Did India’s astrologers predict this?

The action might take place in India, but at the heart of this next story is a question wondered all over the world: is astrology bunkum?

One Mumbai-based group believes it is, and that India’s many astrologists – not to mention palmologists, gemologists, and other practitioners of the predictive arts – are taking advantage of superstitious and often vulnerable clients.

Astrologers have been guiding Indians since the fifth century: helping them navigate marriages, illness and monsoon rains. Now the NGO Janhit Manch is petitioning the Bombay High Court to clamp down on the industry and on astrology advertising.

Listen to the full story here:

Aired on Deutsche Welle Radio World in Progress December 19, 2010

Aired on KBR68H Indonesia Radio, Asia Calling December 13, 2010

A sweet solution for India’s farmers

Monsoon is Somar Devji Maghi’s favourite time of year. An iridescent green has swept across the ground and for the next four months, Somar will plant, turn soil and watch his farm grow.

The 26-year-old lives in Dandwal, a small village in Gujarat, in India’s South. Somar wishes he could spend his whole year here but he can’t grow enough to support the family. When monsoon ends he works on other people’s farms making just 60 Rupees – or one Euro – a day.

As India pushes forward with its quest for development, small farmers like Somar are getting left behind, according to Vijaya Pastala.

“Gujarat is the fastest growing state but there are still many tribal villages that don’t have electricity. Not many finish school, not many go to college, women are married early. A lot of them are loan-dependent, money-lender-dependent.”

A sustainable solution

Vijaya Pastala is the CEO of Under the Mango Tree (UTMT), a company that links organic small farms to a national market.

After witnessing tribal life in Gujarat, Vijaya was determined to help. In March 2009 she launched the not-for-profit Bees For Poverty Reduction Program.

Farmers buy a starter kit of two bright blue bee boxes at 2,500 Rupees or 42 Euros. They then undergo an intensive training program, where they learn how to find, capture, box and care for the indigenous bee – Apis cerena.

Beekeeping in India is not like beekeeping in the West. There is no protective suit, it’s just your bare skin up against thousands of potentially angry bees. It takes patience, persistence and courage.

“I’ve been stung up to 100 times in a single day when boxing hives,” UTMT’s bee expert Atar Singh said. However, as Jhula Mahado found out, the pain pays off when you hit pay dirt for the first time.

For months, Jhula has been carefully tending his hive. Every two days he checks the combs making sure that they are sheltered from the wind and rain.

Each day he watched as swarms of black and gold entered the box carrying packs of pollen.

As Atar opens the box to show, more than 45 thousands bees swarm around rich yellow combs, oozing with honey. The combs are cut and the honey extracted.

Jhula will make 16 Euros from this batch. He should be able to collect honey every 15 to 20 days for the next four months. It’s a huge boost to his average annual income, which is less than 170 Euros per year.

More than just honey

According to Atar, the rewards of beekeeping go even further.

“Honey is just a by product or direct advantage to the beekeepers. The indirect advantages are much more, even in terms of monetary benefits. Having bees helps to increase their agricultural productivity through pollination. Bees are responsible for 80 percent pollination for the crop, which increases about 35 to 40 percent of yield,” he explained.

More importantly, Atar said, beekeeping is helping his favourite bee, Apis cerena, make a long- needed comeback.

The Cerena is an indigenous Indian bee – famous for its small size and ability to crawl into delicate flowers. But their population is dwindling due to loss of habitat and disease.

One of the worst health scares, Atar explained, started in 1972 with the introduction of Apis mellifera – a European bee.

“Apis mellifera could actually produce 75 to 85 kilos of honey versus Apis cerena which could only produce 5 to 7 kilos of honey. But within six months a viral disease known as sad brood had been introduced and it caused a lot of harm to the indigenous bee population.”

The other threat has been India’s tradition of honey hunting.

Searching for gold

Somu Sotru is a traditional honey hunter. He goes into the forest, finds a hive, smokes it until the bees leave and then crushes it to get the honey.

