Skip to main content
  • Home
  • Fields
    Agriculture
    Corruption
    Education
    Environment
    Governance
    Grassroots
    Health
    Law
    Right to Information
  • Hindi
  • About Us
  • Videos
  • Resources for Readers
  • Internships
  • Join Us
  • Support GoI Monitor
Home

Similar Stories

‘Leprosy is still a stigma in India’

June 26, 2014
|
Grassroots - Law
|
By: 
GOI Monitor Desk
Gandhiji giving massage,to a leper patient, the Sanskrit scholar Parchure Shastri, at Sevagram Ashram in 1940. Source: Wikimedia Commons

How can access to education and good healthcare change somebody's life is evident from Suresh Dhongde's success. At one point of time he was staring at possibility of a life wasted. Today, the 35-year-old is a proud recipient of the national award for being a role model in overcoming leprosy. Not only is he helping other leprosy-affected people join mainstream, but also trying to break well-entrenched stereotypes related to the disease. He is fighting against several laws and rules which discriminate against leprosy patients.

 

  • Read more about ‘Leprosy is still a stigma in India’

'Pharma companies don't want any regulation'

January 3, 2015
|
Health
|
By: 
GOI Monitor Desk
Protest against unregulated clinical trials. Source: Uday Foundation

Clinical trials in India have for long been inviting controversy due to lack of transparency and regulatory mechanism. While replying to a question in Rajya Sabha in March 2013, the then Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said 438 deaths took place during clinical trials in 2011 while 668 people died during 2010. While hearing the public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Swasthya Adhikar Manch in 2012, the Supreme Court asked the Central government to come up with more stringent regulatory and monitoring set up to stop exploitation

  • Read more about 'Pharma companies don't want any regulation'

'Tawaifs were highly educated women erased from social scene by new morality'

October 30, 2015
|
Grassroots
|
By: 
GOI Monitor Desk
Rasoolan Bai was a courtesan famous for her thumri.

Courtesans contributed to music and literary scene of an era when most women were in purdah. 'The Other Song' is a film that examines how we stigmatised these performers resulting in annihilation of their profession which could not meet the new moral standards of independent India.  Their whole existence was termed immoral both by the British colonialists and also ironically by the nationalists who themselves were English educated and probably inspired by Colonial ideas.We talk to the film maker Saba Dewan on what she went through while projecting such a difficult subject on screen 

  • Read more about 'Tawaifs were highly educated women erased from social scene by new morality'

'We have got hope installed'

March 12, 2012
|
Grassroots
|
By: 
GOI Monitor Desk

For a city full of shopping malls, big glass offices and stylish cars, Bengaluru easily represents India's best place for the upwardly mobile. No wonder the divide between haves and have nots also plays out more intensely here with the additional emphasis on

  • Read more about 'We have got hope installed'

A Generation in Peril. How Climate Crisis is Impacting Childhood

January 11, 2021
|
Environment - Governance - Grassroots
|
By: 
Satyaki Baidya

The impact of climate crisis on people across the world is highly disproportionate but no other group is as vulnerable as children in low income families of developing countries. Children are not emotionally and physically capable of understanding the dangers during extreme weather events and are dependent on adults for their survival. They are more susceptible to water and vector borne diseases, malnutrition and they are forced into labour due to economic challenges induced by climate crisis. 

  • Read more about A Generation in Peril. How Climate Crisis is Impacting Childhood

A decade on, India’s first solar park has many promises left to fulfil

March 19, 2022
|
Environment - Grassroots
|
By: 
Ravleen Kaur

10 years after the project came up, the villagers of Charanka, the project site, are still waiting for clean drinking water, free electricity, and irrigation. Against the promise of 1,000 permanent jobs, only 60 people in the village have been employed as security guards, grass cutters and for washing panels, with no scope for jobs for women, making families who did not have land or sons the worst victims of the solar park.

  • Read more about A decade on, India’s first solar park has many promises left to fulfil

A perfect trap

June 7, 2011
|
Health
|
By: 
Manu Moudgil

Stem cell industry is playing on the emotions of naïve patients and families promising a future which may not really exist

In January this year, doctors at a corporate hospital in Delhi claimed to have treated an Iraqi patient of paraplegia using stem cells. The patient, who had lost sensation in his lower limb, was said to be able to stand now.

