Every summer several hundred thousand devout Hindus from across India arrive in the mountainous and disputed territory of Kashmir, to take part in an arduous pilgrimage to a revered mountain shrine: the Amanarth Cave. The cave contains a lingam, a phallus-shaped piece of ice, and is considered one of the most sacred places by Hindus. The pilgrimage, or “yatra”, is by foot, pony and, occasionally, by helicopter. It takes place close to the line of control in Kashmir, beside the Pakistani-controlled part of the territory. The Indian army posts large numbers of soldiers along mountain ridges, to guard against attacks by Pakistani or Kashmiri militants. Given the high altitude, occasional bad weather, and the large numbers of pilgrims involved, many of them ill-prepared, each year sees dozens of people die en route. In 2012 over 90 pilgrims died. The mountainous region is fragile and remote: the impact of so many visitors can be devastating for the local environment. Rubbish is strewn on glaciers, in rivers and half-burned or buried in heaps. The valley containing the Amanarth Cave is particularly badly affected, with acrid smoke from burning rubbish in the air, and waste underfoot.

In the remote North Cachar Hills in India's northeast, the Indian army is doggedly hunting the "Black Widow", the most recalcitrant insurgent group in the region, active since 2003, and fighting for a separate state within India for Dimasas, the largest tribal group in this hill district. The Indian government's aggressive stance against this group is symptomatic of a seismic shift in the country's policy of tackling terrorism. India is disreputably the most attacked nation on earth after war-torn Iraq, according to the Worldwide Incidents Tracking System. But beyond Islamic militants from neighboring Pakistan, it faces a key security risk from its myriad home-grown insurgent groups on its own soil. And while the government will not disclose its strategy, the troops surge (from 60 companies of the Indian army to 75 in recent days) in the NC hills district - a sparsely populated 5,000 sq km tribal hilly region - is indicative of its new no-tolerance approach towards insurgents. But there is disturbing evidence that suggests the Indian army is using other rival rebel groups (equally notorious and accused of brutal killings, extortions and gunrunning) as proxies in its war against the "Black Widow". Some of these groups are being armed and used as paramilitaries to fight them in the difficult jungle terrain. [Interviewed multiple sources that confirm this]. Parallel to this military operation, North Cachar Hills is engulfed in a vicious cycle of ethnic violence. Insurgent groups, no one knows exactly which (though the army suspects the "Black Widow") is burning down village after village, reducing them to killing fields and displacing thousands of tribals. Here are some of the photos of this insane theater of war.

We were visiting a rural area of West Bengal called Hasnabad to spend some time with a low-caste Muslim community called the Chowdulis. Our interest was in how this impoverished group is asking the government to classify it officially as a "backward" class - a status that would entitle it to all sorts of benefits. The Chowdulis traditionally are fishermen. Since most can't afford boats or even nets, they drain water from ponds and harvest fish by hand. They get a variety of saltwater fish that comes in from the Bay of Bengal - but most don't make more than $20 per month. Since fishing is declining now, they're looking for other job opportunities - but there isn't much except the local brick kilns. Young men who never made it past the fourth grade and therefore really aren't qualified for many jobs. Thus with limited resources, the entire family ends up working to earn the livelihood for the family. Many of the women spend their days making bidis - which are hand-rolled Indian cigarettes. Many families had changed their family name from Chowduli to Gazi to increase their social status. Though there's theoretically no caste system in Islam - but there is a parallel social hierarchy. The Chowdulis are treated just like a low Hindu caste. Now, if the Chowdulis get recognized nationally as a backward class - the only way anyone will get benefits like a government job is if they emphasizes their Chowduli heritage. The affirmative action system in India was meant to address discrimination in the caste system, which is quite complicated. Traditionally caste defined your social status and your occupation, which often is hereditary. There are castes of barbers, sweepers, cobblers. We also visited a low caste Hindu community called the Devangas - traditional weavers who are also petitioning to be considered a backward class nationwide. They want to go backward to try to go forward.

