Category Archives: India

Lessons via loudspeaker: the students studying across India’s digital divide

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How do you learn from home without a laptop? Teachers are getting creative, but the pandemic remains a vast challenge

Vemula Deena lives in one of the tin huts strung along a narrow lane in the heart of Vijayawada, the business capital of Andhra Pradesh, in the south-east of India. Her parents are construction labourers. Vemula is 13 and wants to be a politician, enamoured of the spotless white kurta-pyjamas they wear and their public speaking.

But her school has closed its doors in the face of the Covid pandemic and gone online, effectively shutting her out. Vemula continues to practise her oration as she does her household chores.

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From schoolboy to tea seller: Covid poverty forces India’s children into work

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The pandemic has pushed millions of urban poor into crisis – and left children struggling to help their families survive

Subhan Shaikh used to start the day with a cup of cinnamon-flavoured tea, brought to him by his mother, Sitara, before he got ready for school. But the lockdown in March brought her salary as a school bus attendant to an end, and providing food – never mind tea – for Subhan, 14, and his two younger sisters, became a challenge.

Today, life for Subhan revolves around tea, which has become a lifeline for his family. After seeing his mother struggle, Subhan decided to do something and became a tea seller on the streets of Mumbai.

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‘She’s made us proud’: Kamala Harris’s ancestral village celebrates election win – video

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The small Indian village of Thulasendrapuram burst into celebration after waking up to the news that Kamala Harris will become the first woman and the first person of south-Asian descent to become US vice-president. People set off firecrackers, played music and shared food in the village, where Harris's maternal grandfather was born. 'We take immense pride in her victory, and who she has become,' said one resident

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Global coronavirus cases pass 50m with US worst affected country

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US close to 10m cases, with India second on 8.5m cases, followed by Brazil and Russia

The number of coronavirus cases worldwide has passed 50 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, which showed that the US, India and Brazil have the highest figures.

A total of 50,052,204 infections had been reported around the world by Sunday evening.

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Indian TV anchor’s arrest escalates feud with Maharashtra state

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Arnab Goswami’s arrest follows claims that his BJP-backing TV channel smears opponents

One of India’s most famous and polarising television journalists has been arrested in connection with a 2018 suicide case, escalating an ongoing feud between the conservative news anchor and the Maharashtra state government.

Arnab Goswami, the founder of the rightwing channel Republic TV, was arrested at his home in Mumbai early on Wednesday. It prompted a chorus of anger from the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), including from the home affairs minister, Amit Shah, who called it a “blatant misuse of state power”.

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Two men arrested in India over £70,000 ‘Aladdin’s lamp’ con

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Laeek Khan alleges he was duped by pair who even pretended to conjure up a genie

Two men who allegedly duped a doctor into buying an “Aladdin’s lamp” for more than £70,000 – even conjuring up a fake genie – have been arrested in India, according to officials.

Laeek Khan approached police in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh after he realised the lamp did not have any magical powers, as described in the popular folk tale about Aladdin and his wish-granting genie that appears when it is rubbed.

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‘I feel free here’: how a miracle girls’ school was built in India’s ‘golden city’

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A strikingly-designed centre reminiscent of Rajasthan’s famous forts will soon be opening its doors in conservative Jaisalmer

“Don’t even try,” friends told Michael Daube, when he said he wanted to coax women in Jaisalmer to embroider yoga bags to help them earn some income.

For the most part, at least in rural areas, this is Federico García Lorca territory, where marriage for a woman, as a character in the Spanish poet’s play Blood Wedding describes it, is “a man, children, and as for the rest a wall that’s two feet thick”. Rajasthan is one of the most conservative states in India, where ancient customs circumscribe a woman’s freedom and in turn any chance of economic independence.

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Wild hing makes India’s heart sing as favourite spice is home-grown at last

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Asafoetida is a mainstay of the country’s cuisine, but only now are the first saplings being planted on Indian soil

What’s in a name? Plenty, when it comes to asafoetida or “devil’s dung”. The evil-smelling spice is a stink bomb that unquestionably lives up to its moniker. Inhalation at five paces can make someone with a blocked nose stagger back. It has to be stored away from other spices to prevent it overwhelming them. Just a smidgen can cure indigestion. Yet it is a staple in Indian cuisine, adding a certain subtle aroma, pungency and flavour. For the Jain community, whose religion forbids the use of onion and garlic, “hing”, as it is called in India, is a lifesaver for the flavour it adds. Hing is India’s answer to Japan’s umami.

Yet, until now, no one in India has grown the spice.

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Corona demons tower over India’s Durga Puja festival

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Artisans preparing Hindu festival have responded creatively to the pandemic and its problems

Every autumn the streets of Kolkata come alive with the sounds of Durga Puja. The Hindu festival, which celebrates the triumph of good over evil, is marked in West Bengal and neighbouring states as a time for dancing, drumming, eating and worship.

Yet the festival’s most defining feature is the pandal – towering displays of religious sculptures depicting the story of Durga Puja: the moment that the Hindu goddess Durga triumphed over the demon Mahishasura.

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Rickshaw driver’s son beats odds to join famed UK ballet school

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After just four years’ training in India and some fast crowd-funding, Kamal Singh joins English National Ballet School

Kamal Singh did not even know what ballet was when he turned up nervously at the Imperial Fernando Ballet School, in Delhi, during the summer of 2016. But the 17-year-old, known as Noddy, whose father was a rickshaw driver in the west of the city, had been transfixed by ballet dancers in a Bollywood film, and wanted to try it for himself.

