Latest Episodes
Delhi: Through the Lens of Gender
MAPPING INDIA, Delhi I September 2022
Video I 23 Minutes
By Jyoti Jangra
MAPPING INDIA, Punjab I September 2022
Video I 18 Minutes
By Tej Bahadur Singh
'Letters,' Chhattisgarh I September 2022
Video I 13 Minutes
By Surabhi Singh and Harshita Rathore
MAPPING INDIA, Uttarakhand I August 2022
Video I 11 Minutes
Video I 11 Minutes
By Mariya Rajan
Sucheta Tomar, a farmer and housewife in Uttarakhand state’s Lohari village near the city of Dehradun, is one of the many residents who have lost their ancestral homes due to the construction of a hydropower project by the state government. Their home submerged in flood water, Sucheta and her husband now live in a classroom of an abandoned school. Hers is one of the hundreds of families that have been displaced by the government’s development efforts without sufficient compensation or land for relocation, she complains in an open letter to the state's Chief Minister.
MAPPING INDIA, Punjab I August 2022
Video I 17 Minutes
Video I 17 Minutes
By Jyoti Jangra
Radheshyam Shukhlawas, a farmer-turned-activist, lives in Rajasthan state’s Shukhlawas village in Kotputli district. People in his village and surrounding areas are dying one after another, as unregulated mines are causing particle pollution leading to lung diseases like silicosis, which is proving to be fatal, he complains to the Department of Mines and Geology in this visual open letter.
MAPPING INDIA, Punjab I July 2022
Video I 19 Minutes
Video I 19 Minutes
By Ganesh Rajaraman
Deep in debt, Gurjeet Kaur’s father lost hope, and interest, in life. Kaur’s brother, who inherited the debt, followed suit. Like Kaur, thousands of women in the agricultural state of Punjab have similar stories to tell, as farming is becoming increasingly unsustainable and more and more farmers are finding themselves in debt traps over the years.
MAPPING INDIA, Delhi I July 2022
Video I 18 Minutes
Video I 18 Minutes
By Abhishek Yadav
Munna Singh, 19, a second-generation migrant worker, is a full-time supplier of water bottles and a part-time dog walker in the slums of Govindpuri, Delhi. As he is working hard to make ends meet for his family, his life resembles that of millions of interstate migrant workers in India’s capital. Here’s a day in his life.
MAPPING INDIA, Haryana I July 2022
Video I 29 Minutes
Video I 29 Minutes
By Surabhi Singh
Sunil Kumar, 22 and Neeraj Jangra, 24, are two of the hundreds of thousands of unemployed youth in the predominantly agricultural state of Haryana who have dreams tied to their ability to earn a living. Those dreams may be shattered if they continue to remain jobless, as agriculture is now largely unsustainable and the private sector remains out of their reach. At 37%, Haryana has the highest unemployment rate in India, as per an independent think tank, Center for Monitoring Indian Economy. Is the government listening?
MAPPING INDIA, Uttar Pradesh I June 2022
Video I 23 Minutes
Video I 23 Minutes
By Tej Bahadur
Jaihind, Ramesh and Baburam live in Uttar Pradesh state, which reported 12,714 cases of atrocities against Dalits in 2020, the highest in India, as per the government data. The three men, from the state’s Mahoba district, tell us what discrimination and violence look like despite legal protections they have had, on paper, for decades.
MAPPING INDIA, Haryana I June 2022
Video I 12 Minutes
By Jyoti Jangra
Women Suffer the Most: Rajasthan State’s Water Crisis
MAPPING INDIA, Haryana I June 2022
Video I 10 Minutes
By Abhishek Yadav, Harshita Rathore
Few kilometres from the India-Pakistan border, people in Barmer district of the western state of Rajasthan face extreme water shortage. In scorching heat, women in this desert area spend several hours fetching water from the nearest wells. On an average, they walk about 2.5 kms to reach a water source and make many rounds each day. Geeta and Guddi tell us how they are forced to fetch water at the cost of their health and education.
