Ground Zero - In-depth reportage from The Hindu

Ground Zero is a weekly feature where stories that are less reported in the mainstream media are extensively covered from the hinterlands.

January 07, 2017 01:10 pm | Updated December 04, 2021 11:01 pm IST

The Hindu Net Desk

The Hindu Net Desk

TIRUCHI: 09/04/2018: Tamil nadu farmers association members staging a human chain demonstration in Mukkombu near tiruchi on Monday, condemning the Central Government on failure to constitute the Cauvery Management Board (CMB) as per the Supreme Court direction. ...Photo: M. Srinath (expanded info given today: Members of Tamil Nadu farmers association staging a human chain demonstration at Mukkombu theUpper Anaicut, also known asÂ MukkombuÂ ,Â is about 18 kilometers (11 mi) west of Trichy and 2 kilometers away from Jeeyapuram at a point where River Kollidam branches out from the main river, Cauvery.Â near Tiruchi, Tamil Nadu farmers association members formed human chain in the river on apirl 9thÂ 2018 demand for formation of Cauvery Management Board (CMB)Â past one year in delta district Thanjavur, Thiruvarur Nagapattinam and Tiruchi Opposition political parties andTamizhaga Vivasayigal Sangam,Â Cauvery Delta Farmers Welfare Association,and other farmersÂ associationsorganised various type of demonstration would like rail roko, road roko human chain fasting for theÂ condemning the Central Governmentâ€™s failure to constitute the Cauvery Management Board (CMB) as directed by the Supreme Court direction.Still all parties and farmers associations fight against cauvery water issue in delta district.

TIRUCHI: 09/04/2018: Tamil nadu farmers association members staging a human chain demonstration in Mukkombu near tiruchi on Monday, condemning the Central Government on failure to constitute the Cauvery Management Board (CMB) as per the Supreme Court direction. ...Photo: M. Srinath (expanded info given today: Members of Tamil Nadu farmers association staging a human chain demonstration at Mukkombu theUpper Anaicut, also known asÂ MukkombuÂ ,Â is about 18 kilometers (11 mi) west of Trichy and 2 kilometers away from Jeeyapuram at a point where River Kollidam branches out from the main river, Cauvery.Â near Tiruchi, Tamil Nadu farmers association members formed human chain in the river on apirl 9thÂ 2018 demand for formation of Cauvery Management Board (CMB)Â past one year in delta district Thanjavur, Thiruvarur Nagapattinam and Tiruchi Opposition political parties andTamizhaga Vivasayigal Sangam,Â Cauvery Delta Farmers Welfare Association,and other farmersÂ associationsorganised various type of demonstration would like rail roko, road roko human chain fasting for theÂ condemning the Central Governmentâ€™s failure to constitute the Cauvery Management Board (CMB) as directed by the Supreme Court direction.Still all parties and farmers associations fight against cauvery water issue in delta district.

Series - 84 stories

A policeman frisks a devotee as he arrives at a mosque to attend prayer in Colombo after the bomb blasts on April 21. (Below) Kattankudy, which is among the most densely populated areas in the island.

A new fault line in post-war Sri Lanka

Meera Srinivasan

Missing from the discourse focussed on Avni however, is the story of how a rising tiger population is forcing the animal to seek out new hunting grounds, as tigers need a huge prey base.” Sarati village in Yavatmal district, Maharashtra, was gripped by fear of Avni.

Changing the stripes of conservation

Serish Nanisetti

PM-KISAN may have good intentions, but it will be lost in translation without accurate land records.” Mudika Kumar, 28, on his dried out cotton ﬁelds in Sripathipalli village, Chilpur mandal, Jangaon district. He is a tenant farmer who is forced to depend on his livestock for sustenance

A drop in an ocean of debt: how farmers have benefited from Rythu Bandhu

Priscilla Jebaraj

“Far from accepting responsibility and offering help , the government and the corporation left the workers who were suffering from silicosis to fend for themselves.” The quartz mines near Elkatta in Telangana’s Ranga Reddy district where the workers were employed. (Below) The women whose husbands died from silicosis narrate their stories. K.V.S. Giri

Telangana’s ‘villages of widows’

K. Venkateshwarlu

“It cannot be easy waking up every day to the certainty that the place you call home is sinking.” Residents of Pattamthuruthu at a destroyed and submerged bridge