“We go into the forest with an axe and cut the honey comb. We squeeze the honey and throw the combs away. We collect it into plastic bags and then sell it,” Somu said.

Somu has two bee boxes on his farm, but when Atar opens them, the hives are empty and covered in white webs, created by wax moths. Somu lacks the patience required to care for bees, and still views honey hunting as a quick fix.

Although some older farmers like Somu remain unconvinced of the benefits of beekeeping, others like Somar Devji Maghi have embraced the opportunity.

The program has trained 600 farmers, out of which 100 are master trainers like Somar. They help farmers catch, keep and care for the bees.

“Now it’s just seven people who have taken up this activity. I want more people to take up this activity, as well as the landless. I want the activities to be so good that you take the name of our village everywhere you go,” Somar said.

Somar has already noticed an increase of productivity this year. He has collected cucumbers every three days, compared to every six and hopes to have eight to ten bee boxes on his farm by the end of next year.

Published on Deutshce Welle Online,  December 23, 2010

India’s Parsis Fight for Survival

Parsis have played an important cultural and economic role in India’s development. They are behind the giant multinational Tata Group, the national airline Air India and Mumbai’s famous Taj Palace Hotel. But despite their prosperity, the Parsis are facing extinction.

More than 1000 years before the birth of Christ, followers of the Zoroastrian faith were worshipping fire and preaching free will. But when their homeland Iran was attacked in the seventh century by Muslim invaders, they were massacred and persecuted. Many fled in search of religious freedom – and most landed on India’s shores, where they became known as Parsis.

Yet India’s last census in 2001 reported that there were less than 70,000 Parsis left.

Listen to my report on the Parsis’ fight for survival and why their demise is creating rifts within their community.

Story aired on Deutsche Welle Radio World in Progress on November 17, 2010

Also aired on KBR68H’s Asia Calling on October 30, 2010

Mumbai’s deadly trains

Each day approximately 10 people die on Mumbai’s suburban train system. Some get hit while crossing the tracks, while others die from falling off or being electrocuted by overhead wires. Despite the alarming figures, the Indian government has done little to prevent this loss of life.

It’s peak hour in Mumbai and millions of commuters are pushing their way into trains.

To successfully get on board, you must employ a number of tactics. First, there’s yelling to intimidate your fellow traveler. Then comes the shoving, pushing and elbowing. If you’re lucky, you’ll find yourself inside a carriage, sandwiched against thousands of sweaty bodies.

Six million Mumbaiites use the suburban network each day, with most funneling back and forth from the city’s commercial district in the south.

It’s survival of the fittest here on the train and there’s simply not enough room for everybody.

There’s an old saying in Mumbai – “Survive the trains, survive anything”. I was interested in doing a story before I left about the daily experience of the city’s commuters. Listen to my story on what makes Mumbai’s trains so deadly.

Mumbai’s Trains – a risky business by Lauren_Farrow

Aired on Asia Calling on October 17, 2010

The God of new beginnings

A few times every year, the streets of Mumbai turn into a carnival and recently, the guest of honor Ganesh, the elephant headed, roly-poly god of new beginnings. After 10 days of a homestay, families and communities accompany him to his final immersion in water, where his Earthen form breaks down and returns to the earth from which it came.

If that sounds poetic, I am overstating the case. The festival is far from serene. It’s a garish, uproarious mess that wreaks havoc on traffic as well as mental peace for the duration.

For 11 days, you find yourself humming these aartis or prayers Idols of Ganesh are set up on his birthday – Ganesh Chaturthi. It’s a state holiday in India so people can go ‘Ganesh shopping’ at their local warehouse and markets. Which Ganesh statue you bring home is a matter of personal taste. They can range from six inches high to several feet tall, all blessed by a priest.

Neighborhoods also come together and set up mandals or stalls. Prayers are conducted every few hours and the zealous even set off firecrackers.

