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…
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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…
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The posters show the women smiling, with the picker’s basket behind them. In truth, they are maximally exploited minimally paid by the tea industry. A group of men huddles by the side of the tea bushes in the shade at Dheklapara Tea Estate in the Dooars. Close by in the sun, about 30 or so…
The evil that men do lives after them The good is oft interred with their bones. Shakespeare could not ring truer than in the labour colony – called the ‘Coolie Lines’ – of the Northbrook Jute Mill here in Champdani in West Bengal’s Hooghly district, almost 35km from Kolkata. Days after a section of them…
Read more Why the Jackfruit Tree Had Everything & Nothing to Do With the CEO’s Murder
Anuradha Sharma 