Prabhakar Bhagyawant got 30 stitches after he fell 20 ft from a tractor transporting #sugarcane. He lost 45 work days, couldn’t work off a an advance payment. @iyerkavi on a debt bondage system that persists in #India's richest state economy
“Neither the sugar factory nor the labour contractor will pay for medical expenses.” Bhagyawant, 39, of Dharur in #Beed, #Maharashtra, has migrated to #Karnataka for 20 years as #sugarcane harvest worker. The Rs 25,000 hospital bill will be recovered from his pay
2/5
Cane harvest worker Adinath Sonawane died in 2020 in Pune district when a truck his his motorbike as he returned to the fields from the #sugar factory. Union leaders managed to get ex gratia payment for his family, but his wife Parvati can no longer find regular work
3/5
“Tyachashivay paryay nahi (there's no alternative).” Adinath's brother Balu Sonawane is also a #sugarcane harvest #migrantworker. Without irrigation for farming, with few other jobs available, and more workers needed for cane harvest, the Sonawanes migrate every year
4/5
A #Maharashtra govt corporation named after #Gopinath Munde set up for #sugarcane#workers in 2019 just before elections to the state assembly was to provide #insurance, social security, other welfare schemes. Over 3 years later, it is still to implement any programmes
5/5
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India has dropped 11 places in the World Press Freedom Index, from 150 in 2022 to 161 in 2023 rsf.org/en/country/ind…
"The violence against journalists, the politically partisan media and the concentration of media ownership all demonstrate that press freedom is in crisis in 'the world’s largest democracy.'"
"Indian law is protective in theory but charges of defamation, sedition, contempt of court and endangering national security are increasingly used against journalists critical of the government, who are branded as 'anti-national.'”
“Some days it’s so hot that our skin burns, or we have flood.” Renuka Pawar watches over her infant in her kopi, a makeshift home where she lives 6 months a year near sugarcane fields. #Climate risks are rising for #migrant workers. @iyerkavi
“We’ve lived like this for generations.” Renuka Pawar does not think better #housing is possible for #Maharashtra’s #sugarcane#migrantworkers. A young mother to a months old infant, she has no access to toilets or running water, cooks on a wood hearth outdoors.
2/4
“We had loans, we needed the money.” Alka Wagh of Malegaon, 400 km from their work site in Jalna, on why she had her son marry a 17-year-old girl whose family they paid Rs 15,000. An additional couple is an additional income during the annual #sugarcane harvest.
3/4
With no local lawyer ready to fight her case & threats allegedly made to Delhi lawyers, family of traumatised Muslim law student narrates how she spent 54 days in jail before #SupremeCourt gave bail. @Samriddhi0809 reports
Sonu Mansoori’s ordeal began when lawyers accosted the 21-yr-old for recording bail hearing of a #BajrangDal man in a court in Indore on 28 Jan. They searched her, found Rs 1 lakh & accused her of being “spy” for the banned Popular Front of India
2/11
All #SupremeCourt trials are telecast & there is no ban on recording court proceedings. Sonu said the money was surety for a client of the lawyer she worked for. The police detained her for 6 hrs & filed an FIR after midnight.
Yesterday, a #SupremeCourt bench led by the Chief Justice gave the home ministry 2 weeks—first ordered in Sept 2022—to collate data on cases filed & action taken against attacks on #Christians.
Here is a thread on our investigations of attacks against #Christians in 3 states
1/5
In Nov 2021, @nikita_jain15 reported from #Uttarakhand how civil rights campaigners recorded 305 attacks against Christians in 21 states between Jan-Sept 2021, almost every attack followed by a police case against a pastor alleging religious conversion. article-14.com/post/pastors-a…
In Dec 2021, @mohitmrao travelled to 4 #Karnataka districts & found many attacks unreported, pastors & congregations fearful, with police reluctant to act against attackers, most allied with the ruling #BJP or its sister outfits article-14.com/post/as-bjp-ta…
“I can make Rs 25000 a month, if I work 15 hours a day, 7 days a week.” Delivery boy Mohammed Arif Khan gets no provident fund, no paid leave, no growth prospects. @anweganguly & @touhid_rahat on working conditions of #GigWorkers
“Khan is not insured. “Only if I die while delivering, my family will receive up to Rs 5,00,000. If they are aware of it.” Despite 2020 Social Security Code for #labour calling to include #GigWorkers, companies do not treat them as employees.
2/5
“I am in the streets from 8 am till late at night,” Mohammed Sohail, a 21-yr-old AC technician does #GigWork during #Delhi winters. He is not paid for return trips to store. He works long hours to make a minimum number of deliveries to qualify for incentives.
3/5
The Rs-35,000 Maulana Azad govt fellowship that Shamsher Singh, son of a Punjabi Sikh daily wage worker, received every month did more than fund his PhD. It threw a lifeline to his penurious family. All this has now ended. Follow this THREAD
Contending—without explaining how—that it overlapped with other scholarships, #Modi govt in Dec 2022 ended fellowships for minority MPhil, PhD students. As @ainulrhbr & @arshiiqureshi report, this overlap isn’t possible & reveals a larger trend.
2/12
The demise of the 13-yr-old Maulana Azad Fellowships is one of a series of moves by the #Modi govt to end, reduce or make it difficult to access financial assistance to minority communities, in particular to #Muslims.