For 10 days, Ganesh is treated like a revered member of the extended family. At the end of the festival he is loaded onto a truck and trundled to a designated beach. On day one, five and seven the smaller immersions, or visarjans are relatively quieter affairs. On the last day it’s on a much larger scale.

Last year, nearly 19 billion idols were immersed over the course of the festival. This year, officials estimate that the total reached 21 billion.

There is a final cry of ganpati, or father, hurry back next year from the participants on the beaches before Ganesh is lowered into the water. For some people that’s an interminable wait, but for us Mumbaikars, the peace is short lived.

Words by Chhavi Sachdev. Photographs by Lauren Farrow

Published on The World, October 15, 2010

Blowing away Bombay’s art scene

India’s lack of exhibition space hasn’t deterred two young photographers, who’ve discovered that city walls make the perfect gallery.

Photographs by Pär Olsson

Kapil Das and Akshay Mahajan stand at the centre of a dirt field, surveying their exhibition space. At the left stands the decrepit shell of a concrete building, filled with rubble. While on the right a marauding cow stares at a handful of cops who are threatening to shut the whole thing down.

It’s May 22 in India’s financial capital, Mumbai, and the opening of ‘BlowUp Bombay’ – a one-day exhibition which aims to invigorate the country’s photography scene by inviting amateur and professional shutterbugs to display their work. All they need is a handful of cheap A3 prints, double-sided tape and an original idea.

“The photographers’ pictures don’t need to be very technically strong, but they need to say something unique and new,” BlowUp Bombay’s co-creator, Mahajan explains.

Blind boys tackle India’s photographic scene

BlowUp Bombay is the most recent attempt by Das (30) and Mahajan (24) to open up India’s exclusive photography scene. Mahajan, a freelance photojournalist, says there is a shortage of new and original talent coming out of India.

“There are not so many immerging photographers because there is no mentoring, there are no schools and there is no interaction between photographers,” Mahajan observes. “Most exhibition spaces are very small and you need to be established or have a lot of money to exhibit.”

In July 2009, Mahajan and Das tackled the problem by creating blindboys.org – an online community that encourages immerging photographers to share and discuss their work.

“India has a great cinematic culture and is usually rich in the visual narrative but there hasn’t been a lot of photographers that have been able to create that visual language,” says Das.

The website promotes storytelling by showcasing unique photo essays. Since its establishment, more than 40 artists have joined, exploring subjects ranging from the ongoing conflict in Kashmir to a young couple’s intimate relationship.

Bringing art out in the open

By August 2009, however, Mahajan and Das were eager to take Blindboys out of the virtual world and into India’s public spaces. Their first BlowUp event was staged in India’s I.T hub, Bangalore. This was followed by the collaborative event ‘Wideyed’ in Newcastle, England, as well as an unplanned, guerilla art show on the Pont des Arts bridge in Paris.

Events are promoted through social networking sites, such as Facebook, so photographers only pay for printing costs – making it accessible for young artists. BlowUp’s street tradition also allows people access to art who wouldn’t otherwise go to a gallery.

When BlowUp visited India’s capital Delhi in November last year, Das estimates more than 50,000 people saw the exhibition. Garbage collectors, beggars and street children where among the spectators.

“When it’s out in the street it’s very different – surprising things start to happen. Works get stolen and people say hilarious things,” Das recalls.

“You hear people judge a work not by the way it looks technically but by saying, ‘That guy in the photograph is hot’.”

Guerilla art

BlowUp’s guerilla style is crucial to its success.

Das and Mahajan do not apply for official permission before staging an exhibit, rather they ask residents and shop owners for access to their walls. Although this can lead to confusion with local police, the pair says it prevents creative interference, avoids India’s notorious red tape and nurtures strong community involvement.

“In Delhi a paanwala [bettle nut vendor] adopted whatever exhibition was based on his wall,” Mahajan recalls. “If pictures fell off, he would stick them back up. He would talk to people about the pictures as if he was a tour guide.”

