Kolkata: The 26 transgender people of a Cooch Behar village, West Bengal had their last wholesome meal before the first lockdown. For the past 15 years, they have been staying in a rented one-room-kitchen house, perched in the middle of potato and paddy fields of Bairagi Hatt hamlet in Mathabhanga block. But for the first time ever, they have been[Read More...]
Bhopal: “I don’t want to take the vaccine as I have read on social media that I will not be able to bear a child,” said Rekha (name changed on request). The 22 year old, is a resident of Bhopal, the state capital of Madhya Pradesh, who fears that she will have grave side effects after vaccination that will render[Read More...]
In this series of interviews, Covid Response Watch brings you the voices of doctors, health workers, social activists and others, working at the grassroots, speaking about the multiple impacts of the Covid pandemic on the lives of ordinary Indian citizens. In this episode we speak to Dr Punyabrata Gun, joint-convener of the West Bengal Doctors Forum that has played a[Read More...]
With no income and all life at a standstill poor families around India have struggled to put together a square meal every day during the second wave of the Covid pandemic. With the government absent, many small voluntary and citizens groups stepped in to distribute rations consisting of cereals, pulses, oil, salt and sugar. In the Dindori district of eastern[Read More...]
Businessmen in the border towns of West Bengal and Sikkim struggle to survive, repay loans, as restrictions on movement of goods between neighbouring countries close markets. Siliguri: The closure of India’s borders with Nepal and China owing to the COVID-19 pandemic has forced a large number of traders to shut shop, as they forego their only source of income. Unable[Read More...]
Far from bringing out the best in people and institutions, a crisis can bring out the worst too. That is precisely what seems to have happened, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, to the concept of ‘cooperative federalism’ between the central and state governments, claimed as one of his key policies by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Since the beginning[Read More...]
With the lockdown scuttling markets and slowing down trade and demand, farmers are letting their produce rot in the fields. They are drowning in debt and unable to plan their next harvest. Raipur: On June 5, 2021, Dhanush Sahu (58) and his wife Sona Bai (54) of Singhola village in Rajnandgaon district in Chhattisgarh hung themselves to death. “My[Read More...]
In this series of interviews Covid Response Watch brings you the voices of doctors, health workers, social activists and others, working at the grassroots, speaking about the multiple impacts of the Covid pandemic on the lives of ordinary Indian citizens. Here we talk to Satinath Sarangi, who has been working among the survivors of the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster, the[Read More...]
Bhopal: Selling vegetables on Bhopal’s Depot Chouraha with his wife, Gond artist Ram Narayan Singh Maravi always carries a tote bag full of paintings with his brushes and colours, at all times. His heart skips a beat every time a customer turns up for his vegetables but also asks to buy one of his paintings. “I carry this bag with[Read More...]
