TwoCircles.net

Musheera Ashraf, Twocircles.net Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh: India’s digital story is often told through numbers. Millions of UPI transactions every minute. Seamless online services. Government schemes linked to apps. But far away from this vision, in villages where phones are shared and passwords are guessed, women continue to stand at the margins of a world that has shifted faster than they could follow.

Sami Ahmad, TwoCircles.net In Bihar the long queues seen outside polling booths on November 6 and 11 were matched only by the lines that soon formed at railway stations. As soon as voting ended thousands of people rushed to catch trains the cheapest and most familiar route out of the state. These were not regular commuters. They were migrant workers in the lakhs heading back to faraway workplaces after a brief festival pause.

Midhat Samra, TwoCircles Ranchi: Suman Devi watched me photograph the pink auto and said that people come here to click pictures because the bright colour fascinates them but few bother to understand the struggles of the women who drive them. The pink auto scheme was launched in Jharkhand in 2013 after the Nirbhaya case to address women’s safety concerns. It aimed to empower women by giving them employment and the vehicles were equipped with features such as panic buttons and a GPS system.

Shah Khursheed, TwoCircles.net Bareera, 24, a postgraduate student from Pulwama, remembers the first signs of something being wrong with unsettling clarity. In Class 11, while living in a girls’ hostel in Srinagar, her periods suddenly stopped. One month passed, then another. The silence of her body frightened her. She whispered her worry to her roommate, who tried to calm her, but the unease never left.

Sami Ahmad, TwoCircles.net Patna: Nitish Kumar, despite being a partner and facilitator of the BJP, still seeks Muslim votes in the upcoming Bihar Assembly election.

By Sami Ahmad, TwoCircles.net Patna: As Bihar heads toward the 2025 Assembly elections, the Muslim community, which makes up 17.7 percent of the state’s population, stands at a political crossroads. With 243 seats in the Assembly and two competing alliances, the opposition Grand Alliance (Mahagathbandhan) and the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), Muslims face a familiar dilemma: how to balance the demand for fair representation with the pressing need to resist Hindutva’s advance.

Adeeba Jamal, TwoCircles.net Old Delhi’s narrow lanes have a life all their own. Every twist and turn carries a piece of history, some shining and some fading like old ink. In Ballimaran, there is Gali Qasim Jan, a name remembered even when its history is almost forgotten. It does not announce its past with plaques or polished boards. The air is filled with the honk of rickshaws, the distant echo of an azaan and voices calling over the clatter of chai glasses.

Farheen Saifi, TwoCircles.net “Kitna hai bad-naseeb ‘Zafar’ dafn ke liye, Do gaz zameen bhi na mili kuu-e-yaar mein.” (How unfortunate is Zafar, even in death, he was denied a place to rest in his beloved land) New Delhi: The couplet written by last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar over 160 years ago, when he was in exile in Rangoon, still echoes through Delhi.

Aditya Sharma, TwoCircles.net New Delhi: When 33-year-old Khushboo Jaiswal walked into a private hospital in Delhi, she was expecting a calm and natural childbirth filled with gentle pushes and the rhythm of labour. Within hours, she found herself on an operating table. “I was admitted to a hospital in Burari, Central Delhi, when my water broke at home. The doctor said my labour was taking too long, and normal delivery will not be possible.

Adnan Ali, TwoCircles.net Indore: Madhya Pradesh’s Indore, which is often celebrated as the cleanest in India, is facing a growing unease that has nothing to do with sanitation. The city is witnessing rising social tension as reports of alleged discrimination and boycott calls against the Muslim community often come to light. After targeting comedian Munawar Faruqui in the past, Eklavya Singh Gaur, son of BJP MLA Malini Laxman Singh Gaur, has made a new appeal.