I am an independent journalist based in Siliguri in Darjeeling district. I contribute as Analyst, India Affairs, for Newsreel Asia and India correspondent for Reporters Sans Frontiers (Reporters Without Borders).

I write on politics, culture, media and social justice, among other issues concerning India and its neighbours. My bylines have appeared in Scroll.in, Mint Lounge, Forbes India, The Hindu, Himal Southasian, The Fountain Ink, Yahoo!Originals, Nikkei Asian Review, The New York Times (India Ink blog), The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, World Politics Review and The Diplomat, among others.

I have previously worked with The Telegraph and The Economic Times. I was a Reuters Fellow at University of Oxford, 2012-2013, International Journalists’ Programme fellow to Germany in 2010 and Rotary Group Study Exchange fellow to Brazil in 2007.

I won the Laadli Media and Advertising Award for Gender Sensitivity 2020 for my longform piece on the plight of women in closed tea gardens of north Bengal.

Mother. Wife. Sister.

I tweet @NuraRadha.

Recent Stories

Greed & Power Override Myth As India’s Poorest State Strives To End The Hunting Of Witches By 2023

Giridih (Jharkhand): It was an unusually cold December night and the waxing moon shone faintly over Bandhabad, a village 15 km from the district headquarters of Giridih in eastern Jharkhand. Shanti Devi finally managed to sleep, her 10-year-old granddaughter Neetu by her side, their feet warm at last in each other’s company. Suddenly, a frantic…

Read more Greed & Power Override Myth As India’s Poorest State Strives To End The Hunting Of Witches By 2023

Relegated to a supporting role, will the TMC catamaran sink or sail in Darjeeling?

“Mann ko kura man mai chha,” said Prem Kumari Lama, 62, in between selling lollipops to a toddler at her stall near Darjeeling’s Mirik Lake. “I’m holding my cards close to my chest.” At no cost will Prem Kumari drop any hints as to who she will be voting for in the assembly election. “Nobody…

Read more Relegated to a supporting role, will the TMC catamaran sink or sail in Darjeeling?

The story of two women, adopted by Dutch families, in search of their birth parents in India

The news came as a surprise to Jyoti Weststrate even though she had been waiting for it for as long as she could remember. “I wasn’t expecting the Dutch government to go that far,” says Jyoti, 37, speaking from her home in Deventer in the Netherlands. On February 8, the Netherlands announced a total freeze…

Read more The story of two women, adopted by Dutch families, in search of their birth parents in India

How One Woman Broke The Silence Around Child Sexual Abuse In India

Siliguri: She was 14 when her private tutor allegedly sexually assaulted her. He told her that it was her shame, that she was a bad girl, and that no one would believe her. She kept quiet. Growing up in a middle-class family, she believed its honour rested on her shoulders, and that she should not…

Read more How One Woman Broke The Silence Around Child Sexual Abuse In India

Meet the Pastor Who Became an Anti-Trafficking Activist

“Be watchful! This virus is even more dangerous. The only vaccine is awareness.” 53-year-old Raju Nepali ends his impromptu speech to a group of men with a flourish before proceeding to *Sunaina Oraon’s house in the labour lines of a tea estate in the Dooars region of India’s West Bengal state.  A notebook in hand,…

Read more Meet the Pastor Who Became an Anti-Trafficking Activist

‘Mein Leben soll geschützt werden, während deins riskiert wird’

A major humanitarian crisis unfurled in India the moment Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the sudden and strict (perhaps the strictest and harshest in the world) coronavirus lockdown in end-March. Our highways were scenes of untold miseries of the migrant workers desperate to get home, of poor mothers desperate to access healthcare and sick kids…

Read more ‘Mein Leben soll geschützt werden, während deins riskiert wird’

Featured

In Darjeeling, the BJP is silent on Gorkhaland demand – but most Gorkha parties are supporting it

At Pussimbing tea estate in the Darjeeling Hills, any talk of the Lok Sabha election is unwelcome. “Sorry, please don’t ask us anything about politics,” said a man in his twenties. Another asked: “Is there any democracy here? We say something to you today and tomorrow they may come to arrest us.” The immediate provocation…

Read more In Darjeeling, the BJP is silent on Gorkhaland demand – but most Gorkha parties are supporting it

Rider on a storm: How Jalpaiguri’s ‘Bike Ambulance Dada’ ferries patients from the remotest areas

Karimul Haque’s house in Jalpaiguri’s Dhalabari village was a flurry of activity when two men came looking for him one sunny June morning. Haque was busy overseeing breakfast preparations for some 200 people — a new normal for his family during the pandemic. The two brothers said their mother, Gyaneshwari Rai, an asthma patient, had…

Read more Rider on a storm: How Jalpaiguri’s ‘Bike Ambulance Dada’ ferries patients from the remotest areas