-The Hindu In his book on Bihar, M.R. Sharan provides a closely observed, scholarly, and empathetic account of the struggle to make constitutional promises a reality in rural India  M.R. Sharan’s splendid book brought tears to my eyes on more than one occasion. The scene is a public meeting at “Narega Chowk” in Ratnauli village, Muzaffarpur district of Bihar. Activists of Bihar Manrega Watch (BMW) are helping resolve grievances. An old woman...

-TheWire.in Puja Changoiwala’s new novel begins with the announcement of the COVID-19 lockdown. It then makes real a 900-km journey by a migrant family from Mumbai to Balhaar, Rajasthan. The idea of home is a fundamental human concept. We’re not taught about it at school, nor is there a pedagogy of ‘being at home,’ nevertheless, all of us have a sense of belonging that we associate with the word. Even those hunter-gatherers and...

-TheCitizen.in About once in every generation an event occurs which is so tectonic in its scope and intensity that it cries out to be chronicled for posterity. Not merely recorded or reported by news media and television channels, for that is merely transient journalism conveying statistics, allegations and denials. It does not convey the pathos and sufferings of millions, the shattering of dreams and lives; it concerns itself with the body...

-TheWire.in Supriya RoyChowdhury's 'City of Shadows' is a compelling study of the lives of the poor in a rapidly globalising Bengaluru. The long caravans of workers leaving the cities for their villages during the national lockdown in 2020 made visible the large proportion of urban workers whose homes are in the villages. Combined with the farmers’ protests, they brought attention to the crisis in agriculture and the failure of agrarian livelihoods that...

-The Hindu A gut-wrenching story of the poor and marginalised who work and live at Mumbai’s Deonar landfill to earn their daily bread Rag pickers live off what the rest of the world throws away. They lead invisible lives in the landfills that keep growing, stagnating and putrefying with items discarded by the city’s rich. The dark trail of modern life is seen and felt everywhere. Journalist Saumya Roy, who spent eight years...