MAPPING INDIA, Uttar Pradesh I May 2022
Video I 12 Minutes
Video I 12 Minutes
By Tej Bahadur Singh
The story of Satish Kumar, a young man who lives in a small village in Uttar Pradesh state’s Chandauli district, shows how tens of millions of people in India are trapped in the cycle of poverty, with no fault of their own. Through the story he shares in this visual, open letter, Kumar points to a critical, but unaddressed, lacking in India’s efforts in poverty alleviation which policymakers must take note of.
MAPPING INDIA, Uttar Pradesh I May 2022
Video I Duration - 17 Minutes
Video I Duration - 17 Minutes
By Tej Bahadur Singh
Police in Uttar Pradesh state arrest, on average, more than 300,000 residents each year, out of which tens of thousands end up in judicial custody as accused. On paper, the State assumes responsibility for a person that it takes into custody, but, in reality, police and jail authorities blatantly rob detainees, undertrials and convicts of their legally protected dignity in the form of torture and neglect of basic needs. This results in the death of the accused in many instances. Some of those who have experienced or witnessed such flouting of law share their stories in this episode of the “Voices” docuseries.
MAPPING INDIA, Uttar Pradesh I Feb 2022
Video I 17 Minutes
Video I 17 Minutes
By Jyoti Jangra
Sheeraz Ali’s eight-year-old daughter, Rahima, fell ill with a “mysterious” viral fever, which spread like a wild fire among children in Uttar Pradesh state’s Firozabad district in August 2021. In a letter to the district administration, Ali pours out his heart as he narrates what happened after Rahima’s sickness.
Episode 5, ‘The Dinner Table’ I February 2022
Video I 17 Minutes
Video I 17 Minutes
By Harshita Rathore, Richard Kujur, Abhishek Yadav
Nirmal Kaur, a Sikh woman, was just 13 years old when she witnessed her father’s killing during an anti-Sikh massacre in 1984 after the then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her two Sikh bodyguards. Thirty-eight years later, the Kaurs continue to fight for justice. Host Harshita Rathore visits the Kaurs to explore what identity-based discrimination and violence have done to their minds and hearts. (The series has been produced with our publishing partner Religion Unplugged.)
MAPPING INDIA, Haryana I February 2022
Video I 11 Minutes
By Mariya Rajan What’s the story of Haryana state’s Nuh district, which is about 60 kilometres from Delhi and yet India’s least developed district? And does the story of this Muslim-majority Mewat region represent the journey of the country’s Muslims since the 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan? Siddique Ahmad, a local historian, and other residents of Nuh have something to say to us about what they think and have experienced.
Video I 11 Minutes
By Mariya Rajan What’s the story of Haryana state’s Nuh district, which is about 60 kilometres from Delhi and yet India’s least developed district? And does the story of this Muslim-majority Mewat region represent the journey of the country’s Muslims since the 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan? Siddique Ahmad, a local historian, and other residents of Nuh have something to say to us about what they think and have experienced.
Episode 4, ‘The Dinner Table’ I February 2022
Video I 21 Minutes
Video I 21 Minutes
By Harshita Rathore, Richard Kujur, Jyoti Jangra, Tej Bahadur Singh
Reena Kerketta, one of India’s 6.6 million tribal Christians, is recovering from a severe head injury she sustained after an attack in her home in the tribal-majority Khunti district in the eastern state of Jharkhand. Host Harshita Rathore visits the Kerkettas to explore what identity-based discrimination and violence have done to their minds and hearts. (The series has been produced with our publishing partner Religion Unplugged.)
MAPPING INDIA, Uttarakhand I January 2022
Video I 31 Minutes
Video I 31 Minutes
By Surabhi Singh
Lakshmi Gauniyal’s day starts at dawn and she rests only after dusk. She does all the work, from preparing meals to cutting wood from trees to sowing seeds in their agricultural field and earning money from labour under the government’s social security measure MNREGA. Had it not been for women like Lakshmi, families would have been compelled to migrate away from their villages in Uttarakhand state’s mountainous Pauri Garhwal district. The self-reliant village economy, of which women are the backbone, is what is preventing mass migration in this district.