In 1972, the term 'gross national happiness' was coined by Bhutan's king Jigme Singye Wangchuck, he knew for certain that Bhutan's unique Buddhist culture would adapt it seamlessly. The youth certainly believed in their king's vision of the GNH but the peer pressure and the yearning to be part of the mainstream is reflected in a way the casual Bhutanese is looking and embracing change. Television and the internet have been accessible only since 1999 in Bhutan, and were introduced despite widespread fears that their "controversial" content such as fashion shows, western music, WWF wrestling, and pornography, could destroy the kingdom's traditional way of life based on unique Buddhist principles. Young teenagers dressed in hip western outfit right next to a Buddhist monk juxtapose in the modern landscape of Bhutan and sometimes this idea of modernity is questioned. Going to a club and dancing till early hours of the day is an idea that was alien to them but few clubs have opened up in downtown Thimphu and are packed on weekends. The ones who cannot afford the clubs, end up in small underground dance-bars where they can go and spend time with the 'geishas'. These girls sing and dance in the bar and make an average of 700 NU (18 USD) a day, but constantly have to deal with misbehaviour by the visiting teenagers and young men. This negotiating of change is questioned in the 21st century landscape of Modern Bhutan. This idea of 'happiness' will have to accommodate the immediate change of visual icons of style, fashion and lifestyle, for better or for worse.

India is the 4th largest economy and the second most populous country in the world with its economy growing at 9% a year. Inspite of the development rate, more than a quarter of 1.1 billion Indians live on less than a dollar a day. Bombay (now known as Mumbai) is India's financial capital and is home to 19 million people. Bombay is also the home of the major corporate giants and is often called the New York of the east. Major Indian conglomerated like Tata, Reliance, Birla and many others have become household names, and are buying out other companies elsewhere in the global arena. People from around the country flock to Bombay, with dreams of a better life. Bombay is also the most expensive city in India when it comes to real estate. With an influx of people rushing in to Bombay, it is projected to be the most populous metropolis by 2015, after Tokyo. As a vendor once told me, ..."money, they say flies in Bombay, some grab it, other keep watching".

"I am waiting to die in this city", says 50 year old Md. Shahjada. His dialect is not one that is native to this city. It's one of an immigrant, rootless, and filled with anger. Shahjada's anger has a reason. He is one of twenty four thousand rickshaw pullers in Calcutta. And, yes, all of them are waiting to die. The Marxist government in the state of West Bengal decided that it's inhuman to allow rickshaws criss-cross this city. Most of these human horses are not from West Bengal but have emigrated from the neighbouring states of Bihar and Jharkhand. 93 out of every 100 rickshaw pullers are homeless. They sleep after the city sleeps and wake up before everyone else does. Many of them are the sole bread earners for their family. Many plus 40. Of the twenty four thousand rickshaw pullers, only 387 have licenses. A rickshaw puller earns a meagre wage of 100-150 rupees (US $ 2.25-3.5) a day, of which they have to give a daily rickshaw rent of 60 (US$ 1.35) rupees to the agent at the end of the day. West Bengal's government's intention to banish this anachronistic vehicle from Calcutta's streets, promises modernity. They go on to call the rickshaw "inhuman" and condem those who mourn the end of this piece of history. The administration feels that the hand-drawn rickshaw belongs to the old economy. The days of feudal lords are bygones and so will the days of the hand pulled rickshaw. In the government's view it offers nothing but chaos, low levels of growth, and human migration driven by the unyielding poverty spiral. Calcutta, meanwhile, can move on and join the 21st century and, if at all the hand-drawn rickshaw stages a comeback, it most likely will travel back to the Museum. Almost ironical for a mode of transport whose invention some credit to an out-of-work samurai. Calcutta will turn into a silent city, minus the symphonic clickety-clak, of the human-pulled rickshaws.