  • Read more about A perfect trap

A school that doesn't teach

November 21, 2013
|
Grassroots
|
By: 
India Water Portal
There's no imparting of education. Girls learn what they practice. Source: Surendra Bansal

Constant giggles, playful pulling of plaits and teasing is common in girls' schools. Though the Baba Aya Singh Riarki College in Gurdaspur is different in many ways, it is filled with similar scenes. This school is an exceptional experiment in education for rural girls of Gurdaspur and Amritsar. It dates back to 1934 when a social worker called Baba Aya Singh established a small ‘putri pathshala’ (girls’ school). He also set up the SKD High School in 1939. Since then it has pioneered women education and empowerment in the state.

  • Read more about A school that doesn't teach

Afforestation, invasive species make Gaddi pastoralists more vulnerable

September 30, 2021
|
Grassroots
|
By: 
GOI Monitor Desk

Beginning in the 1990s, the forest department shifted away from commercial production toward a greater emphasis on joint-forest management, which resulted in a shift toward an array of broad-leaved (but still not palatable) species being planted, especially in lower altitudes. However, Gaddis were largely left out of many joint forest management schemes mainly because of their migratory practice and were consulted in a “token fashion” for compensatory afforestation for hydroelectric projects in high altitudes. 

  • Read more about Afforestation, invasive species make Gaddi pastoralists more vulnerable

Barter by the beel

March 29, 2014
|
Grassroots
|
By: 
Usha Dewani
Eatables laid out for exchange at Jon beel mela

This was my first time here. I had heard of this festival, perhaps the only existing one in India, where barter takes place at such a scale. Jon Beel mela in Jon Beel, Jagiroad Assam- a historic festival where people from the hills and plains come together for a unique exchange of goods and agricultural produce near a moon-shaped wetland. A place of extremes, of new and old, rustic and modern. The annual three-day festival has been celebrated since the 15th century at the end of Magh Bihu.First held under the aegis of the King of the erstwhile Gova kingdom, 

  • Read more about Barter by the beel

Camel milk inspires hope for herders

November 7, 2020
|
Grassroots
|
By: 
Manu Moudgil
Fresh camel milk in Kutch region of Gujarat. Photo from Sahjeevan.

India’s camel population has declined by 37 percent over the last seven years because it’s no longer needed for transport or farming. Camel milk, found to be a healthier option for people with diabetes and those with food allergies, can be the source of sustenance for camel rearers. Several small dairies and Amul are selling camel milk and its products to city clientele, but low awareness, lack of bulk milk coolers and shrinking pastures for grazing are the limitations that need to be addressed for this dairy segment to flourish

  • Read more about Camel milk inspires hope for herders

Covid 19: Pastoralism under shadows of fear

September 23, 2020
|
Grassroots
|
By: 
GOI Monitor Desk
Herders faced hardships during lockdown. Pic: Anu Verma and Biren Nayak

Nomadic herders, whose livelihood depends on livestock, travel in search of pasture land. There are communities whose journeys start every year and pass through traditional routes through different regions. They stop at fixed places where people accept them and allow their herds to camp on their farms in exchange of manure. The lockdown disturbed everything. They had to divert routes and spend more time and energy working out where they could move

  • Read more about Covid 19: Pastoralism under shadows of fear

Covid-19: Sex workers battle stigma, hunger

August 16, 2020
|
Grassroots
|
By: 
Soujanya Rangawar
Kareena Kapoor played a sex worker in movie Chameli.

Sexual interactions run contrary to physical distancing norms required to avoid contracting coronavirus thus unconditionally stalling source of livelihood of sex workers. In India, sex work is criminalised and stigmatised putting these workers in the most vulnerable category, thus left behind in response to the pandemic by the government. They lack documents and bank accounts to avail of social welfare schemes and are also denied medical facilities

  • Read more about Covid-19: Sex workers battle stigma, hunger

Dalits embracing Buddhism need to go beyond politics 

July 16, 2017
|
Grassroots
|
By: 
Manu Moudgil
A Buddhist shrine with Ambedkar's portrait. Source: Akuppa John Wigwam/Flickr

The Dalits in modern India use initiation into Buddhism as a symbolic protest. Recently, around 180 families immersed the idols of Hindu deities and took to Buddhism after a violent clash with members of upper caste in Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh. Last year, over 300 Dalits took deeksha in Gujarat after seven Dalits were flogged for skinning a dead cow. But does this action achieves its goal of social equality?

