As India’s app economy races ahead, millions of delivery workers, drivers, and service providers are asking a basic question: if the digital economy runs on their labour, why are they denied the rights of workers? “Convenience for the customer is built on insecurity for the worker.” At 10:45 on a winter night in Chennai, Aravind’s…
Four Class 12 students from a government school in Hisar, Haryana — Pallavi Kaswan, Neha Loura, Pritam Suthar, and Anand Bansal — are challenging the silence around menstrual pain through a student-led innovation called Her Ease, a portable menstrual comfort kit designed for discreet pain relief in schools and public spaces. Every month, in classrooms…
India’s Path to Inclusive Growth From Demographic Dividend to Economic Participation India stands at a defining moment in its development trajectory. It’s growth story is often framed through the lens of its demographic dividend. With one of the world’s youngest populations, the country’s demographic dividend offers immense potential. Yet, the real test lies not in…
In many Indian homes, behind closed doors and polite smiles, there exists a silence that is rarely questioned. It is the silence of women who are told that once married, their bodies are no longer entirely their own. We grow up believing that marriage is sacred—a bond built on love, trust, and companionship. Weddings are…
Οn a sweltering July afternoon in 2022, as India prepared to take over the G20 presidency, its newly appointed Sherpa, Amitabh Kant, stood at the center of New Delhi’s diplomatic storm. For the seasoned bureaucrat, it was less an initiation than a continuation of another milestone in a career defined by ambitious programs, high-stakes negotiations,…
The road that always took five hours Rajesh Bisht drives a goods vehicle between Delhi and Haridwar. He has done this route for fourteen years. The journey, on the old NH-58 and NH-334, takes between five and seven hours depending on traffic at Meerut, the condition of the Muzaffarnagar bypass, and whether there is a…
She has been watching the river her entire life Annapurna Devi has lived on the ghats of Varanasi for sixty-three years. She has watched the river in every season and every decade. She watched it in the years when it ran dark with effluents from tanneries upstream. She watched it after Namami Gange was launched…
The Geese that flew eleven thousand kilometres to find this lake Every winter, bar-headed geese make one of the most extraordinary journeys in the animal kingdom. It is a non-stop, high-altitude crossing of the Himalayas from their breeding grounds in Central Asia to their wintering sites in the Indian subcontinent. They fly at altitudes that…
The Loom that earns in Dollars but pays in rupees Mohammed Irfan has woven Banarasi silk for 23 years. His loom, in a narrow lane off Varanasi’s Kadipur neighbourhood, produces fabric at a rate that would satisfy any export order. What it does not produce is certainty. The price he receives per metre from the…
The Catch That Built An Empire Long before the Marine Products Export Development Authority issued its provisional data release on April 21, 2026, Lakshmi Raju had already spent the night at sea. She is a shrimp sorter at a processing unit in Nellore, Andhra Pradesh, the heartland of India’s frozen shrimp export industry. She works…
