The Guardian - India

On a wildlife walk in the Indian capital, a group of women share their stories of trying to enjoy nature in a city where strangers feel entitled to harass them Vallari Sheel wishes she could carry a camera or a pair of binoculars without being asked what her father does for a living. Once, looking at a tree in her south Delhi neighbourhood, about 50 metres away from her home, a man in a car screamed at her: “You have been clicking photos here for 10 days. What are you going to do with them?” She

My uncle Roy Moxham, who has died aged 86, was a former tea plantation supervisor who in later life turned his hand to writing about tea and about India, a country he visited many times on extended trips. His most successful book was The Great Hedge of India (2001), which was published not just in English but in multiple Indian languages. The hedge of the title, which was four metres high and 2.5m wide, was made of thorny shrubs and stretched 2,500 miles across British India to form a customs li

Many Muslims saw their places of worship destroyed or abandoned during the sectarian violence of India’s partition in 1947. Now villagers of many faiths are coming together to revive them Gajju Khan is smiling as he sits in an unfinished building in the northern Indian state of Punjab in the late afternoon. The 87-year-old is hopeful that before he dies he will hear the azaan, the Muslim call to prayer, echo across his village once again when the mosque is completed. The last time he heard it he

Indian actor known for his roles in Salaam Bombay! and the Bollywood hits Parinda and Krantiveer, who had a controversial personal life The Indian actor Nana Patekar, who has died of a heart attack aged 75, first broke through in Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay! (1988), and the Bollywood hits Parinda (1989) and Krantiveer (1994). These early credits established Patekar as a performer of rare versatility: he and Irrfan Khan remain the only performers to have won Filmfare’s best actor, best supporting a

My father, John Staley, who has died aged 88, was field director for Oxfam in south India and Sri Lanka during the late 1960s and early 70s, when he was responsible for Oxfam’s funding of several hundred local, national and international voluntary agencies. His role included aid administration, policy formulation, project appraisal, recommendations for funding, disaster relief and liaison with government and non-government organisations. He led Oxfam’s response in India to a drought in Maharasht

Young people in France, India and Albania and other parts of the world are protesting and we want to hear from them about the reasons why they’re taking to the streets Young people in different parts of the world are protesting and we want to hear from them about the reasons they’re taking to the streets and on social media. Across France there have been student-led rallies demanding action against inequality and staff shortages in schools. Young people in Albania have been involved in anti-gove

The singing, dancing and sheer joy in the face of police brutality at the protests led by the Cockroach Janta party show people no longer fear India’s regime In July, as supporters of the Cockroach movement took to Jantar Mantar, the designated protest site in Delhi, incensed over exam-paper leaks and demanding the resignation of India’s education minister, the rest of the nation realised that for the first time since the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) came to power in 2014, the curse of inertia a

A fresh wave of protests by India’s youth-led Cockroach movement has been met with a brutal crackdown by Narendra Modi’s government and the closure of a historic protest site in Delhi. Two of the movement’s leaders have been imprisoned for five days for violating suppression measures. The protests, which began over frustration about education and unemployment, are now focused on voting rights. Modi’s government denies claims that it is seeking to disenfranchise millions of voters. But its treatm