ruhani kaur

From Bogotá to Dhaka, women are likely to shoulder the bulk of chores and childcare. Six women talk about their duties and the challenge of shifting the burden now and for the next generation
India
Some days, Abha Kujur, 39, feels like the family “servant”. The housework is unending at the tiny rented flat in New Delhi she shares with her husband and three children. Her son, Nitesh, 18, goes to college, and her daughters, Neha, 23, and Nisha, 20, work as apprentices, but Kujur’s daily grind i...

In these trying pandemic-hit times, I explore the intertwined destinies of daughters struggling to complete their education as child brides and mothers fighting for financial independence as working women with low literacy. Ten million girls now face the risk of dropping out of secondary school, with the specter of almost as many child brides in future being frighteningly real. Many of these girls have dreams that they want to pursue, even as they are being married off in their teens. This is...

"I knew I had to stand up," Radha Devi, a covid widow says. "I had to change myself for the kids, or they too would get left behind."
"So many people died in front of me," she says, describing the long line of people coming into the emergency ward and the bodies being carted out. "It looked like people were going into the hospital to die. They were going but not coming back."

Photojournalist Ruhani Kaur traces the story of three child brides from the northern Indian state of Haryana who dream of studying and working against all odds.
Priyanka, Meenakshi and Shiwani grew up in Damdama, an urban village that is home to Gujjars, an influential agricultural community. Their village is less than half an hour from Gurgaon, an upscale suburb of India's capital, Delhi.
The girls, around 16 years old, have bee...

The Coal Within Series: The Burning Man, Darkness at Day and The Back Death were made in collaboration with Vivek Singh for Purpose International. It documents the journey of coal from the power plant to the human body, leaving a path ridden with disease in its wake at Singrauli, Madhya Pradesh.

Living next to three chimneys of the Anpara Thermal Power Plant, 50-year-old Rajkumar Devi connects the dots that led her to her ills: “I got blood cancer right from the time the plant started coming up. I spend `9,000 for 30 tablets from PGI every month.”

Living with Coal, a 4 minute film for which I collaborated with Vivek Singh was part of Purpose International’s entry for the ‘Help Delhi Breathe’ campaign which was a finalist in the Environment and Sustainability category in the 3rd Annual Shorty Social Good Awards of 2018. It documents the journey of coal from the power plant to the human body, leaving a path ridden with disease in its wake at Singrauli, Madhya Pradesh.

NEW DELHI — Inside a former army barracks, Simran Sagar sings a Hindi love song as she makes tea for her fiancé on what they hoped would be their wedding day. But their marriage keeps getting delayed.
Her voice echoes off the cold cement walls. "Like a shooting star that falls from the sky, our lives fell apart, darling," the lyrics go.
This is not how they imagined their first home together: a mattress on the floor, a hot plate to cook on and a police guard stationed out front. It's a secret...

By Roli Srivastava, Anuradha Nagaraj, Thomson Reuters Foundation

It's been over a month since his mother died, but Vishal Meghwal can still hear her struggling to breathe as he desperately messaged friends to lend him money for the drugs she needed. The coronavirus pandemic had already cost the 24-year-old his savings and his income from painting houses in Ajmer, a city of tombs and shrines in northwest India. Losing his mother was the biggest blow of all.

Charged with sedition, the pregnant Muslim woman remains in jail

Text by Gunjeet Sra and Images by Ruhani Kaur

We met Safoora Zargar, a 27-year-old M.Phil. student of Jamia Milia Islamia university in New Delhi, for the first time early this year when she was in the middle of a meeting, prepping for a peace march that Jamia was organising. In the middle of winter, swaddled in a coat, a scarf and big round glasses, she could easily pass off as any other student but her powerful voice and quiet...

Fears about safety are driving many women out of the workforce. Photographed for Bloomberg’s story on Sexual Violence is Holding back the Rise of India’s Economy, which part of ‘India’s Oppressed Women find a Voice’ won the SOPA 2019 Award for Excellence in Reporting on Women’s Issues.

Tsering Dawa is that rarest of things in Dharamshala, a new arrival.

Since 1959, when the Dalai Lama fled to India, this small city in the foothills of the Himalayas has been the spiritual and political heart of the Tibetan exile community. Tens of thousands have made the difficult journey here from Chinese-controlled Tibet, risking arrest and even death to escape Beijing’s increasingly stifling controls.

In recent years however, the flow of refugees has become a trickle, as pervasive surveil...

Jamyang Choetso has spent much of the past two years run off her feet, working as a nurse in the pandemic-stricken Indian capital of New Delhi. So it was only natural that she would take some time off - to participate in an international sporting event. Writes James Griffiths for The Globe and Mail. Photo: Ruhani Kaur/The Globe and Mail

‘The Grass Seeker’, published by Pratham Books, photo-book for children that traces a journey of a Gaddi shepherd in the Himalayas and how climate change has affected their way of life. Photos: Ruhani Kaur, Text: Uddalak Gupta

‘The Grass Seeker’, published by Pratham Books, photo-book for children that traces a journey of a Gaddi shepherd in the Himalayas and how climate change has affected their way of life. Photos: Ruhani Kaur, Text: Uddalak Gupta