The sinking island of Kerala

** PICTURE FOR GROUND ZERO ON STUBBLE BURNING**
Mohali 24/10/2018:
Smoke rising high as an agricultural worker burning paddy straw or leftover stubble after mechanised paddy harvesting at a village on the outskirts of Mohali. In Punjab, the governments measures to tackle stubble-burning menace have reaped little dividend, as the farmers, many of them debt-ridden, say that at the end of the harvesting season, they are left with no option but to set paddy straw on fire in order to clear their fields. Lack of paddy straw buyers, shortage of manpower, little time gap for sowing the next crop, and little assistance by the state government emerged as the major reasons behind the ongoing practice of stubble burning. To curb the burning of straw, Punjab has appointed nodal officers in 8,000 paddy-growing villages to check stubble-burning, imposition of fines on farmers indulged in stubble burning, offered machinery for clearance at subsidised rates and monitoring of stubble-burning through satellite imagery. Photo: Akhilesh Kumar/THE HINDU

Punjab’s burning problem

Jacob Koshy,Vikas Vasudeva

Curious inflow: Treated sewage water flows into the Lakshmisagar lake tank in Kolar as residents of neigbouring areas look on.

In Kolar, a parched land in a sea of sewage

Unsafe spaces: Kanina bus stand, Mahendragarh, where the teenager used to get down to attend coaching classes nearby. She was abducted by the accused here.

Crimes against women in Haryana: as they rise, men push them back

Doorways to history: Onsite museum at the Pattanam excavation site of the Muziris Heritage Project. The large structure is the new museum where work is in progress. The smaller structure (right) is the old museum.

Ground Zero | Kerala floods replay the catastrophe that hit the ancient sea port Muziris in 1341

S. Anandan,Shyama Rajagopal

More than a handful: Armyworm larvae in various stages of their lifecycle.

Ravaged by a caterpillar: on the armyworm invasion in India

Visakhapatnam , Andhra Pradesh : FOR GROUND ZERO : 14/09/2018: K Jyoti Rani, who has undergone faulty hip implant surgery in 2008 and then a revision surgery in 2017, works for home, moving around in her house with the help of a support Visakhapatnam. She also had a miscarriage in 2016. Photo : K.R. Deepak

Out of joint: Documenting the repercussions from Johnson & Johnson's faulty hip implants

Still in the shadows: “While the problem of drug abuse among women is on the rise, not many seek help.” Picture shows a patient undergoing treatment at a de-addiction centre, at Kapurthala.

Punjab’s new addicts: on the rise of female drug addicts

Navy personnel airlift a boy during a rescue operation in Paravur in Kollam.

Kerala floods rescue: A chopper, a boat, and a prayer

The bullfrog is only the latest entrant in the Andamans’ 150-year-old history of invasives.

Indian bull frog: the Andamans’ new colonisers

Cox’s Bazar is a vast conglomeration of human settlements on unstable land that slips and slides every time it rains. According to the U.N. Refugee Agency, over 900,000 Rohingya, including those who had arrived in earlier waves of exodus, live in makeshift shelters.

In the city of refugees: Rohingya camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar

“The Kerala government’s extraordinary response is no solace for Mohammed Salih’s family who have lost four members in three weeks to the Nipah virus.” The relatives of V. Moosa, Salih’s father, offer prayers at his burial in Kozhikode.

Nipah virus: Anatomy of an outbreak

Illustration: Deepak Harichandan

A cure for medical malpractice

TIRUCHI: 09/04/2018: Tamil nadu farmers association members staging a human chain demonstration in Mukkombu near tiruchi on Monday, condemning the Central Government on failure to constitute the Cauvery Management Board (CMB) as per the Supreme Court direction. ...Photo: M. Srinath (expanded info given today: Members of Tamil Nadu farmers association staging a human chain demonstration at Mukkombu theUpper Anaicut, also known asÂ MukkombuÂ ,Â is about 18 kilometers (11 mi) west of Trichy and 2 kilometers away from Jeeyapuram at a point where River Kollidam branches out from the main river, Cauvery.Â near Tiruchi, Tamil Nadu farmers association members formed human chain in the river on apirl 9thÂ 2018 demand for formation of Cauvery Management Board (CMB)Â past one year in delta district Thanjavur, Thiruvarur Nagapattinam and Tiruchi Opposition political parties andTamizhaga Vivasayigal Sangam,Â Cauvery Delta Farmers Welfare Association,and other farmersÂ associationsorganised various type of demonstration would like rail roko, road roko human chain fasting for theÂ condemning the Central Governmentâ€™s failure to constitute the Cauvery Management Board (CMB) as directed by the Supreme Court direction. Still all parties and farmers associations fight against cauvery water issue in delta district.

