Pushpinder Pal is one of tens of thousands of Indian farmers camped along nine miles (15km) of major roads outside Delhi, protesting about agricultural laws they claim will devastate their earnings. Based in Haryana, he collects food every day from his local gurdwara, a Sikhs' place of assembly, delivering spinach curry to huge numbers of protesters. The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, promised to increase farmers' incomes, but they claim his new policies are designed to favour rich corporations and not them. In one of the largest protests in history, farmers are pledging to stay put while they wait for their representatives to strike a deal with government
Continue reading...Category Archives: India
Making waves: the hit Indian island radio station leading climate conversations
With its unique blend of gossip, jokes and songs mixed with serious global issues, Kadal Osai has built a devoted audience
Selvarani Mari is a fisher and seaweed collector who lives on Pamban Island of Tamil Nadu, on the southernmost tip of India.
Every day she helps her husband cast the fishing nets, maintains rafts for cultivating seaweed, and dives into the ocean to gather sargassum. But she always makes time to listen to the radio.
Continue reading...India’s supreme court gives go-ahead for controversial new parliament building
Critics say Narendra Modi’s $3bn redevelopment of Lutyen’s central vista is ‘expensive vanity project’
India’s supreme court has given approval for a new parliament building that critics have called an “expensive vanity project” for the prime minister, Narendra Modi.
Under the $3bn development project, Delhi’s iconic central vista at the heart of the capital, home to its parliament and the famous India Gate monument, will be transformed by a new triangular parliament building, government and legislature offices and a new home for the prime minister.
Continue reading...Covid vaccinations: slow start around world brings dose of reality
Burst of optimism over approvals has been followed by delays, shortages and bureaucratic errors
The global introduction of newly approved coronavirus vaccines has been marked by delays, shortages and bureaucratic errors as it has become clear that many governments will miss their targets for mass inoculation.
The burst of optimism that arrived with approvals of new vaccines – encouraged by unrealistic expectations raised by politicians – is colliding with the reality of the challenge of vaccinating a large part of the world’s population.
Continue reading...New-sprung: the project turning PPE offcuts into Covid patient mattresses
Cheap, hygienic and sustainable, the mattresses made by Indian fashion designer Lakshmi Menon also generate income for rural women
At the height of the pandemic in the Indian state of Kerala, fashion designer Lakshmi Menon, 46, heard that every new Covid care centre had to have 50 beds. Mattresses were in short supply. Every time a patient was discharged, the mattress had to be incinerated. “I thought: that’s a lot of mattresses and a lot of burning,” says Menon.
Menon’s solution was to collect the mountains of plastic pieces from factories that make PPE – all the little bits left over after cutting. Women then braid the bits into rope-like plaits 6ft long. The braids are laid out in a zigzag and the ends tied together. The result is a light, soft, washable, hygienic mattress for just 300 rupees (£3) – half the price of a normal one.
Continue reading...India’s approval of covid vaccines triggers mass immunisation drive
Green light for Oxford vaccine alongside domestic Covaxin hailed as ‘decisive turning point’ by PM
India has granted emergency approval to both the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine and the domestically developed Covaxin, signalling the start of one of the largest Covid-19 immunisation drives in the world.
At a press conference on Sunday, the drugs controller general of India said the decision to approve both the Oxford vaccine and Covaxin, which is produced by the Indian company Bharat Biotech and was part-funded by the government, had come after “careful examination” of the data.
Continue reading...The world in 2021 – how global politics will change this year
Donald Trump’s departure will alter the face of geopolitics. The climate crisis and Covid response will affect all nations – while others face very particular challenges. Observer correspondents examine the 12 months ahead
A potent mix of hope and fear accompanies the start of 2021 in most of the world. Scientists have created several vaccines for a disease that didn’t even have a name this time last year. But many countries, including the UK and the US, are still stumbling through the deadliest period of the pandemic.
The shadow of Covid will not begin to lift, even in richer countries, for months. Britain was the first to approve a vaccine and has secured extensive supplies, yet Boris Johnson’s suggestion that life might be returning to normal by Easter is widely seen as optimistic. Other countries, particularly in the south, face a long wait to get vaccines, and help paying for them. The rebuilding of economies shattered by Covid everywhere will be slow; even countries that managed to contain it have taken a hit, from Vietnam to New Zealand.