An estimated number of 500,000 women process cashews for a living in Tamil Nadu and Kerela. 2 million people are employed by cashew industry across India making it the world's biggest exporter of shelled cashews. The working conditions in these processing units are way below industry standards and violates the basic rights. Wages are as low as Rs. 50 (US $1) per day. The problems for these women is not restricted to low wages. Many women are being injured by their jobs as the factory owners cut corners with health and safety. Oil released during the cashew shelling process is highly caustic, leading to common cases of dermatitis, blistering and discolouration of workers' skin. Women working in these units suffer from pains in their leg muscles, backs and knee joints after squatting positions on mud or concrete floors. It is very rare to find tables and chairs provided on shelling duty. Cashew workers' main concern is to increase their earnings and provide better working conditions.

These are complex times, when change is a mantra of development, progress and success derive skewed meaning; times where compatible and indispensable are a social dialectic; goals are material, aspiration and hope are apportioned in tangibles. Set in these changing times of liberalization and privatization, major players in mineral processing industries are coming forth to invest in the mineral rich state of Orissa, in the south east of India. One of the ramifications as a result is a large involuntary displacement of the resident population of marginalized sections, some of them tribals, who've lived in these forests for centuries. However, there is stiff resistance by some farmers against the proposed displacement. These movements have experienced severe restraining methods and the state's brutal suppression, as in the case of TATA at Kalinganagar, Vedanta at Lanjigarh and POSCO at Jagatsinghpur. Farmers simply distrust the government and feel they are being asked to sacrifice far more than the compensation and resettlements are able to provide. Subhash Mahapatra, one of the farmers fighting for his rights, posed a simple question to me "If I don't want to sell it, do I not have the right to say no?". Inherent in the farmers' struggle for land against the state and industry is close social and emotional association with their land. With my current project, I am trying to document this relationship of people with their land and language of their struggle against this dispossession. I personally feel, the choice to do what they want to do with their lands should remain with the rightful owner i.e., the farmer. Their struggle is an example of such struggles all across India, over time. I feel my work is an important means to carry the message of their social and emotional association with land and the courage, determination and their right to dignity.

"The Other Modernity" is a portrait of Chhattisgarh, a state in central India. This is the story of people living amidst India's Maoist insurgents, the Naxalites, whose jungle war zone sits astride the country's wealthiest iron ore and coal deposits. Still following the tactics of Mao-Tse Tung three decades after his death, the Naxalites have vowed to overthrow the government in Delhi and transform the country into a communist state. Their politics may seem obsolete, but in the process they have tapped into the underlying grievances that continue to plague India as it emerges on the global stage: the entrenched rural poverty, exploitation of tribal communities and violence of heavy-handed and often brutal security forces. In 2010 the casualties in the Naxalite campaign, deemed the most serious internal challenge to India by the country's prime minister, were triple that of Kashmir. Either way, the Naxalites cannot be ignored. With 20,000 armed cadres operating across several states, with a presence in at least a third of India's 626 districts as the 70,000km just applies to the Dandakaranya jungles, the Maoists have shunned negotiation for a peaceful settlement and have instead set up their own parallel administration across swathes of Indian territory. To their critics and enemies the Naxalites are the irreconcilable waste of a bygone era; a vicious but archaic leftover from India's radical student movements of the '70's. Others regard the Maoists as the defenders of the country's marginalised tribes who have been left far behind India's economic explosion, abandoned, impoverished and victim to predatory mining corporations who are intent on exploiting the natural resources beneath the tribes' ancestral jungle homelands. These images are an attempt to illustrate for us the trauma and tragedy of ordinary people trapped in a vicious internal war - people who are often forced by necessity to choose sides and pay serious consequences.

