Corruption
Corruption permeates all levels of Indian society. Bloated bureaucracies, constant payouts, and siphoned resources prevent many services from running properly—or running at all. Despite this, many work to ease the burden of corruption within the structures in place. The diffusion of the internet has enabled people to share information and join others in the fight against the normalization of corruption. India’s Right to Information Act, enacted in 2005, allows citizens timely access to government information and financial records. This has furnished citizens with a new capacity to speak out against institutional corruption. In this section, IndiaUnheard Community Correspondents report on corruption.
Only Few Toilets functional in an Open-Defecation Free Block
The Village Council Head, Sobitra Nagesh, from Chhattisgarh proudly declares his village is Open-Defection Free on camera. And one would believe him. But a short walk around the village Bansajhal and conversations with the residents exposes the lie that Sobitra blatantly said on camera. The most important objective of the Swachh Bharat...
Sita and Twenty Widows Appeal for Widow Pension in Bihar
Makulal, a poor widow of Bihar has not received any widow pension fund under the National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP) since her husband died a decade ago. She would earlier do manual labour for a living, but her failing health has forced her to stop working. She and her young...
Will Floating Casinos Affect the Elections Race in Goa?
Goa goes to the polls on Saturday, with the BJP, the Congress and debutant AAP locked in a three-way battle. Although opinion polls have suggested a clear majority for the BJP, the issue of off-shore casinos just might turn out to be a spoiler. When the saffron party came to...
#Notebandi Frontlines: Cashless Tribulations of India’s Tribals
Santosh Bavash, 30, said he knew about the Internet. “I’ve heard it tells you about the future,” he told IndiaSpend when we spoke to the short and thin labourer from the village of Gyanpura, in the western district of Dhar, in Madhya Pradesh (MP), one of India’s poorest states. After...
Goa: Fishing industry’s sales fall and anger rises as going cashless remains a distant dream
Gangu Kundaikar is a small-framed, saree-clad woman who rises at 3 am every day, wraps a cloth around her waist so fish do not soil her saree and takes a rented tempo to the Malim jetty in Panaji, North Goa, 8 km from her village, here in one of India’s...
Goa: Fishing industry’s sales fall and anger rises as going cashless remains a distant dream
Gangu Kundaikar is a small-framed, saree-clad woman who rises at 3 am every day, wraps a cloth around her waist so fish do not soil her saree and takes a rented tempo to the Malim jetty in Panaji, North Goa, 8 km from her village, here in one of India’s...
Ordeal of a Blind Mother – Deserted by Husband, Denied pension
Shakinaur Khatun was a happy woman till five years back, living in Malda, West Bengal. She lived with her husband and two young children in her household. But things changed when she slowly lost her eyesight due to an unknown illness. Her husband and in-laws abandoned Shakinaur and the two...
Without crop loans, Nashik farmers forced to resort to private moneylenders
“Will the farmers of Nashik have to resort to suicide this year too?” aMaya Khodve, a social activist and community correspondent asks the Maharashtra Chief Minister, as she covers the Nashik district’s farmers agitation against the Nashik District Central Co-operative Bank (NDCC) Bank. The bank has refused to provide crop...