In Sembedu village of Tamil Nadu’s Thiruvallur district, a wedding in the family can cost a farmer their land and livelihood. A family typically spends INR 3–5 lakh on a…
In 2016, my husband and I moved to Sembedu, a village in Tamil Nadu’s Thiruvallur district where I had previously worked as a social sector fellow. We set up an…
Raju is a migrant worker from Uttar Pradesh who has been working in Madurai as a belt-walla (belt seller) for the last five years. He is one of the fifteen…
During the first wave of COVID-19, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued instructions to all financial institutions stating that they should not force people to repay their debts. As…
Kallar is an Adivasi village settlement located in the Anaimalai Hills, also known as the Elephant Mountains of Tamil Nadu. The Kaadars are one of the five Adivasi communities living…
For the Toda people living in the upper Nilgiri plateau in Tamil Nadu, the growing forest cover—a cause for celebration anywhere else in the world—is not good news. As traditional…
The garment industry in Tiruppur, Tamil Nadu employs nearly 4,00,000 workers from across different regions of the country. The global COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown has hit the garment…
I was observing Pongal revelries in a village named Damkothapalli, where concrete roads are only now making their way. Sam Venkat, one of the villagers asked me to accompany him…