Blowing away expectations in Bombay

At 3pm on the day of BlowUp Bombay, volunteers and photographers trickle into the winding alleys of the suburb Bandra, just north of the city. Photographs are pinned up in an abandoned building and surrounding walls.

It’s not long before the unusual activity lures onlookers. Local children point at photographs of camels roaming through the Mongolian desert, while nearby, one photographer’s nostalgic take on the trusty Indian bicycle is attracting a crowd.

More than 1,000 prints from various photographers tell an array of stories – from the bittersweet experience of moving house to farmer suicides in rural India.

In the midst of the activity, 26-year-old Baya Agarwal carefully pins up her photo essay ‘Small Town Diary’ on bamboo screens. Agarwal has captured the life of a rural town in Orissa, snapping scenes from the local fish market to an old woman applying makeup.

“I lived in a small town and I wanted to show what life is like, how people here live like they are in the 17^th Century,” Agarwal explains.

‘Small Town Diary’ is a labour of love, taking Argarwal three months to complete. Due to the high costs of gallery shows, however, Argarwal has not exhibited her work. She says BlowUp Bombay provided the perfect opportunity.

Taking art home and looking to the future

As the sun goes down across Bombay and the exhibition comes to a close, hundreds of spectators begin to scramble for prints, ripping their favourite works off the walls. For the artists whose prints are taken it’s an affirmation that their work has struck a chord.

For Mahajan and Das, the ultimate endorsement of Blindboy’s photographic street experiment will happen when people start staging their own BlowUp events.

“People ask, ‘When are you coming to Pune? When are you coming to Kolkata?’” Das comments. “It would be nice if we could let it go viral and people just took the initiative and organised something like this themselves.”

“It’s not so difficult to do.”

Published in Spana! Magazine – an online art publication for Riksutställningar Swedish Travelling Exhibitions – on July 5, 2010

The life and times of Mumbai’s dhobis

This is a teaser for a short video I’m working on about India’s largest outdoor laundry – Mahalaxhmi Dhobi Ghat. You can hear tour guide, Samir Malim talking about the life of the laundry mat.

I’ve been interested in Dhobi Ghats since moving to India, as our apartment overlooked a small laundry in Bandra. At 5.30 every morning we would wake to the surprisingly loud sound of wet cloth being smacked on concrete. Outside a single, straggly Indian would be pounding away, knee deep in suddy water.

Dhobis are some of the hardest working people in Mumbai. They slap, pound and scrub from before sunrise to after people cook their evening meals of curry and chapatis.

The dhobis represent an old world – before washing machines and tumble dryers – where every muscle is put to hard labour.

Full video coming soon . . .

Mumbai’s ragpickers clean-up city’s act

Everyday India’s financial capital, Mumbai, produces 8,000 tonnes of waste. Much of this rubbish ends up on the city’s streets – where women and children spend their days collecting plastics, glass and paper to then sell. The rest is transported to large dumping grounds. But after years of rapid population growth and no formal recycling system, Mumbai’s rubbish heaps are overflowing.

Now, a women’s organisation is trying to reduce Mumbai’s waste and improve the lives of its female waste collectors.

I’m in one of Mumbai’s sorting sheds, which is stacked to the roof with mountains of rubbish. The air is stale and smells of wet cardboard, old milk and food. Here, women are picking through plastics, paper and glass, one item at a time.

“All this is created by people who have money to pamper themselves. So, one packing over another packing and cardboard and what not to make it more presentable. And look who’s suffering. I feel bad.”

Kalpana Andhare is a volunteer with Stree Mukti Sanghatana – an organisation dedicated to improving the lives of Mumbai’s waste pickers. Each day thousands of the city’s poor can be seen trawling through rubbish on street corners and outside restaurants. They look for anything they can sell, from plastic bottles to tin cans.

“Working conditions are very bad. All mixed waste gets thrown on the roads, and people working in the waste have to put their hands in that. It’s a very dirty job.”