India is racing to boost electricity production to overcome severe shortages and meet growing demand. In the process, it has become dependent on an unlikely power source: Regional rival and frequent antagonist, China. Indian companies need lots of equipment to meet the government’s goal of increasing electricity output by 60% over five years. The country’s main power equipment supplier, national champion BHEL, doesn’t have enough manufacturing capacity to handle new orders. U.S. and European companies are too expensive. Enter Chinese contractors. Their equipment, from turbines to boilers, is affordable. They have plenty of experience on coal-fired plants, India’s main source of power. And they have a track record of generating 100,000 megawatts of power per year, about 20 times as much as India. The arrangement also works out for the Chinese manufacturers. After years of turning on the lights in China, they’re looking to sell excess capacity, and India is a huge market. Indian power companies have handed out dozens of major contracts to Chinese firms since 2008. Some have built elaborate Chinatowns to accommodate hundreds of Chinese workers, complete with Chinese chefs, ping pong tables and Chinese television. Chinese companies now supply equipment for about 25% of the 80,000 megawatts in new capacity that India is bringing online, according to the Indian government, up from almost nothing a few years ago.

The Horn of Africa has been ravaged by one of the worst droughts in decades. In many places there have been no rains at all for two years, pushing almost 13 million people to the brink of starvation as their soil is reduced to arid dust. While many East African countries, including Kenya, have been affected by the lack of rain, in Somalia the problem has been exacerbated by persistent conflict between the Islamist al-Shabab group and government forces. In Dadaab camp, north-east Kenya, thousands of Somalis have been arriving every month in a final attempt to escape hunger and instability in their homeland. It is already the world's largest refugee camp and if the influx continues its population is expected to reach more than half a million by 2012. Meanwhile, as the world focuses on Somalia and the starving refugees pouring across the Kenyan border, Kenya is on the brink of its own famine with some 3.5 million people at risk of malnutrition. Acute malnutrition in the remote Turkana district near the Ethiopian border already afflicts close to 38 per cent of the population: to declare a famine the number only needs to be over 30 per cent. But the region is so out of the way, so remote that it is hard to confirm the other terrible statistics that meet the international yardstick for famine. The government there insists no Kenyans have yet died in the drought, but the truth is they don't know. In Turkana, even the death rate is uncertain. Only brittle thorn bushes and graying Acacia trees grow. Emaciated figures - once proud herders of huge numbers of livestock - slump by the road trying to sell scraps of charcoal to passers by that never come. Their last resort in times of hunger used to be the berries on the trees, but these disappeared three months ago. Even the camels - unable to cope with the hunger and thirst - are dying now. Text: Emily Dugan

In 1985, India had approximately about 150,000 polio case and experts always said that the world can only be polio-free if India can do so. 26 year later, Rukhsar Khatoon, 18 months old, was the last person in India who was infected by the polio virus. Since the infection of Rukhsar India remains polio free –a milestone regarding the worldwide fight against poliomyelitis. After the eradication of the smallpox it will be the second time in the history of human beings that a virus will disappear from the world. In 1988, the virus were circulating in 125 countries, now its only in two more countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan who are desperately trying to eradicate polio out of their country. But the WHO “Polio Endgame Strategic Plan” points out 2018 as the year to eradicate the virus from the world. Though India is polio-free but for those who already have the disease don’t always know that surgery is available. Dr Mathew Varghese, an orthopedic surgeon provides reconstructive surgery to the patients who have polio, he runs India's only polio ward, at the St. Stephen’s Hospital in New Delhi. The world is on the verge to eradicate polio and it is a triumph of the United Nations, a story of a little girl and the man who works tirelessly to make sure his patients walk.

