I’m an independent journalist based in Siliguri, in the Darjeeling district of West Bengal. I currently report as a correspondent for Reporters Sans Frontières (Reporters Without Borders).
My work spans politics, culture, media, social justice, and the environment, focusing on India and its neighbours. Over the years, my bylines have appeared in Scroll.in, Mint Lounge, Forbes India, The Hindu, Himal Southasian, 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 began my career in mainstream newsrooms, including The Telegraph and The Economic Times. I’ve been fortunate to hold international fellowships—as a Reuters Fellow at the University of Oxford (2012–13), and as a fellow of the International Journalists’ Programme (Germany, 2010).
In 2020, I received the Laadli Media & Advertising Award for Gender Sensitivity for my longform reportage on the lives of women in the closed tea gardens of north Bengal.
I contributed to the making of India’s first-ever trilingual glossary of media terms—in English, Hindi and Nepali—as part of a team of academics and media professionals.
Mother. Wife. Sister.
Always a storyteller.
Ganju Lama, an ethnic Bhutia, wangled his way into the Gurkha regiments and won a Victoria Cross in the Second World War – and proved that a true Gurkha need not come from a “martial” race, or be defined only by battles and bravery “If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he…
Read more A small Sikkim museum tells the big story of an unusual Gurkha hero
Siliguri: “Twenty, or there shall be no festival,” yelled Rajani Bhushal, a 64-year-old tea worker from Darjeeling’s Longview tea estate. She was one of the loudest demonstrators outside Shramik Bhawan, the north Bengal zonal office of the state government’s labour department in Siliguri. Inside, a tripartite meeting was on to decide the rate of bonus for…
(From the archives: An edited version of this story was translated into French and published in the now-defunct magazine Asies in 2011.) Pokhara & Kathmandu (Nepal): Offering a spectacular panorama of the Annapurna and Dhaulagiri mountain ranges, Pokhara airport can surely make into the list of the world’s most beautiful airports. Situated in one end…
Read more Of Four Rivers & Six Ranges: Khampa Warriors Recount Their Stories
I only remember snatches of the conversation. “Bora ma baandheko” – Tied inside a sack – our neighbour relayed what she had heard from somewhere else. I remember the expression of fear and disgust on her face and her hand gestures as she showed how the victim’s breasts had been sliced off. That was all I…
Read more A wave of bold new books on the Gorkhaland agitation
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…
“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?
(From the archives: An edited version of this story was translated into French and published in the now-defunct magazine Asies in 2011.) Pokhara & Kathmandu (Nepal): Offering a spectacular panorama of the Annapurna and Dhaulagiri mountain ranges, Pokhara airport can surely make into the list of the world’s most beautiful airports. Situated in one end…
Read more Of Four Rivers & Six Ranges: Khampa Warriors Recount Their Stories
The packed plenary chamber of the World Conference Centre resonated in a thundering applause as Rafida Bonya Ahmed received the Deutsche Welle Bobs-Best of Online Activism award for the blog, “Mukto-Mona” (Free thinker), in Bonn last Tuesday. The blog was founded by her husband Avijit Roy, who was hacked to death on the streets of Dhaka in…
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…
Anuradha Sharma 