That was Jyoti Mhapsekar, the brains behind Stree Mukti Sanghatana. She’s been working with the women for more than ten years, and says they also suffer from social and economic problems.

“They are poorest of the poor in Mumbai. Most of them are single parent families. They’re either widows or they’re deserted by their husbands or they are the wives of alcoholic husbands. So economic conditions are very poor.”

Through the organisation’s program Parisar Vikas – which means Environment Development, Jyoti seeks to empower female rag pickers by getting them off the streets and providing education and training. Women learn how to compost and form business cooperatives, as well as read and write. They can also access health care, micro-credit and family counseling services.

Jyoti believes that through proper training and education, these women can solve Mumbai’s waste problem.

According to Jyoti, Mumbai produces approximately 8,000 tonnes of waste each day. Twenty per cent of this is dry recyclable waste, while 40 percent is wet or biodegradable waste. But despite the obvious opportunities for recycling, Jyoti says it is not being done.

“The municipality at present doesn’t have any program for segregation at source, so naturally everything gets sent to dumping ground.”

Jyoti believes that by segregating, recycling and composting rubbish at apartment complexes throughout Mumbai, the city could ultimately produce little to no waste.

I’m at a large apartment complex, where women from Parisar Vikas are putting Jyoti’s theory to the test. They are putting all biodegradable waste from resident’s rubbish into large concrete tubs, volunteer Kalpana Andhare explains.

“You can get 35 to 40 kgs compost manure in one pit. The gardener takes it and then he uses it for their own gardens.”

The women are recycling and composting in 40 housing colonies across Mumbai, with the ultimate goal of producing zero waste. While dry waste is sold to a private contractor, who deals in recyclable materials. Although the women haven’t hit the target of zero waste yet, Jyoti says they are doing well.

“They collect all the waste. They compost biodegradable waste and they take away dry waste. Only 10 or 15 percent remains for the municipal corporation.”

While this is good news for the city’s environment – for the women the most important aspect has been how the program improves their lives. Today the women are singing an ode to Savithri Bai Phule who was a pioneer in women’s education in India during the mid 1800s.

One of the voices belongs to Shuseela Sabre. Shuseela used to scour Mumbai’s roadside for rubbish every morning. She would then sell the waste to a middleman, making a maximum of 60 rupees a day – or little over one US dollar. As a single mother with one son, she was forced to borrow money from a lender to make ends meet. This quickly led to a cycle of debt.

“He would come to my house everyday and the amount you have to return is from 12 to 30 rupees. Every day you have to give it to them, otherwise they will threaten to lock you out of the house, to throw you out. You beg or borrow from someone else to pay.”

With Parisar Vikas, Shuseela is now a supervisor and makes 150 rupees per day or just over three US dollars. She now lives debt free. But she says, it’s not just about the money.

“Money isn’t everything in life, what knowledge I got what dignity I got. I now get to work with clean clothes and a bag on my shoulder. That is what is important. It is like a rebirth for me.”

For Shuseela, the highlight came last year when she went to the Copenhagen climate summit to discuss Parisar Vikas’ waste management programs in Mumbai.

“When I used to pick up the waste I used to wander near the airport site. I always wondered whether I would get a chance to one-day sit in an aeroplane. When I did get in an aeroplane I could recognise the site where I used to collect rubbish. That was a very important moment in my life.”

Played on Asia Calling on June 19, 2010

Photos by Michael Atkin

Indian activists under attack

Defending the rights of India’s poor has always been risky, but with murders like that of activist Satish Shetty on the rise, the situation appears to be getting worse.

Satish Shetty (left) with fellow activist Anna Hazare

The day Satish Shetty died started like any other. Shetty, a tall, heavyset man known for his stubbornness and love of Hindi music, woke shortly after 6am.

Dressed in a white t-shirt and navy track-pants, Shetty left his home for his usual morning walk. Rickshaws rumbled loudly by and commuters waited at the bus stop as Shetty headed towards his regular newspaper salesman.

