Category: Human Rights

In Assam’s several citizenship determination processes, some narratives are lost — like that of the Gorkhas, despite a notification declaring them as Indians. And like that of Tara and Maya, now forever bound by two months together at a detention centre It was on a July morning, outside the Foreigners’ Tribunal (FT) housed in a […]

Displaced from their homes following the 2021 Myanmar coup, children find hope across the border in Mizoram Failure is the pillar of success, the headmaster says. She nods, her eyes downcast. The exam had not gone well. “She was nervous,” explains the headmaster, as the student walks away to join her friends. “It was her […]

This article was originally published in The Indian Express in May 2023. Full article here. With their parents unable to afford private schools, and middle-and high schools too far from the resettlement camps, many children whose families have been displaced during eviction drives have had to drop out of school At 12, Habija Khatun is […]

This article was an exclusive newsbreak, with survivors of the 2021 Nagaland security ambush speaking on record for the first time. The story was originally published in The Indian Express in December 2021. Full article here. On December 5, 2021, six civilians were killed in firing by security forces in “a case of mistaken identity” […]

‘He said mai, I said baba, we both just cried.’ Tears flow, hope strains, and separated by bars, family members and inmates cling on to gifts pushed through a grille. On a Monday morning at the Kokrajhar District Jail, paper and patience are both in paucity. “We don’t provide paper,” snaps the jailor across a […]

They are young, full of dreams, and are calling themselves the ‘Miyas’ of Assam. What does poetry, identity and the NRC offer them? For three years every day at 5 pm, Mirza Lutfar Rahman’s voice would crackle on radios across Assam: “Nomoskar, Yuvabani’loi xokolu srotak’e moi Mirza Lutfar Rehman’e swagatam jonaisu” (Greetings, I am Mirza […]