In the era of liberalization and privatization, a sizeable number of mineral processing industries are coming to invest in the mineral rich state of Orissa. As a result, there is a large involuntary population displacement of the marginalized sections including tribals. There is a resistance leading to agitation by 'already' and 'potential' displaced persons resulting in state's brutal suppression, as in the case of TATA at Kalinganagar, Vedanta at Lanjigarh and POSCO at Jagatsinghpur. India's farmers, mostly poor, malnourished and illiterate, have suddenly found themselves in possession of the country's scarcest resource. In Orissa, 14 different industrial projects, valued at well over $35 billion, have hiccupped and then completely stalled because people have refused to give up their land. Four of the biggest projects - including the POSCO plant - could displace as many as 50,000 people, the United Nation Development Programme estimated in 2008. And all across India, some 190 different projects - including more than 70 government sponsored infrastructure projects like roads and railway lines - have been frozen, as landowners have balked at the prices the government and industry offers, protested over the speed with which the government has sent surveyors and police to acquire land and rejected the grubby houses, cheap land and uncertain jobs that companies have offered as compensation for their displacement. With my current project, am trying to document people's relationship with their land and their emotional attachment to it. Their struggle is an example of such struggles all across India and I feel my work is an important means to carry the message of their courage, determination and dignity. This body of work highlights the injustices inflicted on deprived communities who confront many deeply entrenched, industry sanctioned and politically supported structures.

Twenty-five years after an explosion causing a mass gas leak, in the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal, killed at least eight thousand people, toxic material from the 'biggest industrial disaster in history' continues to affect local Bhopalis. The ground water is believed to be contaminated. A new generation is growing up sick, disabled and struggling for justice. The effects of the disaster on the health of generations to come, both through genetics, transferred from gas victims to their children and through the ongoing severe contamination, caused by the Union Carbide factory, has only started to develop visible forms recently.

Beneath Jharia, a remote region of eastern India, lie dozens of massive underground fires, forever threatening the lives and health of the nearly half a million people who live above. While the government allocated $1.6bn to relocating 100,000 families in 1999, to this date just over 1,000 have been moved. Those who remain behind suffer from respiratory illnesses including tuberculosis, exacerbated by clouds of smoke that leak through blackened cracks in dry rock beds, streams and clouds of methane, nitrous oxide, sulphur oxide, particulate selenium and arsenic. They endure giant gashes in the earth spewing flames. But those who have been relocated aren’t much better off – the government has built hundreds of three-story apartment buildings to house the displaced. Built just three years ago, they look decades old, and the streets of the township the government has built have rapidly devolved into slum-like conditions, without proper sewerage or any amenities, and far from gainful employment. A bleak and naturally striking setting, poverty-stricken, remote and forgotten people and their struggles in the face of a lucrative natural resource, Jharia is the story buried beneath those billions of dollars, the dirty end of a dirty business in India.

The 4 month annual rainfall is crucial to summer sown crops as 60% of the farmlands are rainfed. North India experienced scanty rainfall in late june to july. Till August, rain in India has been 26% below 5 year average. Late rains moist the fields but it is not enough for rice, sugarcane, oilseeds and pulses. Late rains also damage the alternate crops that need less water.

India's governing Congress party was headed to a resounding victory Saturday, May 16th 2009 in the monthlong national elections. State television says Congress's alliance has won or is ahead in 263 seats, compared with the BJP's (154), the Third Front (60) and others (66) In the absense of any greatly addressed issue or a grand leader, the Indian Election 2009 sounds rather chaotic. When on May 16th 2009, the real election results will be announced, everyone will be heading towards a bazaar - of bargaining. Manipur went into polls on the second phase of elections. The insurgent groups asked locals to boycott the elections, but 70% population exercising their votes. Manipur has only 2 seats respresenting the state in India's Parliament in New Delhi. Gujarat however has 20 seats, they went to polls on the 3rd round of elections. Ahmedabad recorded 49% voting. The right wing leader, and the chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi has legal cases against him for instigating communal riots in 2002, but is still expected to win with majority votes. There are 15 candidates vying for seats to represent Srinagar in India's parliament, although a direct contest is expected between the two candidates representing the National Conference (NC) Congress coalition and the opposition People's Democratic Party (PDP). Srinagar is the central flashpoint of Kashmir's separatist revolt. Hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani has called for a two-day boycott against the election. "By observing the strike against the elections, people can register their protests," he said. Indian paramilitary forces and police dotted the entire city on Wednesday, barricading intersections from pedestrians and vehicles. The elections in Indian-administered Kashmir, which concluded Tuesday May 7th 2009, were conducted fairly, but not freely according to an independent team of observers.

