Mohua Das

The Times of India • 6th February 2022

Manual scavenging is still an open secret, bares youth campaign

Three years ago, when a 19-year-old Aniket Udale stood at Thane's mazdoor naka, jostling with daily wagers like him, each trying to get noticed by contractors who may have jobs to hire them for the day, he thought he got lucky when someone picked him. But it wasn't for the usual repair or cleaning work that he had done in the past.

The Times of India • 6th February 2022

How desi troll armies have built a coded language of abuse

They outwit algorithms by using vernacular slurs, changing spellings, or replacing letters with punctuation marks and symbols, say experts

The Times of India • 23rd January 2022

Parted by Partition, reunited by two Pakistani YouTubers

200 reunions and counting…The duo behind Punjabi Lehar has made it their mission to help people from both sides of the border track down long-lost kin and friends

The Times of India • 28th December 2021

How 2021 changed life forever for India’s Covid orphans

10-year-old Aastha retreats into silence, 11-year-old Harsh buries his head in books and a 3-year-old doesn’t even know his parents are not coming back. Mohua Das speaks to their new caregivers

The Times of India • 19th December 2021

Plight of city's homeless women that call for attention & action

The rape and murder of a pavement dweller at Sakinaka in September had trained the spotlight on Mumbai’s homeless women. If many wind up on footpaths and under flyovers for lack of shelters and affordable housing, others are fleeing abuse, forsaken by families or mentally ill who lost their way. Mohua Das tracked a day in the life of this invisible lot risking their lives under the open skies

The Times of India • 7th December 2021

'50% of pet owners dumped their lockdown companions'

As the world moved on and the initial enthusiasm waned, many new pet parents realised they weren’t dog or cat people after all

The Times of India • 5th December 2021

Inside the secret digital lives of India’s Gen Z - Times of India

Join us and get access to insightful, multimedia storytelling like you have never seen before.

The Times of India • 15th November 2021

How runaway teens plan their escape in virtual chat rooms

Unhappy youngsters are turning to ‘runaway’ communities on Discord and Reddit for advice as well as accomplices

The Times of India • 10th October 2021

From emojis to crypto, tech has changed how teens shop for drugs

The action has shifted from dark alleys to the smartphone with youngsters using their own drug slang and tech smarts to score. Sunday Times takes a deep dive into D-commerce

The Times of India • 19th September 2021

No shelter for homeless women for whom each day is fraught with risks

The brutal rape and murder of a pavement dweller at Sakinaka has put the spotlight on Mumbai's homeless women. Whether they are living alone or with a family, every minute on the street after dusk is fraught with danger.

The Times of India • 29th August 2021

Govt school teachers are the unsung warriors of this pandemic

With his primary role as a school teacher set aside, Praveen Yadav from Nalaspora, buckling under the pressure of balancing online classes with frontline work through the pandemic, does not want his vocation to be celebrated on September 5, a day to honour teachers.

The Times of India • 12th July 2021

Pandemic illuminates need to bridge digital divide, give access to disabled

Before the virus came along, Ninad Pawar (25)—living with severe visual impairment since birth—would spend three days a week at his favourite haunt, the National Association for the Blind at Worli Seaface where he would browse braille and talking books , check job resources and practise Excel and Powerpoint at the computer lab. The overnight shift to an all-virtual mode during the pandemic tossed out Pawar’s routine and along with that a safe space for a young person with a disability.

The Times of India • 27th June 2021

Pandemic nightmares? Get help at Dutch psychoanalyst’s ‘spooky cafe’

Somewhere along the streets of Varanasi, is accosted by a big black cobra with its hood spread out, staring at him in rage. He wants to run away but the ground beneath him is teeming with angry venomous vipers. He fears that if he moves, they might bite and so he freezes.

The Times of India • 6th June 2021

Is India’s Greta Thunberg a pawn in the hands of an unscrupulous father?

In the pandemic, young climate activist Licypriya Kangujam reinvented herself as oxygen messiah. Her father’s arrest for fraud has raised questions about her Covid fundraising as well as her green credentials

The Times of India • 23rd May 2021

Watch out for the Covid rip-offs

Desperate appeals on social media can get you real help but not always. Scamsters have created fake forwards for medicines, oxygen to dupe Covid-hit of money, hope

The Times of India • 23rd May 2021

How children brought water to a parched village in Latur

They say, it takes a village to raise a child. In a curious case, it took children to lift Vaishali Nagar, a village in Latur — that has been the face of Marathwada's acute water scarcity — out of a crisis.

The Times of India • 16th May 2021

Care for carers: Mental health professionals fight anxiety, fatigue

“I love what I do, and I feel guilty if I’m not always available. I have mixed emotions. I also feel exhausted and ambushed. Is this really happening?” sighs Radhika Bapat, a slight young woman, her thoughts restlessly vacillating. In other times, these are questions that she would have been fielding to help others battle their anxiety and fear. But for the first time in her career, Bapat, a clinical psychologist, found herself experiencing the same emotions alongside them.

The Times of India • 10th May 2021

Covid leaving kids orphaned, but viral adoption pleas are illegal

In the midst of cries for oxygen and emergency drugs on social media, a desperate appeal that stopped people in their thumb scrolling tracks a fortnight ago was a message urging families to adopt two girls—one aged three days and another six months—with the claim that they had lost their parents to Covid. “Please help these kids get a new life, spread the word,” urged the post that quickly went viral.

The Times of India • 26th April 2021

From crowded jails, prisoners walk out to isolation and hunger

When 55-year-old Amol* walked out of the gates of Taloja Central Jail in April last year, he had his priorities in place: see his wife, find a job and settle back into the landscape he hadn’t seen in almost a year. His joy was short-lived.When everyone went into ‘lockdown’ last year, things were different for people locked in prison.

The Times of India • 28th March 2021

India’s first openly gay actor to win a national award on his journey from insults to stardom

The voice on the other end is rapturous. Not without reason. Benjamin Daimary ’s afternoon nap had been just interrupted by a phone call telling him that his role in the Assamese film Jonaki Porua (Fireflies) had won him the jury’s special mention at this year’s National Awards for acting. “I was like, ‘What! Me? Why me?’ when Prakash-da ( Prakash Deka , director of Jonaki Porua) called. So I googled to confirm,” he says, all dressed up for his interview.