June 27, 2023
India's solar power market may be growing rapidly - but Girish Mansukbhai Solanki's business, a small labour agency that supplies workers to companies setting up solar systems in western Gujarat, has been making losses.
“I am at the bottom of a supply chain that is plagued with delayed projects, delayed payments and a lot of uncertainty,” the 38-year-old told Context over tea in Rajkot, an industrial town home to many solar firms.
March 23, 2023
Shashikant Midha learned to swim as a child in the river near his village in Dhanbad, one of India's largest coal-mining hubs, but he hasn't yet found time to dip in the pool at the apartment complex where he lives nowadays, far away in south India.
Working long hours on a car-assembly line in Tamil Nadu state, more than 1,700 km (1,056 miles) from home, Midha belongs to a trend of Indians migrating out of coal regions, triggered by dwindling and low-paying jobs in a changing industry.
February 08, 2023
A tip-off led police officer Indradeo Rajwar into the Nimiya Tola forests of Hazaribagh, in eastern India, hot on the trail of two men on a motorcycle carrying stolen coal.
As Rajwar closed in, the men dumped 1,200 kg (2,646 lb) of the dirty fossil fuel and escaped. Rajwar's report on the incident in Jharkhand state documents a story of theft that is common across India's main coal-mining areas.
January 23, 2023
Posters urging "NTPC Go Back" have appeared in Joshimath, a subsiding Indian Himalayan town where roads are cracking and houses crumbling - a crisis locals blame largely on a hydropower project led by India's biggest electricity producer NTPC.
Residents in the tourist hub of Joshimath are demanding a halt to the project, in the latest of a wave of protests across regions where hydroelectric facilities are being built, as India boosts clean energy to cut its planet-heating carbon emissions.
January 11, 2023
Every Sunday, Mahesh Beck plays field hockey on a dry patch of land near his village in eastern India. Yet he had not heard of the men's hockey World Cup happening in his state, or that a new multi-million-rupee pitch had been built 30 km (19 miles) away.
The field in Hemgir in Odisha state - which is hosting the 2023 Men's FIH Hockey World Cup this month - is one of 16 new pitches and a 20,000-capacity stadium funded with cash allocated to improve the lives of local communities impacted by mining.
December 23, 2022
Indian education technology giant Bjyu's has said it will stop selling tuition to poorer families who may struggle to afford it, according to India's child rights body, which summoned the company's CEO on Friday to answer over a Context investigation.
In response to a two-part Context expose of Byju's working culture and treatment of customers, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) issued the summons - saying that the company had "indulged in malpractices to lure parents".
December 20, 2022
For her 50th birthday, Sonia Sandhu-Torre threw a party for family and friends - and promised herself one important gift: a carbon-neutral celebration.
"I had 50 guests who were taking flights and cars to reach the party destination," said Sandhu-Torre, who hosted the bash last month at a palace-turned-hotel in western Rajasthan.
December 08, 2022
B. Bhavani assured her father she would quit online card games - a promise she had made several times before as her family in southern India fretted about her mounting debts. A few hours later, the 29-year-old took her own life.
Bhavani, who was married with two young children, had racked up losses that her husband estimated at more than 1 million Indian rupees ($12,255) since she started using online apps to play games like rummy about a year before her death in June.
November 21, 2022
India is the world's 2nd largest coal producer after China. But it has committed to changing its energy profile drastically to meet climate change targets.
As you will hear from our correspondents Anuradha Nagaraj and Roli Srivastava, the pace of that change is having unexpected consequences.
November 15, 2022
Ali Aksar is rooting for Argentina to win the upcoming football World Cup in Qatar - a tournament he will be watching on a big community screen set up near his home in southern India.
After a stint driving hundreds of workers back and forth from stadium construction sites in Qatar's capital Doha, Aksar returned home empty handed.
No souvenirs, no gifts, and most crucially - no savings.