A motorcycle expedition across the Himalayas. Riding on their Royal Enfield motorcycles, the photographers explored the Valley of Ladakh, India, known to be one of the world’s highest motorable road. Get a glimpse of the rough terrain and natural beauty of the Himalayas.

The oceans rise, breeze turns to wind, whistle swells to a swirling typhoon, gathering and gushing, shaking and uprooting, hearth and home, village after village, kith and kin, young or old - whether a stationary tree or a howling animal, a wailing babe or the wilting aged - all as one swept aside. In one stroke, beyond reason. Blame it on global warming - or the alignment of planets, a divine call or just an errant error of nature, the time was then - at a standstill for those who watched - looked in surprise, saw visions of fear - with no promise of hope. As the wild broke loose in an untamed spread of ruin, people fled - some cried, others choked in horror; some scampered in hope, while others crawled for mercy; scavenging for the last scraps of memory, in little pieces of frayed curio; united in defeat - against odds - uphill to scale, downhill to slide. A gift of loneliness came with the calm - later than sooner. Many had turned memory, many graves had been cast, many hopes were buried, wishes unfulfilled in pools of debris. Survival has its mercies, and some of those are blessed - to be alive. To breathe again and feel again, the pain of the past and of the future filled with longing for those who once were. A group of survivors huddled in a half built shopping center near Yangon. Like many others, the residents of the 7th ward of Hlaing Thayar township fled immediately. Their homes, made of bamboo and wood were torn from the ground by savage winds. The partially built Swethanlwin shopping complex acted as a small refugee centre outside of capital Yangon in Myanmar. Their stories echo the plight of many hundreds of thousands of people whose homes are destroyed and now have only few belongings in the wake of Cyclone Nargis.

Nagaland. This tiny pocket of jungle-covered hills sandwiched between India and Burma is one of the most remote and mysterious places on earth. The Naga, as the tribal people who live here are called, once had a reputation as fearsome head hunters. Although Indian citizens, in their appearance and folkways the Naga have little in common with their countrymen in Mumbai or Delhi. Nagaland is a place of paradoxes - simultaneously Christian and pagan, traditional and cutting edge, dependent on largesse from New Delhi and yet craving for independence. On ceremonial occasions, the men dance wearing feathered headdresses adorned with wild boar tusks and colorful cotton loincloths. Much like Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest, they carve animal figures into totem poles. They live in log houses decorated with buffalo skulls. All this is on display at the annual Hornbill Festival, where the state's 16 tribes show off their traditional ceremonial dress, dances and cuisine for both gawking tourists and locals, some of whom are far more attuned to Western fashions than the Western visitors. The festival also features a national rock contest - a battle of the bands that attracts aspiring young musicians from throughout India. The contest has been promoted by the state government as a way to connect young Nagas with the rest of India and build a viable music industry. By providing fresh opportunities for talented Nagas, the state hopes to lessen the attraction of underground insurgent groups. These groups have waged war against the Indian government for more than 60 years - making it perhaps Asia's longest running insurgency. But lately the two main rebel factions - each of which has a ceasefire with the Indian government - have engaged in fraticidal killings and extortion, resulting in many deaths and scaring off desperately-needed outside investment.

33 year old Corentin de Chatelperron, an engineer from Brittany seen with one of his chickens he is carrying for eggs onboard his catamaran, Nomad des Mer anchored at the Ao Chalong Pier in Phuket, Thailand. The objective of Nomad of the Seas is to federate inventors around a research platform around innovative technologies, accessible and useful to a large number of people. The inventions collected during the project will be tested during his trip around the world.

