Travels through the Hindi belt: Unpaid and unemployed, Kanpur's textile workers slam Modi for failing to revive mills

Once called Manchester of East for its thriving textile industry, the textile mills in Uttar Pradesh's Kanpur now resemble a ghost town with hundreds of textile workers scrambling for alternative livelihoods

Travels through the Hindi belt: Hatred, unemployment spur UP youths in search of purpose to join cow vigilante groups

After Yogi Adityanath took over as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in March 2017, things have gotten worse, say critics, with cow vigilantes running amok.

Travels through the Hindi belt: GST, demonetisation, Chinese competition leave Aligarh's famed lock industry struggling

the Tala Nagri of Uttar Pradesh, as Aligarh is popularly called, is struggling due to the combination of demonetisation, GST and invasion from China.

Travels through the Hindi belt: A year on from SC/ST Act agitation, Shobhapur village is a virtual ghost town

On 2 April last year, residents had poured on to the Delhi-Dehradun highway running perpendicular to the village to protest the dilution of the SC/ST Act. Similar agitations had been held across the country. But the demonstration at Shobhapur took a violent turn.

Travels through the Hindi belt: In dry Ramda village of UP's Kairana, Mallah community has little choice but to migrate

The current trend of migration in Mallah community is depriving the next generation of schooling as well.

Travels through the Hindi belt: In Yogi Adityanath's Uttar Pradesh, unemployment beats national rate; sports goods industry takes hit

After Yogi Adityanath became the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in March 2017, he has been cracking down on cow slaughter.

Travels through the Hindi belt: Fragile peace in Muzaffarnagar engendered by interdependence, unemployment

The interdependence of the communities in Muzaffarnagar made them realise peaceful coexistence is the only way forward

Travels in the Hindi belt: 'How bad can Rahul be, Modi hasn't set a very high standard,' say some young voters in Bihar

Bihar is a state where caste identities probably matter more than the rest of India. The upper caste, Baniyas and Rajputs are firm with BJP, just as they have traditionally been. Yadavs and Muslims are more consolidated with the RJD and the Congress than they have ever been. The swing vote in Bihar is usually the non-Yadav Other Backward Class (OBCs) and the Economically Backward Class (EBCs).

Travels through the Hindi belt: Bihar's unemployed keep faith in Modi, mostly due to lack of credible Opposition

According to the Centre of Monitoring Indian Economy's report of December 2018, Bihar's overall unemployment rate is 10.9 percent, far above India's 6.8, as of 27 March

Travels through the Hindi belt: Bihar's unemployed keep faith in Modi, mostly due to lack of credible Opposition

According to the Centre of Monitoring Indian Economy's report of December 2018, Bihar's overall unemployment rate is 10.9 percent, far above India's 6.8, as of 27 March

Travels through the Hindi belt: For farm workers in Bihar's Darbhanga, seasonal migration to Punjab only hope of livelihood

Thousands of villagers from Bihar’s Darbhanga district migrate around March-end to work as labourers in Punjab’s wheat fields, where they toil away for over a month.

Travels through the Hindi belt: Cast out of cow trade, Bihar's Gora village plunges into despair, poverty; MGNREGA offers no relief

Half of Gora with a population of nearly 3,000 had been engaged in the cattle trade.

Travels through the Hindi belt: Motihari sugar mill in Bihar a poll plank since 2005 with no word on operations resuming yet

Narendra Modi, before the 2014 Lok Sabha election, had said that during his next visit to Motihari, he would have tea with sugar crushed at this mill.

Travels through the Hindi belt: In Bihar's Gaya, parents forced to put kids to work in absence of solution from state

Bihar's Gaya district, home to the famour Mahabodhi temple, is infamous for being the centre of child trafficking in the state.

With labour participation rate at 38%, daily wage workers in Bihar blame demonetisation, Nitish Kumar's policies for struggle

One of the major reasons behind stark rise in unemployment in Bihar is the agrarian crisis, where more and more farmers are moving out of their farms and seeking work elsewhere. According to the censuses between 1991 and 2011, nearly 15 million farmers in India have dropped out of the profession at the rate of 2035 per day.

Travels through the Hindi belt: In dry state Bihar, youths resort to bootlegging as unemployment rises at an alarming 19.4%

Much like the state of Gujarat with a prohibition law for decades, Bihar, too, has slipped into clandestine liquor trade with several jobless youths joining in to make money

Travels through the Hindi belt: Abandoned by Congress govt in Chhattisgarh, BPO in Maoist-hit Dantewada battles existential crisis

Apart from Inspiredge which is working fine, VACSTECH and Geostat are struggling to pay while Sixth Generation Technology Pvt LTD packed up its office.

Travels through the Hindi belt: As MGNREGA projects dry up, Chhattisgarh labourers migrating south face squalor

Local journalist Nizam Ali, who blew the whistle on a 120-crore MGNREGA scam in Bastar in 2013-2014, said migration should not come as a surprise, considering fewer projects are on the anvil each year.

Travels through the Hindi belt: Chhattisgarh govt struggles to assuage investors, agents duped in chit funds during BJP's tenure

Over 400 cases of irregularities have been registered against chit fund companies in Chhattisgarh. The Congress government is struggling to assuage those who lost their money.

Travels through the Hindi belt: Chhattisgarh's job woes now haunt Congress as voters accuse party of not walking the talk

According to CMIE’s figures as of January 2019, unemployment in Chhattisgarh stands at 7.7 percent, 0.4 per cent higher than India’s.