Episode 4, ‘Trafficked’ I January 2022
Video I 10 Minutes
Video I 10 Minutes
By Mariya Rajan, Abhishek Yadav
Host Mariya Rajan’s quick visit to three hamlets near lush green tea gardens in Siliguri city and surrounding areas reveal that at least one child has gone “missing” in each of them. Was it just a coincidence, or is something changing in that region – which, being a gateway to the northeast India as well as the neighbouring countries of Bhutan, Bangladesh and Nepal – had only been seen as a transit route for human trafficking until the COVID-19 pandemic struck, making residents more vulnerable?
Episode 3, ‘Trafficked’ I December 2021
Video I 13 Minutes
Video I 13 Minutes
By Surabhi Singh
Shaheen (not her real name) is one of many women in West Bengal state’s Murshidabad district who believe that when men propose for marriage, they do so out of true love, not knowing that it could be mere pretence of love being used by human traffickers to sell them for labour or sex, or both. Shaheen has been rescued but her suffering carries on.
Episode 2, ‘Trafficked’ I November 2021
Video I 14 Minutes
Video I 14 Minutes
By Mariya Rajan
Shama (name changed) and her underage daughter are brought from West Bengal state to Mumbai city by human traffickers with the promise of a job. Soon they find themselves in separate brothels. Their stories reflect what many of the more than 1,600 girls and women in Mumbai’s Kamatipura area, one of India’s biggest red-light districts, go through as their bodies are sold by brothel owners and pimps for 350 rupees per hour. Anti-trafficking activist Anson Thomas, who has rescued at least 800 minor girls from brothels, describes the extent of agony sex workers suffer.
Episode 3, Ruled-Out Women I September 2021
Video I 7 Minutes
Video I 7 Minutes
By Mariya Rajan
Nikita Mehra treks for half an hour every day to reach the nearest road above her house in Almora district of the northern state of Uttarakhand, only to walk six more kilometres to attend school. Many other girls, however, have dropped out of school due to safety concerns.
Episode 3, ‘The Dinner Table’ I November 2021
Video I 23 Minutes
Video I 23 Minutes
By Harshita Rathore, Richard Kujur, Jyoti Jangra
Jawahar Singh Jatav, one of the more than 160 million Dalit people in India, is still recovering from his injuries after he and his family were attacked for drinking water from a tap inside a temple in Rajasthan state’s Bharatpur area. Host Harshita Rathore visits the Jatavs to explore what identity-based discrimination and violence have done to their minds and hearts. (The series has been produced with our publishing partner Religion Unplugged.)
MAPPING INDIA I October 2021
Video I 12 Minutes
Video I 12 Minutes
By Mariya Rajan
A young woman, Barkha (not her real name), goes through discrimination and sexual abuse at home, which, an activist says, may serve as anecdotes about what many girls and women in the north Indian state of Rajasthan experience due to a high level of gender inequality.
Episode 1, ‘Trafficked’ I September 2021
Video I 16 Minutes
Video I 16 Minutes
By Harshita Rathore, Jyoti Jangra, Richard Kujur
Two underage girls from India’s eastern state of Jharkhand narrate how they were trafficked from the tribal-majority district of Gumla to the country’s city of Delhi for domestic work.
Episode 2, ‘Ruled-Out Women’ I September 2021
Video I 18 Minutes
Series host Mariya Rajan goes for an arduous walk on the mountains of Uttarakhand state’s Almora district with a local resident, Janaki Devi, who fetches water three times a day from the nearest stream that is kilometres away.
Video I 18 Minutes
By Mariya Rajan
Episode 2, ‘The Dinner Table’ I July 2021
Video I 27 Minutes
By Harshita Rathore, Ganesh Rajaraman, Abhishek Fleeing Kashmir in 1990, as over 70,000 other families did under threat from violence by Islamist militants, the Kaw family resettled in the northern India but they still miss their “home.” Host Harshita Rathore explores what identity-based discrimination and violence do to the minds and hearts of members of a community.
Video I 27 Minutes
By Harshita Rathore, Ganesh Rajaraman, Abhishek Fleeing Kashmir in 1990, as over 70,000 other families did under threat from violence by Islamist militants, the Kaw family resettled in the northern India but they still miss their “home.” Host Harshita Rathore explores what identity-based discrimination and violence do to the minds and hearts of members of a community.
