Pooja Gurjar is a young woman from Rajasthan. She was married off at the age of 16 years and sent to her marital home. At her insistence, she returned to live in her parents’ house and is has continued her education. She recently completed MJAS’ Grassroots Journalism course and wants to build her career in …
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The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare in alarming ways how unprepared the world has been to weather such a storm. Health care systems have buckled or broken under the strain of surging cases. Prolonged isolation and uncertainty has spawned a global mental health crisis, and people with other medical conditions have gone untreated. The pandemic …
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Earlier this year in Tamil Nadu, India, an LGBTQI+ couple battled homophobia in court—and won—making an important step to bring greater acceptance and equity to their community. At its core, this is a love story: Adheesh and Nidish (their names changed to protect their identities) are a young adult lesbian couple who fell in love …
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When we launched an emergency campaign to respond to India’s unprecedented COVID-19 surge earlier this year, we were deeply moved by how generously and quickly the AJWS community responded. Our campaign this spring allowed us to write emergency grants to dozens of our partner organizations across the country, enabling them to support their communities by …
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There’s a haunting hush hanging all over New Delhi right now, broken only by the sirens of ambulances rushing by. A new variant that’s 15-times more contagious is tearing through our densely populated city, and indeed across the country. Hospitals are filled to capacity with sick people — leaving so many others to fend for …
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On a damp Monday morning this past March, we headed out of our Kolkata hotel to find the dark streets still wet with rain that fell throughout the night. The streets were just starting to pulse with life. As we drove through the city to Asia’s busiest train station, the reminders of Kolkata’s colonial past were on display, from the architecture to the traffic police in their white uniforms, waving on the traffic with their batons.
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Zeenat is 17 years old and has already been married and divorced three times. All of these marriages took place against her will, and all three husbands abused her. Unfortunately, Zeenat’s experience is common in her impoverished community in Hyderabad, India. As is the case for many families living in poverty, Zeenat’s parents viewed marriage …
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