-The Indian Express Gandaman (Chhapra): Neha Kumari (10) sits on a plastic mat like the other students at Gandaman Middle School. As a cold wind blows in through the open windows, she tightens the scarf around her head. Among the 30-odd students of Class III and IV who share the 20 ft by 20 ft room in the school, it's easy to miss the slight Neha. However, the five teachers including...

-The Hindustan Times Patna: Arjun Singh, 48, lost his father and wife in quick succession, in 2004 and 2005. Then followed a long spell of depression and "utter loneliness", until in 2007 a sparrow chick that had fallen from a tree in the courtyard of his house transformed his life for good. He tended to the bird for a few days. It recovered and flew off, kicking off a passionate association...

-The Hindu In addition to ailments caused by poverty, salt pan workers across the country suffer from several occupational diseases, including chronic dermatitis, loss of vision and hypothyroidism In Adivasi Colony, a remote hamlet off the road from Vedaranyam to Kodikarai in Tamil Nadu, most of the adults in the 200-odd households work in salt manufacturing. They prepare salt pans manually, irrigate them with saline water which is three times saltier than...

-The Hindu ‘Victims of communal carnage still struggling, socially and financially' Forbesganj/Bhagalpur: Bhajanpur village is a few kilometres off Bihar's showcase ‘four-lane,' as drivers call the highway, a far cry from the State's back-breaking roads of the past, near Forbesganj town. Residents tell us that those affected by the kaand incident, of two years ago, live a little ahead, in the Ansari basti. A bumpy ride across the village leads to Ale Rasool...

-Live Mint ‘Give me any job... but please take me out of this hell', says 57-year-old Saraswati, a manual scavenger New Delhi: Saraswati doesn't remember the last time her bare hands touched the statues of the gods lying on a shaky wooden plank in a corner of her one-room house in Farrukhnagar village of Ghaziabad district. She doesn't remember the last time she prayed or fasted. She says every part of her body...