kunal purohit

Journalist Kunal Purohit and film director Kaizad Gustad team up for a podcast that hopes to unravel stories behind mysterious disappearances in Himachal Pradesh
We first got curious about Parvati Valley in Himachal Pradesh after we read journalist Kunal Purohit’s piece in the South China Morning Post. One of the more cryptic lines from the piece was relayed by a mountaineer: Nothing that goes into the Parvati ever comes back.
When an online audiobook and podcast service recently released Van...

India
Clashes in Leicester and elsewhere highlight deep divisions caused by Hindutva groups, who use hardline nationalism to help diaspora ‘hold on to their roots’
Displays of Hindutva nationalism are likely to be more frequent, violent as such groups extend reach in diaspora communities, analysts note

Three young women from a Muslim community outside Mumbai have had to dribble past societal barriers to earn their football coaching credentials
The trio sneaked out of their homes and faced numerous physical beatings as they tried to earn a place in the male-dominated world of football
Because of their love for the beautiful game, Fatima Shaikh, 18, and Kulsum Shaikh, 19, (no relation) have had to endure the ugly side of humanity.
The pair from Mumbra, a Muslim community outside India’s Mumba...

The businessman is among dozens of travellers, including American Justin Alexander, to have vanished while trekking in an area known for spirituality, drugs and dark characters
Solo male travellers have reported being ‘lured’ and drugged by a ‘group of girls’, then waking up days later with no recollection beyond their last meal

Ranchi: Every day, at lunchtime, Thakur Munda and his wife Chamri Devi would take turns collecting firewood from the jungle neighbouring Baroti, their village in Ranchi district’s Namkum block, 15 km from the Jharkhand state secretariat.
On September 24, 2019, Munda had just finished his meal and was getting ready to leave for the woods, when two of his nephews landed up. Where was his wife? they asked. Munda led the family to the spot where he had last seen Chamri Devi but she was nowhere.

Not when he was routinely abused as a child; not when he was separated from his parents at 13; not even when the Mithi river threatened to swallow two of his children. Nothing has been able to shake the central belief in Mohammed Hussain’s life — that karma is rewarded and that the only thing that matters is goodness. Neki.

For 20 years now, Hussain has been fishing out everything — from corpses to severed body parts — from Mumbai’s Mithi River and offering them a chance at a dignified end. H...

Munawar Faruqui was arrested mid-way through his stand-up act in Indore. Six days later, he’s still in custody, two courts have rejected bail and he faces multiple investigations and a four-year prison term if held guilty. But no one can say what his crime is.

Six sedition cases during the farm protests; 25 during anti-CAA protests; 22 after the Hathras gangrape; 27 after Pulwama: Our study of sedition cases over the last decade reveals a 28% rise in such cases—in violation of Supreme Court guidelines—especially against critics and protesters since 2014

As the health minister claims India’s Covid-19 death toll is among the world’s lowest, we found the count from crematoria in six cities—Patna, Kanpur, Jamnagar, Morbi, Rajkot and Porbandar—in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar between three to 30 times higher than official death tolls.

When actor Varun Dhawan and his wife Natasha Dalal finally set out to return to Mumbai by sea on Republic Day, two days after they tied the knot in an Alibaug property, the moment was a cynosure of millions of eyes.

It was the first time that the two were going to be seen in public after their intimate wedding at a hotel in the coastal town. Millions were waiting to take a glimpse of the couple.
From selfie-seekers and mechanics to bartenders and drivers, youngsters are flocking the professio...

As a deadly second wave raged across India through April and May, the Narendra Modi government made an unprecedented move: It shifted the responsibility of procuring vaccines onto different regional governments in the country.

For decades, India’s vastly successful universal immunization program has relied on the central government procuring vaccines and distributing it to different regional authorities. When the pandemic hit, the expectation was that the country would build on that model.

While comic Munawar Faruqui’s case gained global attention, the lives of others accused in the case were quietly torn asunder—from a scarred minor to an aspiring stand-up comic who might never perform again. Two more, Nalin Yadav and Sadakat Khan, are still in jail, 53 days later.

Mumbai: Max Corporate Services, the company accused of conducting nearly one lakh fake COVID tests during the recent Kumbh Mela in Haridwar, has links with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that might have played a role in its selection by the Uttarakhand authorities despite failing to make the grade earlier, an investigation by The Wire has revealed.
Evidence with The Wire reveals how the...

On paper, Narmada is one of the least-hit districts in the country. But at the sole crematorium in Rajpipla, the death tally since April is likely to be at least 20 times the official data.

“My oxygen is 31 when some[one] will help me[?]”
This was the last of a series of tweets from Vinay Srivastava before he died in his home on April 17 in the northern Indian city of Lucknow, gasping for breath, his blood oxygen level far below the norm of 95 to 100.
The 65-year-old journalist had tweeted the night before, addressing Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, saying his blood oxygen level had fallen to a catastrophically low 52 but he was unable to find a hospital bed, a ...