Articles by Anita Cheria

Anita Cheria is the Director of OpenSpace, an organisation that supports campaigns and community-led organisations with information, strategic planning, networking and documentation. She has had diverse experiences over the past 30 years, having worked with displaced communities, issues of business and human rights, sexual harassment of women in workplaces, gender and caste discrimination. The common thread through these has been a gender perspective along with concerns of inclusion and governance.

“Why do Shramik trains seem like planned nightmares?”

by June 5, 2020

Why do Shramik trains arranged after a 60-day long wait by workers have to be so carefully mismanaged? How do they end up taking extra-long routes? And why are passengers given such meagre amounts of water and food? Is this what ‘shramiks’ should get after spending days trying to satisfy all procedures, whims and fancies of the concerned departments and officials?  Why does everything to do with workers have to be a planned nightmare?  Let me share snippets from the journey of a worker from Bengaluru to Jampani village in Jharkhand, which led me to ask these questions.  The journey…

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