COVID Response Watch

Amidst Covid Rajasthan villagers hunt ‘witches’

On the 4th of October, 2021, an attempt was made to kill a woman in Bhilwara district of Rajasthan by calling her a ‘witch’. The victim is a resident of Ulela village of Jahazpur block. This is not the first incident of women being accused of being ‘witches’ and even killed in Bhilwara district, nor will it probably be the[Read More...]

Covid adds to woes of students in turmoil-hit Kashmir

In September 2019, a month after the Abrogation of article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, Bashir Yatoo , reached out to children  stuck at home in the midst  of a curfew and communication blockade. Bashir, who works as transport in-charge at the Dolphin International School in Pulwama, in south Kashmir, went around with a couple of local teachers to check[Read More...]

MP farmers in distress due to low cotton prices

After making losses on their vegetable crops throughout the Covid period farmers in Madhya Pradesh are making big losses due to falling prices of cotton. Vegetable crops have been destroyed for two years in a row due to Covid, because the market was closed. Prices had fallen so low that paying for  wages and freight charges to the mandis was[Read More...]

The Jadavpur Commune: Students takes on Covid challenge

When the COVID-19 lockdown began in West Bengal in 2020, a number of students from Jadavpur University of Kolkata came together to stand up with the people in the face of the grave crisis. The lockdown was a threat to the employment of many belonging to the underprivileged sections of society. The slum dwellers, daily wage laborers, domestic workers faced[Read More...]

As pandemic brings trade to a halt, Spiti valley farmers start local markets

  Shimla: The lockdown reached the remote Lahaul-Spiti district of Himachal Pradesh before the Covid pandemic did. Farmers, who suddenly had no way to send their produce outside their region, found a simple solution. They began to host farmers markets called Apni Mandi (Our Market) across the valley. When the initiative earned them profits, farmers were inspired to grow food[Read More...]

Covid woes of MP and UP’s bamboo basket making community

The Basor community of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh are still reeling with the losses of the pandemic as it brought their business – making household items of bamboo­ – to a screeching halt. Depending upon benevolent supporters and NGOs for ration, the members of the Basor community, today have no alternative livelihood. The popularity of plastic in the last[Read More...]

Covid adds to anxieties of former stateless people on Indo-Bangladesh border

They are called ‘chitmahals’ or ‘paper palaces’. For decades, the people living in these twilight zones on the border between India and Bangladesh have been searching for citizenship, constitutional rights and a national identity. Over 15,000 people live in these enclaves on the Indian side of the border and in make-shift camps which have come up in recent times near[Read More...]

Rail passengers in MP demand restoration of pre-Covid train services

With 22 million passengers every day the Indian railways is second only to China globally in terms of the number of people transported. Since the onset of the Covid pandemic in early 2020 however, hundreds of train services have been shut down and traffic plummeted with big revenue losses. While this has not made much difference to the India’s urban[Read More...]

Alternative vision of education springs up during Covid lockdown

On 3rd October 2021 Mamata Banerjee, the incumbent chief minister of West Bengal – with a reputation as street-fighting politician, won a by-election at Bhabanipur, to secure her chief ministerial chair. Ironically, the very next day, the West Bengal police cracked down on students holding demonstrations demanding opening of the schools and colleges in the state. Discontent has been brewing[Read More...]