Back at the Shetty house, sometime around 7am, Shetty’s younger brother Sandeep was surfing the net when a man at the door brought news that someone had attacked Shetty.

Sandeep ran from the house. When he reached the newspaper stand, he found Shetty, his white shirt stained red, lying in a pool of blood. “I knew at the very moment I saw him, I had lost him,” Sandeep says.

What happened next remains a blur for Sandeep. In shock, he remembers hailing a pick-up truck to take his brother’s bleeding body to the nearest hospital.

Sandeep nursed his brother in his arms, but by the time they arrived, Shetty was dead from multiple stab wounds to his face, neck, hands and arms. He was 39 years old.

News of the tragedy, which took place on 13 January 2010, quickly spread through Shetty’s home town of Talegaon. Bordered by mountains on one side, and a river on the other, Talegaon was historically a farming and working-class town. Recently, a new highway linking the nearby city of Pune to India’s financial capital, Mumbai, had seen land open up around Talegaon and new people move in.

For 15 years Shetty worked as an activist and social worker for local farmers in and around Talegaon. He helped with everything from loan and passport applications to domestic abuse problems. As his work increased, so did the size of the problems he dealt with.

In 1996 he exposed an agent working for the government’s Public Food Distribution system who had been funnelling subsidised food to the black market. After India passed its Right to Information Act (RTI) laws, Shetty was among those activists across India who began using the RTI provisions to shine a light on irregularities in government processes. Then, in 2009, Shetty shot to fame by exposing a series of illegal land grab schemes in the Talegaon area.

“That’s how he started creating enemies. Whenever he fought for someone’s rights he was actually challenging someone else … As he started to work more, the size of corruption that he was working on multiplied tenfold,” his older brother, Santosh, recalls.

“He had no plan or organised effort of helping … There was a rural belt around here and people used to come from far off places saying, ‘I have this issue,’ and he would go with them and help.”

“In terms of personal assets, he had six pairs of clothes, two pairs of shoes, one cell phone and a collection of music — he was crazy about music … That’s all he had.”

In the hours following Shetty’s death, reporters flooded into Talegaon — writing stories about his remarkable life and death. Less than 12 hours later, local police got what seemed to be a very lucky break.

On the night of the attack at 7pm, police were approached by convicted criminal, Santosh Shinde, who alleged that 16 months earlier he had been offered 1 lakh rupees (approximatelyAU$2,500) by local lawyer Vijay Dabhade to kill Shetty.

Shinde allegedly took the money but later refused to follow through on the deal. Shetty was wanted dead, reported the police, because he had exposed a slew of illegal activities involving Dabhade and was about to reveal more. Fearing the repercussions, police allege that Dabhade along with two associates and a relative hired two hit men to silence Shetty for good. By the end of January, all six were in custody.

Meanwhile, on 21 January, Mumbai’s High Court took an interest in Shetty’s case and raised concerns about “the protection of activists” in the state. Shetty’s death, the court discovered, was the most recent tragedy in a string of violent attacks involving Indian activists.

Two weeks before Shetty’s murder, shots were fired at the home of Mumbai activist Nayana Kathpalia. Since 2000, numerous activists have been the victims of violent crimes, including the killing of well-known land rights activist Navleen Kumar in 2002. Sumaira Abdulali, founder of MITRA (Movement against Intimidation, Threats and Revenge against Activists) has seen plenty of violence against activists in the Mumbai area.

“I think it has happened to almost every activist in the city. It’s a part of the job here to receive death threats,” she says.

Abdulali, who was bashed in 2004 while protesting the illegal removal of sand at a Maharashtran beach, says many of the cases remain unsolved despite activists naming their attackers in police reports.

What’s perhaps even more concerning is that instead of getting better, the situation for activists in India appears to be getting worse. In 2007 India was ranked 72nd on theTransparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, which measures the perceived level of public-sector corruption in 180 countries and territories around the world. By 2009, India had slipped down to 84th place. Abdulali blames this culture of corruption for the lack of justice.