Ground Zero: Cauvery, a river in distress

“The migrant workers at the plantations in Munnar enjoy a quality of life not available to their counterparts in most other parts of India.” Workers from Jharkhand and Odisha play a hockey match at the Gundumalai tea estate.

A piece of Jharkhand in Kerala

Gouged out: A family waits at Kumaraswamy hills for a bus back to their village.

Red Earth and fine dust: political choices in the 'Republic of Bellary'

Shivani Reddy, SpiceJet

Dinakar Peri,Yuthika Bhargava,Deepu Sebastian Edmond

JAIPUR, RAJASTHAN, 28/02/2018: Village women, who led the protest for closing the liquor shop, from this financial year (31st March 2018) at the Phoga Bharthari Village of Churu District in Rajasthan on February 26, 2018.
Photo: R. V. Moorthy

Voting against alcohol

Inhaling bad air: “The intake of air increases considerably when we exercise, as we take deeper and more frequent breaths, which is why health professionals warn against outdoor exercise when pollution is high.” Morning joggers near Rajpath in Delhi.

The champions of clean air

“The children of farmers who killed themselves cope with acute mental trauma, but they say very little. Even worse, no one asks.” Kartik Kachre, whose father Prakash Kachre committed suicide, is seen with other children in Shantivan in Beed district of Maharashtra. Shantivan is home to 120 children who have lost either one or both of their parents to farm loan-related suicide.

The silent sufferers: on Maharashtra farmer suicides

Illustration: Deepak Harichandan

For here or to go? Existential question for Indians pursuing the American dream

Varghese K. George

Aberdeen Blair was among the 1,500-plus recipients of the MDA programme in Sawai village.

Eyes to the island: Car Nicobar's victory over hyperendemic trachoma

Lalitha Sridhar

Doors closed: “In contrast to the government schools in villages, which have been running short of students, many of the residential schools are overcrowded.” Shadin Menaka (sitting), a physically challenged tribal student, dropped out after the Sana Raisingh primary school closed down.

In Odisha, schools are the dropouts

Elizabeth Kuruvilla

The ghosts of Adichanallur: Artefacts that suggest an ancient Tamil civilisation of great sophistication

M. Kalyanaraman

“So far, around 3,000 people from Manipur and Mizoram have already emigrated to Israel after embracing Judaism.” Bnei Menashe boys whose parents wish to go to Israel

The lost Jews of Churachandpur

The alien fruit that took over Karnataka

Rohingya prefer to travel by boat from Myanmar to Bangladesh as the the land border, though open, is manned by trigger-happy Myanmar soldiers. A Bangladeshi man helps Rohingya Muslim refugees disembark from a boat on the Bangladeshi shoreline of the Naf river after crossing the border from Myanmar, in Teknaf

Rohingya's hope floats on a boat

Three musketeers: “Hardik Patel, Jignesh Mevani and Alpesh Thakor’s success in channelling discontent has ensured that caste is in the forefront of discussions, for the moment.” Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti chief Hardik Patel at a rally in Ahmedabad. (File photo from 2015)

The parivartan brotherhood: How three young men have queered the pitch for the BJP in Gujarat

Ploughing on: Farmers are in a defiant mood in the face of the State government’s threat to take stringent action against them. Farmers belonging to a faction of the Bhartiya Kisan Union Ekta guard their village on the outskirts of Patiala from government officials who are penalising them for setting paddy stubble on fire.

The flaming fields of Punjab

“Families of the several thousands who disappeared in the final stages of the war are still waiting for news from the government about their missing kin.” Sri Lankan Tamils at a protest in 2013 in Colombo.

Chronicles of a carnage foretold

Meera Srinivasan

Marooned: “Stretched over 10 km from Dumri to Buddha Nagara Radha to Rajwara, the embankment is the lifeline for the flood-hit villagers, mostly poor and daily-wage agricultural labourers.” Flood-hit residents of Muzaffarpur in Bihar go in search of dry land.

Bihar floods: when home is a highway

Amarnath Tewary

Black fever: “India accounts for half the global burden of the disease, which is endemic to the subcontinent ” Picture shows Rohim Sarkar during his check-up at a hospital in Malda.