Located in the coastal town of Mulki, just north of Mangalore, the "surfing ashram" is growing in popularity. City dwellers hole up in the ashram for a few days to enjoy the quiet and catch some waves. In the ashram's courtyard, at the base of one tree sits a pile of coconuts, ready to be chopped open with a machete for drinking. A painted surfboard hangs above the entrance to the dining area, reading "Om Sweet Om" on one side, with a quote attributed to Lord Krishna from the Bhagavad Gita on the other: "Of bodies of water, I am the ocean." Guests are asked to refrain from smoking and alcoholic beverages, no non-vegetarian food is permitted on the premises. There's no pressure to chant mantras or accept Krishna consciousness, but guests are fairly likely to catch the surfing bug. So the very idea of "surfing swamis" might seem comical or even outlandish to some. It's not. One need not be a devotee of Krishna or study the Bhagavad Gita to learn something at the Kaliya Mardana Krishna Ashram - something more than surfing, even. On these stretches of white sand, or beneath the shade of palm trees, one finds nothing more and nothing less than a simpler way of life.

For many elections after independence in 1947, Uttar Pradesh (U.P.) remained the most influencial to the formation of any government in New Delhi. It was, and remains, the largest contributor of parliamentarians to the Lok Sabha. The state controls 80 seats of the 545 in India's parliament, more than any other state in India. Any party that wins big number of votes there, can automatically win a bigger voice in National politics. The growing clout of U.P's current chief minister, Mayawati has raised fear in everyone, especially the elite. She dreams of becoming India's first dalit prime-minister and it is impossible to ignore Mayawati as Uttar Pradesh holds 80 seats in the parliament. If she manages to win 40 odd seats, she could be swinging big deals her side. Her party wouldn't not win majority of votes in parliament, but both Congress and the BJP will have to rely on coalitions (just like 2 previous governments) and she will emerge to provide the majority and have enough clout to grab the prime minister job. Since becoming the chief minister in 2007, Mayawati has launced large public works projects, the most visible is her idea of leaving of legacy in building monuments to glorify dalit leaders, and more ways to glorify the BSP. Though one hand, the people of UP suffer from abject poverty, but on the other, most of the state money is diverted towards creating her so called empire in Lucknow. She has transformed the public grounds and turned them into huge parks with structures and stone sculptures worth millions. Stone carvers are brought in from various parts of Rajasthan and UP to build these stone structures. There are hundreds of these structures under construction in UP, which could end up costing $250 million dollars of public money. There is a divided feeling. The dalits feel pride in what she is doing, whereas the middle class and the elites feel she is wasting all the tax payers money building these stone monstrocities.

Kashmir has been in the throes of a bloody secessionist campaign for nearly two decades in which, according to official figures, 43,000 people have been killed. Various rights groups and non-governmental organizations here, however, dispute the official statistics - claiming that the number killed during the last two decades is twice the official figure. The demonstrators, mostly young men, assembled in the old parts of Srinagar city right after the afternoon prayer and started raising slogans in favour of freedom and against the elections. The police action to intercept them triggered stone pelting which continued until late in the evening. Separatists oppose that the holding of elections in Kashmir. Their argument is that it will not resolve the future of the disputed territory, held in part by India and Pakistan but claimed in full by both.

The 47-year-old leader of the Pink Gang, Sampat Pal Devi is a fiesty woman. The barely educated, impoverished mother of five, Sampat Pal Devi has emerged as a messianic figure in the region. Sampath Devi began to work as a government health worker, but she quit soon after because her job was not satisfying enough. She always wanted to work for the poor and not for herself. Taking up issues while being a government worker was difficult, so she decided to quit the job and work for the rights of people...Amidst the gloom of extreme poverty, it's the colour of pink that's calling the shots in this dusty region of Bundelkhand, one of the poorest parts of one of India's northern and most populous states, Uttar Pradesh in India. A gang of vigilantes, called the Gulabi Gang (pink gang) - its 10,000 strong women members wear only pink sarees - is taking up lathi (traditional Indian cudgel) against domestic violence and corruption.