Four years on Singh is now one of the first Indian students to be admitted to the English National Ballet school. He started this week.

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‘Not just a dog bite’: why India is struggling to keep rabies at bay

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The government is being urged to dispel myths and ensure drugs are available – and take responsibility for the millions of stray dogs

By the time the patient, a young man, reached Dr Ramesh Masthi at a Bengaluru hospital, it was too late to save him. After being bitten by a pack of stray dogs as he went out to buy some milk, his family had applied a paste of green chillis, then lime juice and finally, when the wound looked gruesome, turmeric.

“He came about a week after he was bitten. The wound was serious, and we couldn’t save him. There is so much ignorance about dog bites and myths. A rabies shot in time would have saved him,” Masthi says.

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Tardigrades’ latest superpower: a fluorescent protective shield

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Scientists identify a species that appears to absorb potentially lethal UV radiation and emit blue light

The might be tiny creatures with a comical appearance, but tardigrades are one of life’s great survivors. Now scientists say they have found a new species boasting an unexpected piece of armour: a protective fluorescent shield.

Related: Tardigrades: Earth’s unlikely beacon of life that can survive a cosmic cataclysm

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Fruits of shared labour: the Indian women joining forces for food security

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Rural women in Tamil Nadu are mostly excluded from land ownership, but collective farms can offer self-sufficiency

When all the shops closed due to the coronavirus lockdown, small collectives were key to remaining self-sufficient for marginalised farmers in India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu.

“We had sufficient grains and vegetables at home, while others in the village were seeking government support,” says 46-year-old Poongani, one of the widowed Dalit women among the nine members of the Sivanthi Poo farming collective in the village of Thottampatti.

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Covid-19 prompts ‘enormous rise’ in demand for cheap child labour in India

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Charities warn that seven months of the pandemic has set the country back decades on child exploitation

Over 70 children were crammed into a bus, heading from Bihar to a sweatshop in the Indian city of Rajasthan, when the authorities pulled it over. Among the faces half hidden behind colourful masks was 12-year-old Deepak Kumar.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, Kumar had been enrolled in grade four at the school in his small district of Gaya in the impoverished Indian state of Bihar. But when Covid-19 hit and the country went into lockdown, the school gates shut across India and have not opened since. With his parents, both daily wage labourers, unable to make money and put food on the table, last month Kumar was sent out to find work.

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India’s tea workers strike as government fails to deliver wage increase

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Unions warn of further action over non-payment of rise agreed in 2018, as hundreds of Assam tea estates close

Over 400,000 workers on Indian tea plantations that supply the world’s largest tea companies have gone on strike over the government’s failure to implement a promised daily wage increase from £1.70 to £3.70 a day.

The past week has seen around 250 tea estates across the Assam region close, with the partial closure of a further 20.

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Covid crisis could force extra 2.5m girls into child marriage – charity

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Save the Children predicts worst rise in child marriage rates in 25 years as a result of pandemic

Up to 2.5 million more girls around the world are at risk of being forced into child marriage over the next five years as a result of the impact of Covid-19, according to a report by Save the Children.

The charity predicts the worst surge in rates of child marriage in 25 years, as the pandemic has shuttered schools and pushed poor families further into destitution.

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India’s classical music and dance ‘guru’ system hit by abuse allegations

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Female musicians say abuse by gurus has been an open secret for years in a culture where ‘toxic and old-fashioned patriarchy’ holds sway

One of India’s most venerated cultural traditions – the centuries-old guru-shishya (disciple) method of learning classical music and dance – has been hit by allegations of sexual abuse.

A group of 90 female classical musicians issued a statement in September, alleging sexual abuse and exploitation of female disciples by their gurus. They described a “fear-driven culture of silence” that forced women to submit to the sexual demands of their gurus for fear of having to end their careers.

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Amnesty to halt work in India due to government ‘witch-hunt’

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Authorities froze bank accounts after criticism of government’s human rights record

Amnesty International has been forced to shut down operations in India and lay off all staff after the Indian government froze its bank accounts.

The Indian enforcement directorate, an agency that investigates economic crimes, froze the accounts of Amnesty’s Indian arm this month after the group published two reports highly critical of the government’s human rights record.

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‘Any focus on them is good’: can a new scheme help Delhi’s missing children?

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With 17 children missing every day, the city’s police commissioner hopes a promise of fast-track promotion will inspire officers to reunite more families

New Delhi Police Commissioner SN Srivastava was particularly troubled over the 17 children who went missing in his city every day. So he decided to light a fire in the belly of his force and came up with a new approach.

If any officer could find 50 missing children in a year their promotion would be fast-tracked. It usually takes constables at least five years to be promoted to head constable, and meeting the target would dramatically speed that up.

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One million coronavirus deaths: how did we get here?

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Milestone is known toll of months of Covid pandemic that has changed everything, from power balances to everyday life

Though an inevitable milestone for months, its arrival is still breathtaking.

Deaths from Covid-19 exceeded 1 million people on Tuesday, according to a Johns Hopkins University database, the known toll of nine relentless months of a pandemic that has changed everything, from global balances of power to the mundane aspects of daily life.

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