Man loses Rs 1.5 lakh from under his pillow. Geetanjali Krishna reveals what happens next.
'It's the children that matter. They are the future,' Bhagaban Mohanta, who was born without legs, tells Geetanjali Krishna.
Perhaps, more daughters will feel more loved if the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao scheme were to be replaced, says Geetanjali Krishna.
In one case, the folks at SWAN discovered that of the Rs 1,500 they'd transferred as relief in the account of a stranded worker, the bank had deducted Rs 800 as penalty for not having minimum balance!
'All the bride's beleaguered parents wanted, they said, was a simple wedding without any unnecessary problems.'
'I had the strangest feeling that my childhood home had burnt and disappeared on my parents' funeral pyres,' he said. Hardly any of his family lived there now. Migration or death had claimed them all. It seemed to be full of strangers. 'Then I realised that from their perspective, perhaps there was only one stranger -- me..." Babu Lal tells Geetanjali Krishna.
When these villagers had no work, an NGO stepped in and transformed their lives, says Geetanjali Krishna.
'As I look back on 2016, I see yet another year in which our country -- not just the government -- has failed to move ahead,' says Geetanjali Krishna.
'Dangal gives people the impression that Geeta and Babita Phogat's rise to fame as wrestlers is a one-off phenomenon.' 'Many young wrestlers in Haryana are capable of reaching the same heights as the Phogat sisters, but there are few opportunities to train or make a living from wrestling in the village.'
'It is the common people, not lawyers and judges, who are the stakeholders of the judiciary.'
In rural Bengal, people still believed that widows were simply biding their time on earth after their lord and master had departed from it, says Geetanjali Krishna.
'Around the dawn of the millennium, it seemed that the sun was finally setting on these elaborate home weddings.' 'As the clamour for 'live' counters of grilled fish, pasta and khao suey grew, without even realising it, Gopal Pandey slowly started going out of fashion,' says Geetanjali Krishna.
'The children of today see Bollywood heroines dancing to item numbers in clingy georgette saris with bright gold machine embroidery.' 'To them, the Sambalpuri saris look and feel like shapeless, dull sacks.' 'The tragedy of the weaver isn't that he doesn't get enough respect and understanding from people like us,' says Geetanjali Krishna.
Monika explains that girls like her living in villages have no access to fashion. Access to "nice clothes" and the freedom to wear them, she tells Geetanjali Krishna, could go a long way in developing the confidence of young girls like herself.
The Naz Foundation is trying to sensitise workplaces towards the LGBT community, reports Geetanjali Krishna.
'Sick in my heart that people could think that half our population couldn't "help" wanting to prey on the other half, I mused that the faceless dead girl on the road wasn't just a victim of murder, but also of the misogynistic society she had spent her short life in,' says Geetanjali Krishna.
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