  • Read more about Dalits embracing Buddhism need to go beyond politics 

Death in their breaths

November 29, 2014
|
Health
|
By: 
GOI Monitor Desk
Sandstone mines of Rajasthan are deathbeds for many. Source:GRAVIS

Though dust is of trivial significance to us, it kills millions of workers in Indian industries and mines. Silicosis, one of the many lung disorders caused by dust, is not only untreatable but also the commonest and most widespread of all occupational diseases. Exposure to large amount of free silica can pass unnoticed since it is odourless, non-irritant and hence is confused with ordinary dust. The problem is more severe in unorganised industries like slate pencil cutting, stone cutting and agate industry since these are not covered by any legislation.

  • Read more about Death in their breaths

Deceived: The water carriers of Kangra

December 24, 2014
|
Environment - Grassroots
|
By: 
Manu Moudgil
The distance between community and its resource leads to disaster in the long run.

Man has always been on quest of building new things. Even when there were no big machines and qualified engineers, the world had expert builders who shaped the earth into various forms to meet needs of the society. Kuhls of Himachal Pradesh are one such example of engineering brilliance. Kuhl is name given to a channel which carries glacial melt through gravity from nearby streams to the fields thus making irrigation possible even on steep hills. Kangra valley has the most extensive network of kuhls dating as far back as 17th century.

  • Read more about Deceived: The water carriers of Kangra

Drinking from the stream of traditional knowledge

January 10, 2012
|
Environment - Grassroots
|
By: 
Manu Moudgil
Several beris like these provide sweet water to villagers of Jaisalmer district. Source: GOI Monitor

Ghaziram's family has been living at Ekalpaar village of Jaisalmer district for ages but managed to build a pucca house only recently. Besides rearing livestock, he owns 50 bigha of agricultural land which earned him Rs 2 lakh last year.

  • Read more about Drinking from the stream of traditional knowledge

Drug users yet to secure legal immunity

December 13, 2011
|
Health
|
By: 
GOI Monitor Desk

Tripti Tandon of Lawyers Collective talks to GOI Monitor about a recent case which brought the issue of immunity for drug users  under treatment into limelight

Q: Please tell us about the case of Aatish Suraj in which Supreme Court allowed Indian Harm Reduction Network to intervene?

  • Read more about Drug users yet to secure legal immunity

E-cigarette bill is not worth the paper it is printed on

December 9, 2019
|
Health - Law
|
By: 
Hemant Goswami
Electronic cigarette is one of the nicotine delivery devices.

The Prohibition of Electronic Cigarettes Bill 2019 is an absolutely diluted piece of legislation, which fails to address the grave issue of nicotine-laced products. It’s just an all bark no bite legislation, not worth the paper it’s printed on. It partially addresses only e-cigarettes, which is less than one percent of the real problem of nicotine abuse. Such piecemeal restriction of e-cigarettes will only help the tobacco manufacturers and cigarette companies as it will eliminate their competition

  • Read more about E-cigarette bill is not worth the paper it is printed on

Echoes of Narmada

December 2, 2013
|
Grassroots
|
By: 
Medha Uniyal
Fishworkers and boatmen assert their right to water and fisheries in Sardar Sarovar. Source: NBA

I walked down the weather-beaten road of Jhanda Chowk in the direction that, I was told, would lead me to the office of Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) in Khandwa town of Madhya Pradesh. Trudging along under the 47 degree sun, I couldn’t help but muse over the glorious images of intrepid activism, sweeping support and pandemic influence that the name NBA invokes. Undeniably, I entered the office expecting to walk into a maelstrom of hustle bustle, the least you’d expect at the epicenter of a movement that shook the nation. 

  • Read more about Echoes of Narmada

Latest Video

Rich Indians Pollute 7 Times More Than Poor

Share to:
Facebook LinkedIn Twitter 

Tweets @ GoI Monitor

Tweets by @GoiMonitor

FB@GoIMonitor

Like us on Facebook

  • Home
  • Fields
  • Hindi
  • About Us
  • Videos
  • Resources for Readers
  • Internships
  • Join Us
  • Support GoI Monitor

 GOI Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. The content can be reproduced in any publication free of cost by giving due credit to GOI Monitor or the original source as the case may be. Designed and Maintained by WeAreabout.com