Kala-azar: The disease that just won’t go away

A view from the Karmatar police station

The cyber con 'artists' of Jharkhand's Jamtara district

Shiv Sahay Singh

Under the onion skin: “The journey shows one thing — that farming, which sustains more than half of India’s population even if many of them also do other things on the side for supplementary income, is not a lucrative proposition.” (Above and three-column image below) Pictures show the Sardar wholesale agricultural market, in Surat, Gujarat.

Maximum support, maximum price

Goyara Mugali lies in the heart of the drought-prone region, battling bad crop, water crisis and unemployment. Migration is high and crime rampant.

A spike in the footprints of time

How genetics is settling the Aryan migration debate

“Just building people toilets doesn’t mean they’ll use them. More crucial and challenging is inducing communal behavioural change.” Banjari, a resident of a village in Janjgir-Champa district, went into deep debt to construct a toilet.

Toiling for a toilet

The Sasikala web: how a maze of shell companies link up to her, her family and friends

Sandhya Ravishankar

In the crosshairs: “Not long ago, the Chenchus were caught in the crossfire between Maoists and the anti-Naxal force of the Andhra Pradesh police. The recent National Tiger Conservation Authority order puts them into yet another uncertain phase.”

Forced out of the forest

K. Venkateshwarlu,S. Murali

Water warrior: “Five years ago, when V. Govindankutty first saw a trickle of water in the Naubad karez he didn’t realise that he had stumbled on an ancient engineering marvel.” The assistant professor of geography at the mouth of the karez. Only a handful of such underground aqueducts are found in India; this is the first of them to be restored.

How Bidar beat back the drought

Matter of shame: “The girls’ lives don’t matter as they come from socially marginalised communities where girls matter little and are seen as a burden on their families.” A trafficking victim from Nayatola-Tingheria village of Kursela in Katihar district.

Betrayed by their own blood

Amarnath Tewary

New foot soldiers: “We don’t fear bullets and bombs, we are all part of Mujib’s army,” shouts a student ... And that’s when it strikes you… it is no longer 1971 but 2017. The canteen at Dhaka University, run by Madhusudan Dey’s son, and who witnessed the Dhaka University massacre, remains a focal point for student protests.

The long healing of 1971

Suhasini Haidar

The Andhra flavour in Gujarat’s fish

Mahesh Langa,Santosh Patnaik

Unabated practice: “To date, the police have arrested 12 people who conducted the sex determination tests.” Swaranjali and Pranjali, the daughters of Swati Jamdade who died following a botched-up abortion in Mhaisal village, with their paternal grandmother Padmini Patangrao Jamdade in Manerajuri village.

No country for baby girls

“The war of 1971 was not the first Dhondup and his compatriots experienced”. Dhondup Palden and his wife Sonam at their residence in Lama Camp.

They came, they fought, they stayed

Kallol Bhattacherjee

“Dalit women are committed Mayawati supporters, while some of the men are considering other options in Kalan.” Dalit women and men in the village.

Ear to the ground

ILLUSTRATION: DEEPAK HARICHANDAN

Betraying the oath: the rot in India's medical education system

Toxic waste: Chromium in the factory premises in Ranipet,Vellore, Tamil Nadu.

The groundwater beneath their feet

Serena Josephine M.

Reluctant mothers

Kumar Buradikatti

Encounter killings of another kind

R. Krishna Kumar,Mohit M Rao

The ground beneath their feat

Amarnath Tewary

A SURVIVOR’S TALE: “Wildlife experts look at Ayush’s survival as not just a victory for
the Indira Gandhi Zoological Park but for animal conservation globally.”

The hyena has the last laugh

Mahavir Singh Phogat imparts training to young girls at a wrestling training centre set up at his house in Balali village of Bhiwani.

The sisterhood of wrestlers

HORRID HUNT: “Witch-hunts are so rampant in Jharkhand that whenever a new disease sets in that afflicts either people or cattle and villagers fail to comprehend it, they look for witches to kill so as to propitiate the spirits.” Suspecting her to be a witch, Gomi Tirkey, 55, has been boycotted by her village. She now lives with a relative, at Khunti in Jharkhand.

The ‘witches’ of Jharkhand

Shiv Sahay Singh

All things for all people: “Common Services Centres are an organic response to the growth in demand for digitised government services that a static state machinery cannot keep up with and the free market has seemingly ignored.” A Common Services Centre in Malegaon.