It’s that climate of corruption that leads Satish’s brothers, Sandeep and Santosh, to fear that the police investigation into Shetty’s murder will accomplish little.

In the year leading up to his death, Shetty had been uncovering many illegal land acquisitions in the Pune district, involving multi-million dollar companies with large-scale development interests. In October, his investigations led to the suspension of land sub-registrar, Ashwini Kshirsagar. Shetty alleged that Kshirsagar wrongfully registered land so that it could be developed. It was at this time that Shetty began to fear for his life.

In a letter to police on 11 November 2009 requesting police protection, Shetty wrote that he had registered a complaint against a company called IRB Infrastructure Developments, as well as against an IRB subsidiary called Aryan Infrastructure Investments and against local farmers for preparing bogus documents about government lands.

“[The Kshirsagar case] has shocked the concerned companies,” Shetty wrote in his protection application. “They are trying to pressure me with the help of a third party … I had heard from many places that they have decided to cause danger to my family and me.”

At the time of Shetty’s death, his request for protection had not been granted, which has led to an inquiry into the delay, acknowledging the possibility that it was deliberately stalled by local police.

Sandeep is convinced that Shetty’s death was organised by powerful interests which wanted to see him gone. He alleges that the six men who currently stand accused of the murder are merely “red herrings to protect and insulate the real culprits” who stood to lose millions through Shetty’s advocacy.

Sandeep Shetty

Frustrated by the direction of the investigation into his brother’s death, Sandeep took matters into his own hands. On 10 March he filed an affidavit with Mumbai’s High Court, alleging that police had not seriously pursued those named by Shetty in his protection application.

“The police are now interrogating the most obvious suspects only as a formality,” Sandeep wrote in the affidavit.

Now, more than four months after his brother’s death, Sandeep and his sister Shobha have moved from their family home in Talegeon to an apartment in Pune, in an attempt to distance themselves from the bad memories.

Sandeep’s despair is now mixed with anger at the lack of public outrage. “When a couple of guys get beaten in Australia there is a huge outcry. But what about when a guy gets killed in his street? Forget about his killing, nobody is interested in his work.

“When Ghandiji [Mahatma Gandhi] fasted for one day, thousands of people went to the streets and that was a deterrent for the government to touch that guy. Today a man is hacked to death in broad daylight after working for locals for 15 years and he doesn’t have a witness in the whole town. That is the state of our country.

“No Gandhi can thrive in this society.”

When newmatilda.com spoke with the investigating officer on Satish Shetty’s case, Dilip Arjunrao Shinde, he said the six accused remained in police custody and had been charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to kill, but would not comment further.

When questioned about allegations of land fraud and his involvement in Shetty’s death, IRB managing director, Virendra Mhaiskar told newmatilda.com that neither he nor any of his employees had ever met Shetty and that he had “no clue” as to why Shetty filed a protection application against him. All land acquired by the company had been acquired legitimately, he said. Mhaiskar said he had given a detailed statement to police.

After Sandeep filed his affidavit, the Mumbai High Court ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation to conduct an inquiry into Satish Shetty’s murder.

That investigation continues.

Published by newmatilda.com on May 18, 2010.

Postcards from ‘The Great Wall of Mumbai’

Three years ago a group of twenty-somethings took to Mumbai’s streets and began painting their local walls. What began as a small collective of like-minded, creative people, has since grown into a public art movement that includes hundreds of Mumbai locals.

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Featured in YEN Magazine, Issue 44
View Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4

Bankers, artists, teachers and children have painted their views on everything from HIV and terrorism to women’s rights in India. Others have paid homage to The Beatles and Michael Jackson.

These photographs were taken were it all started – at Chapel Road in Bandra, as well as at Tulsi Pipe Road – a 2.7 kilometre stretch of highway which is now hailed as ‘The Great Wall of Mumbai’.

Read the full story here

All photographs were taken with Nikon D80, 18-135mm, F3.5-5.6