Continue reading...‘It has hit my dignity’: women fight for equal treatment from Indian army
Despite court battles, female officers face limited career opportunities and inferior pension rights to male counterparts
Nidhi Rao* has 13 years’ experience serving in the communications wing of the Indian army. Now she is looking for work online and doesn’t know where to start. “I am jobless in the middle of a pandemic, with no financial security.”
When Rao joined the army, female officers were contracted for five years, after which time they might get an extension of five more years. Unlike men, they were not offered a permanent job. Later, the initial commission period was changed to 10 years, which could be extended a further four years.
Continue reading...India’s Assam state converts state-run Islamic schools into regular schools
Minister from Hindu nationalist BJP says schools should be producing Muslim professional workers, rather than future imams
An Indian state ruled by Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party has passed a law converting state-run Islamic schools into regular schools, saying they provided sub-standard education.
Opposition politicians criticised the move and said it reflected the government’s anti-Muslim attitude in the Hindu-majority country.
Continue reading...Global report: India finds six cases of new UK variant; South Africa bans alcohol sales
Germany says infectious variant has been present since November; Spain sets up Covid vaccine register
India has found six cases of a more infectious variant of the coronavirus in people arriving from Britain, while South Africa reimposed a ban on alcohol sales and ordered the closure of all bars as it battles a resurgence of the virus, including another new variant.
All six of the infected people in India are in isolation and their fellow travellers are being traced, the health ministry said.
Continue reading...Indian police charge army officer with killing three Kashmir civilians
Highly unusual independent inquiry accuses officer of staging their deaths as a fake gunfight
In a highly unusual move, Indian police have indicted an Indian army officer, accusing him of killing three civilians in Kashmir in July and staging their deaths as a fake gunfight.
The rare independent police inquiry into extrajudicial killings in the troubled region found that the Indian military officer Capt Bhoopendra Singh, who used the alias Maj Basheer Khan, had conspired with two of his informers to abduct three local labourers. It said they killed the men, planted illegal weapons on the bodies and branded them “hardcore terrorists”.
Continue reading...How a ‘tree mortgage’ scheme could turn an Indian town carbon neutral
Kerala villagers are reaping the benefits of a scheme that pays them to leave their trees rooted, reducing risk of deforestation
In the misty, hilly terrain of Wayanad, in the southern Indian state of Kerala, the people with any access to land in the quiet town of Meenangadi have been out counting their trees.
Sheeja CG, a 46-year-old farmer, has lived among coffee, coconut and pepper plantations all her life but last month she increased her income dramatically by mortgaging 53 of her trees at the local bank, in return for a sum of 2,650 rupees (£26.96), or 50 rupees each. She was one of the first beneficiaries of the state-sponsored scheme.
Continue reading...Speaking with the Serpent: my encounters with serial killer Charles Sobhraj
The notorious murderer who preyed on 70s backpackers is the subject of a new BBC drama. Our writer recalls his bizarre meetings with a charmer and psychopath
At the beginning of The Serpent, the new BBC drama series based on the exploits of a real-life serial killer, a title page declares: “In 1997 an American TV crew tracked Charles Sobhraj down to Paris where he was living as a free man.”
The ABC team were not the only ones back then to speak to Sobhraj, who was suspected of committing at least 12 murders. I too made the journey to Paris and managed to arrange an interview for the Observer with the Vietnamese-Indian Frenchman. He had just been released from jail in India, where he had spent 20 years on various charges (but not for any of the murders for which he was alleged to be responsible).
Continue reading...Coolie No 1 review – David Dhawan’s comedy remake is bigger but not better
Dhawan casts his son Varun in the role made famous in 1995 by Govinda, but little effort has been made to acknowledge the quarter-century since
It’s a tale of two Bollywoods this Christmas. Over at Netflix, Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane, representing Indian film’s modernising wing, have engineered the sharp and knowing meta-thriller AK vs AK. Here on Amazon Prime Video meanwhile, you can watch veteran comedy director David Dhawan renew his IP rights on Coolie No 1, previously a hit 1995 vehicle for the Sandwell-born funnyman Govinda. Even the latter’s most devout fans would probably concede the original left room for improvements, but that’s something Dhawan appears unfussed about. This Coolie updates a few reference points and replaces Govinda with latter-day hunk Varun Dhawan – the director’s son – then surrounds him with antiquated players and playing, part of a frenetic attempt to pretend the last 30 years never happened.
