Cracks in a Faustian Pact in Kashmir

Last week, it was video of the army using a local boy as a human shield as they tried to evacuate a group of polling officers under attack by stone pelters. This week, it is the chilling video of gau-rakshaks attacking Gujjars, traditional cattle herders, including women and a 9-year-old child taking shelter inside a…

Hot Wars and Cold Conflicts: Finland’s Immigrant Challenge

With his neon, yellow jacket identifying him as a volunteer, Hazrat Shah is hard to miss. He’s serving up warm food and drink under a makeshift tent to refugees in Finland, just outside Helsinki’s main railway station. Women, children and men huddle around a small fire in the cold to protest the Finnish government’s decision…

The Clash of Civilizations-revisited.

At the end of the Cold War, political scientist Samuel Huntington who taught at Harvard University created a hypothesis. As the break up of the Soviet Union resulted in ethnic conflicts – across Central Asia and Eastern Europe most government officials and foreign policy analysts used his Clash of Civilizations as a prescient bible –…

My Name is Honour

Watch my documentary: My Name is Honour Not far off the highway, less than 100 kilometers from the nation’s capital, the districts of Western Uttar Pradesh seem to have become synonymous with violence based on caste, religion or gender. The constitutional guarantee of a fundamental right to life is challenged every day by notions of honor. But what is this notion…

Weapons Of War: The Women Of Bastar

Weapons of War is my news documentary on women who have become collateral damage of a bloody conflict between Maoist insurgents and the state. Weapons of war exposes the ugly reality of brutal sexual abuse that Bastar's impoverished tribal women are subjected to, and the constant intimidation of those who try to bring them justice.…

New Hospitals and equipment, but no doctors.

In Chhattisgarh’s Sukma town, a brand new 100-bed hospital stands as a proof of the healthcare crisis in conflict-ridden Bastar region. The new building was made operational two months ago, but marred by acute shortage of doctors, even the most basic facilities are unavailable. The hospital has one X-ray machine but no radiologist. There’s no CT Scan,…

Doctors Chat on Phone, Baby Falls From Delivery Table into Dustbin.

I am still reeling from the implausibly stunning fact of a baby slipping out of a womb into a dustbin. Finding the words to write this was not easy. But it is important for Soni Baghel’s story to be public, so that the Maharani College in Jagdalpur- in whose care almost all of Bastar’s tribals…

How Breastfeeding Women Are Abused In Bastar – And Other Horror Stories

"Without emotion, as though she were talking about the weather, Manju (name changed) tells us how she and six other women in her village (Kunna in Bastar’s Sukma district) were subjected to “inspection” by a police party that came through their hamlet chasing a group of Naxals. Fearing harassment, torture, arrest or death, each time forces approach,…

Kashmir: Behind the Rage

Over a month after Burhan Wani’s killing in an encounter by security forces, the question of whether the ongoing protests are about glorifying a terrorist or whether his death was simply a trigger for simmering rage to boil over is moot. As ‘Azadi’ protests pierce the silence of curfew, and the stillness of strikes brings…

Reporting Under Fire: Tales of Women Journalists in India

“Maya Mirchandani, Senior Editor, NDTV has over two decades of experience as a field reporter. In 1999, when she stopped to ask President Chandrika Kumaratunga in Sri Lanka a question, a bomb exploded 15 feet away, injuring both of them. She says one doesn’t need to be covering a war to be a target.” Read…