India’s librarians, often invisible heroes, are quietly turning humble libraries into engines of social change, challenging caste barriers, empowering girls, and rewriting futures—one book at a time.

At his zenith, Amit Bhardwaj amassed wealth equivalent to the GDP of a small nation duping thousands of investors lured in by the promise of quick riches mining cryptocurrencies. Today, he is treated like a common criminal – being made to sit on the floor and given minimum comforts – under arrest by the Pune […]

In December 22, just before the long Christmas weekend last year, a 25-year-old man from Wandoor, one of several small towns strewn across Malappuram in north Kerala, was arrested by the state police. Kodakkadan Sharaf Ali was in possession of child pornography, a crime that could lead to five years of imprisonment. People have been […]

“Hands off the computer!” The words, spoken in chaste Bundeli, still ring in Meera’s ears. Computers were things Meera had first heard about in 2005 while she was still in college, graduating in social sciences. They helped you work faster, she knew that. You could write, no, type, endless reams of text on them. You […]

“Hello, Azim seth… namaskar seth-ji,” says 80-year old Jijabrao Gulabrao Deshmukh looking into the camera. “Azim seth-ji baat kar rahen hain?” “Hello, hello?” “Premji is not on the line, we’re only recording your message, we are doing an interview for a story,” I tell him, feeling a little bad for him. His face falls, his […]

Mein cyber hoon (I am a cyber),” says Mandal, who looks a teenager but insists he’s 21 years old. In these parts – Karmatand and elsewhere in the villages of Jamtara, Madhupur, and Dumka of eastern Jharkhand – the frequently-used “cyber” in Hindi and Bengali refers to cybercrime and those dabbling in cybercrime, both petty and […]

A young girl, not more than 12 years old is dressed in a bright pink lehenga and a royal blue velvet blouse. She is standing in the middle of a field and swaying her body, shaking her hips, her chest heaving as she dances to a popular Hariyanvi number that goes Meri jalti jawani maange paani paani. It’s a 15-second clip on […]

This story starts with Udhay Shankar N, who walked into my office on Church Street one day in 2012 and said we were going out to lunch. “We are?” I asked. “Yes.” he said. “You are going to join Silk.” I wasn’t unfamiliar with Silk-List at that point. In fact, I was already a member […]

Chapter 1 How tiger skin in Nepal was traced to Uttar Pradesh On the last day of March 2017, Shikha Bisht walked from her home on the idyllic campus of the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) in Dehradun to her office. The five-minute walk in the early summer felt pleasant amidst the pyramid-like buildings that […]

Chetan Gowda, 27, was speaking to a room full of students in IIIT Hyderabad for a workshop on OpenStreetMap for beginners organised by Swecha, a non-profit organisation to support free software movement last month. There were close to 40 students in the room. Beginners often ask him: Why use open source maps when there are […]

The 300 million Indians older than 60 years by 2050 will owe it big time to a team of scientists, psychiatrists, and local health professionals in Kolar today. It is prospecting for gold of a different kind: data on how Indians grow old. It’s a dry and nippy Monday morning in Dalasanur, a village in […]

Commonly called “revenge porn”, “leak” or “MMS scandal”, image-based abuse is a widespread and systemic yet untrammelled issue that destroys lives. This article is the first in a series on image-based abuse in India. Content warning: This article discusses sensitive topics, including rape, sexual assault, sexual abuse, image-based abuse, and suicide. The content may be […]