Sikranti Devi is a rural woman’s role model today. A widow since eight years, and partially blinded, Sikranti has taken life in stride as the head of her household. By becoming a farmer in Jamdih Bardanr, in rural Jharkhand, she earns her livelihood and educates her five children. But her...
Sanjukta Samal, whose husband works at a Dalit organisation in Jagatshinghpur District of Odisha, was beaten up by the upper caste people, because he was fighting back the discrimination in their village. Her son was robbed of his mobile and moped on his way to home one day. When Sanjukta’s...
The village of Keswar Bigha, Bihar was happy when there were electrical poles installed in their village. They thought they will finally see electricity in their homes, and their children will study under an electrical light. However, much of it remained a dream when the electrical poles were left without...
Chitta Hembrom, 16, is a tribal handicap from Jharkhand who has not received her disability pension since four years. Under Jharkhand state’s Swami Vivekananda Nishakt Swalamban Protsahan Yojna she is entitled to receive Rs. 400 per month and nor is she receiving the state’s educational scholarship of Rs. 250 per...
A fire broke out in a sleepy hamlet of Dumari, Bihar in the middle of an April afternoon when a live electrical wire snapped, burning 250 makeshift houses down to the ground, leaving its poor residents homeless. “I’ve lost everything in the fire; there is no place to live and nothing to...
For thousands of people, mostly men, in rural Bihar, toddy is regarded as the poor man’s beer. Toddy, locally called Tadi, is considered as a natural juice,made from the sap of palm tree. It has been a favourite of villagers who throng toddy-makers in the evening to drink the mildly...
Ram Subhagram’s polio-stricken father withers in pain as he lies in the sub-health centre in Pranpur, Bihar hoping that a doctor comes to visit him soon and relieves him of the pain. But Ram knows that the wait is indefinite. While Health Ministry guidelines state that a sub-health centre is...