A leap into the digital world

Do you know how it feels to stay cooped up inside your room for five months with shattered window panes reminding you of the constant presence of violence? Nousheen Baba, 21 Science student, Government College for Women, Nawakadal

The empowerment diaries

Students leaving after finishing their school exams in Srinagar.

The class must go on

In search of the new red corridor - glimpses

rumble in the jungle: “The Maoists are seeking to use tribal angst to build a political presence.” The Naxalite Special Division of the Tamil Nadu Police during a combing operation in a hamlet near the Erumad police station, which borders the Wayanad forests of Kerala.

In search of a new red corridor

Srinivasan Ramani

Karnataka : Bhatkal : 19/10/2016 : ( Picture to go with story by Mohit M Rao ) Couple at Bhatkal Beach on Wednesday 19 October 2016. Photo : Sudhakara Jain.

The marriage vows between Bhatkal and Karachi

Srinagar,18/9/2016:Army jawans take positions near the Army base which was attacked which was attacked by militants in the town of Uri, west of Srinagar Sunday. PHOTO/NISSAR AHMAD.

Border town blues

Josy Joseph,Peerzada Ashiq

The warp and woof of demonetisation

Bhopal_Police cops at the site after killed 8 SIMI Terrorists in encounter, who escaped Bhopal Central Jail on monday. photo by A_M_Faruqui (31/10/2016)

Escape from nowhere: Undertrials under fire

“Two huge bottle palm trees and a coconut tree overshadow the 140-year-old house... In the middle stands a pink bicycle... with a faded black Rexin school bag on the rear carrier. ‘It was her last day of school when she had parked her bicycle with the bag there,’” says Moitree Chakravarty, Navaruna’s mother.”

Waiting for Navaruna

Amarnath Tewary

Former Naxalite Durva Nagubai in Vaipet, Adilabad district. Photo: S. Harpal Singh

In Telangana, a farewell to arms

S. Harpal Singh,Ravi Reddy

INJUSTICE: “Traders decide the price, farmers accept it without protest.” The Lasalgaon onion market in Maharashtra.

The bane of a bumper crop

Nayeemuddin’s grave besides his brother’s grave on the premises of the dargah close to his house in Bhongir town of Nalgonda district. Inset: A file photo of Nayeemuddin

From a revolutionary to a renegade

Serial killer: “When he was finally arrested on August 11, one of the first things senior police officers noted about Pol was his eerily confident, almost supercilious nature.” Santosh Pol being investigated in Wai town, Satara district. — Photo: Prashant Nakwe

Pol plot unmasked

HATHRAS, UTTAR PRADESH, 24/08/2016: An LED bulb, a swithboard and an electricity meter which is part of the kit installed under the rural electrification project at Anandapur got power in April 2016 under the rural electrification project. Under the government's rural electrification programe, the village in western Uttar Pradesh got power lines and 18 meters installed. Photo: V. V. Krishnan

The race to light up the last village

Anuradha Raman,Samarth Bansal

Samantha with her mother, Patricia Tavis. Photo: Special Arrangement

Desperately seeking Mariyamma

After ban, in a state of low spirits

Anuradha Raman,Amarnath Tewary

FEEDING DRIVE: A woman of Tala Nagada village gives her child with ‘Energy Dense Nutrient Rich Food’ distributed by the government health department to the villagers of Nagada hills in Jajpur district. Photo: Biswaranjan Rout

The lost tribe of Odisha

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a plea for Governor’s rule in the strife-ridden State of Jammu and Kashmir.

Behind the rage in south Kashmir

Mehboob Jeelani

The fisherfolk weaving hammocks, swings, and other products at a community centre on the beach in Kovvada village of Srikakulam district. Photo: K.R. Deepak

The coast isn’t clear for India’s nuclear power quest

K. Venkateshwarlu

A photo of Hafeezuddin, who went missing from Padanna in Kasargod district.

Mystery of the missing twenty-one

A child being vaccinated at a Primary Health Centre near Malappuram town. The district’s immunisation rate is 84 per cent, one point lower than the State average. Photo: K.K. Mustafah

The fallacies of the faithful

The battle lines are drawn in Punjab. Photo: Akhilesh Kumar.

Can the Aam Aadmi Party win Punjab?

VIJAYAWADA, ANDHRA PRADESH, 24-06-2016. *** AMARAVATI **** Pond at Thulluru village of capital Amaravati of Andhra Pradesh. PHOTO: V. RAJU.

Capital project: The making of Amaravati

K. Venkateshwarlu

Enemies of the States?

Life in the Mathura cult camp

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