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Young girls are pushed into illegal child marriages so they can work alongside their husbands cutting and gathering sugar cane. Labor brokers loan money for the surgeries, even to resolve ailments as routine as heavy, painful periods. Hysterectomies keep them working, undistracted by doctor visits or the hardship of menstruating in a field with no access to running water, toilets or shelter. But for many sugar laborers, the operation has a particularly grim outcome: Borrowing against future wages plunges them further into debt, ensuring that they return to the fields next season and beyond. Workers’ rights groups and the United Nations labor agency have defined such arrangements as forced labor.

Persons: Young, Hysterectomies Organizations: New York Times, Fuller, Labor, Workers, United Nations Locations: Maharashtra

There are moments in life that stick in memory as a fulcrum between before and after. Rohit, Arti’s new husband, was with her, his presence a tangible sign of his support. But even as Arti awaited the starting gun, the crowd of candidates beside her made painfully clear how much competition she faced. So many candidates had traveled to the exam site, on a remote campus in Uttar Pradesh State, that there was nowhere to house them all. Arti, Rohit and Meena had slept in a local gurudwara, a Sikh place of worship, packed in with the other hopefuls and their chaperones.

Persons: Arti Kumari’s, Meena, Rohit, Arti’s, Arti Organizations: Uttar Pradesh State Locations: Uttar Pradesh

For Nasreen, getting to New Delhi after she ran away from her family and the betrothal they had arranged for her was a daring feat. In the winter, the air pollution was among the worst in the world, clinging to skin and choking lungs. In her family’s flat, she cooked on a stove that added to the heat and smoke. When she could get outside, she had to walk a gantlet of leering men who lined the sidewalks. Delhi inspired her to dream of a bigger life and connected her to people who could help her reach for it.

Persons: Nasreen, Bindu Locations: New Delhi, Delhi

☆ India reassures confidence in Aadhaar after Moody's questions its reliability
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-25 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] A woman goes through the process of finger scanning for the Unique Identification (UID) database system, also known as Aadhaar, at a registration centre in New Delhi, India, January 17, 2018. REUTERS/Saumya Khandelwal Acquire Licensing RightsSept 25 (Reuters) - The Indian government on Monday reassured confidence in its digital identification system, Aadhaar, after a Moody's report last week highlighted concerns about it like establishing authorization and biometric reliability. India's ministry of electronics & IT said the Moody's report "does not cite either primary or secondary data or research in support of the opinions presented in it". The Aadhaar card, which is issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), has a unique number tied to an individual's fingerprints, face and eye scan. Moody's in its report had said that Aadhaar's system often results in service denials, and questioned the reliability of biometric technologies, especially for manual laborers in hot, humid climates.

Persons: Saumya, Aadhaar, Akanksha, Maju Samuel Organizations: REUTERS, Indian, IT, of India, Gandhi, Rural, Thomson Locations: New Delhi, India, Bengaluru

People burned out of their homes by the hundreds. Men, women and children beaten and set ablaze by angry mobs. India, the world’s most populous country and home to the fastest-growing major economy, is now also the site of a war zone, as weeks of ethnic violence in the remote northeastern state of Manipur has claimed about 100 lives. More than 35,000 people have become refugees, with many living in makeshift camps. Internet service has been cut — an increasingly common tactic by the Indian government — and travel restrictions have made it difficult for the outside world to see in.

Persons: — Locations: India, Manipur, China

☆ India's PhonePe launches e-commerce app on government's open network
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-04 | by ( Varunvyas Hebbalalu | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

REUTERS/Saumya KhandelwalBENGALURU, April 4 (Reuters) - Walmart Inc-backed (WMT.N) digital payments firm PhonePe Pvt Ltd launched an app called Pincode on the Indian government's open network on Tuesday to strengthen its e-commerce business. The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) was launched last year to enable small merchants and local stores across India to access processes and technologies typically deployed by large e-commerce platforms like Amazon (AMZN.O) and Walmart (WMT.N). Pincode, which will focus on hyperlocal commerce, is currently live only in Bengaluru and available on the Google Play Store and the App Store, PhonePe said in a statement. PhonePe already has an e-commerce platform, called Switch, on its app, which offers services including food delivery, grocery shopping, travel, hotel booking, retail fashion and healthcare. India's most valuable payments firm, PhonePe had raised $200 million from majority-backer Walmart in a pre-money $12 billion valuation in March.

☆ Big Tech's wipeout sends workers scrambling
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-22 | by ( Matt Turner | Dave Smith | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Hi, I'm Matt Turner, the editor in chief of business at Insider. Up first: I just returned to New York after a few days in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum. It was intense and informative, packed with meetings with business leaders and government ministers from around the world. Davos, Switzerland Hanna Erasmus and EyeEm/Getty ImagesMore than 1,500 business leaders descended on Davos in the Swiss Alps last week. Saumya Khandelwal/Hindustan Times via Getty ImagesIt was a wipeout at Silicon Valley's tech giants this week.

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