The plot – lowly railway porter (Dhawan) is hired to woo a society belle (Sara Ali Khan) as part of a conspiracy to disgrace her family – remains familiar and predictable. The most immediate contrast with the original is a result of the casting. Rather too obviously a handsome, cardio-trained leading man schlubbing down for (not many) easy laughs, Dhawan Jr bounds onscreen with boyish enthusiasm, but trails a lingering note of condescension – and Dhawan Sr was evidently too busy remembering how best to smash his supporting actors in the gonads to direct anyone. Khan, sadly, is stranded on balconies looking fetchingly concerned while the men below determine her character’s destiny. In this, Coolie 2020 really does seem so last century.
Continue reading...Dangerous spices: why India’s cooking powders pose a risk of lead poisoning
Exposure to the heavy metal from spice powders and car batteries is affecting child health across the subcontinent
An outbreak of a mystery illness over two days in early December in the south Indian city of Eluru saw more than 560 people hospitalised, most of them children, and baffled doctors. Symptoms were described as being similar to epilepsy, with convulsions and vomiting accompanied by burning eyes and loss of consciousness.
Recovery tended to be quick although the death of one man was attributed to the illness. In the midst of the Covid pandemic theories circulated that it was caused by too much disinfectant or vegetables washed in chlorine. Local traders saw sales slump.
Continue reading...Indian news channel fined in UK for hate speech about Pakistan
Ofcom imposes £20,000 penalty on Republic TV for ‘highly pejorative’ comments on talk show
A rightwing Indian news channel known for its strong pro-government stance and firebrand host has been fined by the UK regulator Ofcom for broadcasting hate speech about Pakistan.
Republic TV was fined £20,000 for airing a segment on its UK service, which conveyed the view that all Pakistani people are terrorists, including “their scientists, doctors, their leaders, politicians […] Even their sports people”.
Continue reading...‘The brides feel like Cinderella’: the free wedding shop helping India’s poor
Fashion designer’s scheme provides secondhand shoes, clothes and jewellery free to women who can’t pay for their big day
A section of a boutique in Pappinisseri town in Kerala’s Kannur district brims over with colourful bridal lehengas, saris, gowns and shiny salwar suits.
An exuberance of fabrics adorns mannequins that stand next to tables spread with sparkly sandals, shoes, bangles and beaded bags. Tableware, bedlinen and miscellaneous items are scattered in other spaces.
Continue reading...The best of the long read in 2020
Our 20 favourite pieces of the year
What links an eccentric Oxford classics don, billionaire US evangelicals and a tiny, missing fragment of an ancient manuscript?
Continue reading...How KK Shailaja and her ‘Covid brigade’ won a victory against the virus
Fewer coronavirus patients have died in the state of Kerala than anywhere else in India. No wonder Vogue India named its health minister ‘leader of the year’
By mid-May, the Indian state of Kerala had contained the first wave of Covid-19, earning praise for the quick thinking and joined-up response of its health minister, KK Shailaja, and her team. By July, however, there were suggestions that those plaudits had been premature, and that Kerala’s Covid-19 response had come unstuck. Had it?
Shailaja Teacher – as the 64-year-old minister is affectionately known – had been expecting a surge in infections once India’s lockdown was lifted later in May. Kerala, home to 35 million people, has the country’s most robust health systems, but it is one of India’s poorer states, with one of its oldest populations. About 17% of workers leave to find jobs in neighbouring states, and there were fears about what would happen when, inevitably, these migrants returned. The authorities knew they could not keep Kerala’s borders shut or, given that the state relies on imports, keep it isolated from its neighbours.
Continue reading...Caste-based area names to be changed across Indian state to ‘increase unity’
Millions of people in Maharashtra to have neighbourhoods renamed but critics say plan means little without behavioural change
The names of neighbourhoods in the Indian state of Maharashtra based on the caste of people who have traditionally lived there are to be be changed, to reflect the country’s evolving attitudes.
In the same way Indian surnames reveal the caste to which a person belongs, neighbourhoods have acquired names based on the caste of the community that predominates.
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