LATEST NEWS: KEY DEVELOPMENTS YOU NEED TO KNOW
Latest Videos
Newsreel Asia is an independent news media committed to rigorous journalism and narrative storytelling across governance, democracy, economy and society, focused currently on India. Founded on World Press Freedom Day 2021, we work to cut through the noise and bring clear, truthful reporting to the forefront. Our perspective is humanitarian — we look at how issues shape the lives of ordinary citizens, not through the lens of political ideologies.
News Briefings
A video has emerged in which Maharashtra’s Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar is purportedly heard ordering a senior police officer to stop taking action against illegal soil excavation. Pawar’s party has attempted to explain the exchange, but the incident contradicts the constitutional framework that separates political authority from administrative functioning.
A journalist from Nagaland in Northeast India was shot twice during a reporting trip in the neighbouring state of Manipur. The attack came days after a senior political leader in Nagaland publicly rebuked him for airing critical views on the Assam government’s eviction drive.
Nepal’s government has ordered a nationwide shutdown of 26 social media platforms. The move appears aimed at suppressing independent political voices who have demonstrated credible governance and built popular support by engaging directly with citizens online, outside the control of established party structures.
Two contrasting news reports reveal institutional inconsistency in how citizenship rights are identified and protected. A 25-year-old Muslim woman, her husband and child were expelled to Bangladesh from Delhi despite holding multiple documents proving Indian citizenship, while the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) exempted undocumented non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh from prosecution under immigration laws if they entered India before Dec. 31, 2024.
At least 1,400 people have died and more than 3,100 have been injured in a powerful 6.0-magnitude earthquake that struck northeastern Afghanistan on the night of Aug. 31. The scale of devastation and the lack of timely global support indicate the growing tendency to let geopolitics override humanitarian imperatives.
Latest
Commentaries
India is moving closer to Russia and China, stepping away from its partnerships with Western democracies. This new direction weakens its position in global trade, technology and democratic cooperation, pulling India toward authoritarian governments and brings economic punishment and fewer reliable international ties.
China stands as a global giant, with the world’s second largest economy, an expanding military footprint and growing influence in international diplomacy. Yet for all its power, it remains deeply unsettled by a monk living in exile in the Indian Himalayas – the Dalai Lama, who will turn 90 on July 6. The reason lies in what he symbolises and what China has failed to control despite decades of effort.
Featured
Video Features
Kavitha, a mother in Raichur district, doesn’t follow the nutrition charts or growth tracking numbers. What she understands is hunger. The rice from the public distribution shop lasts less than a week. On some nights, there’s nothing but water and silence. For families like hers, malnutrition isn’t just a report—it’s dinner time. In Raichur, all women aged 15–49 are anaemic at a rate of about 57%, combining both pregnant and non‑pregnant groups, according to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5). Among children under five, 36.8% are stunted, 31.3% are underweight and 21.6% are wasted—figures that point to persistent, long-term nutritional deprivation.
Sections
Despite Warnings by environment experts, development projects like dams are turning out to be deadly. Destroying mountains, flooded rivers, The flash floods, cloudburst are not just natural, they are man made disasters.
Newsreel Asia’s producer Surabhi Singh travelled to Northeastern state of Sikkim to explore how a dam aggravated the flash floods of October 2023.
Mayalmit Lepcha, general secretary of the Affected Citizens of Teesta—a grassroots environmental group in Sikkim that unites local residents, particularly indigenous Lepcha communities—explains how their deep bond with nature compelled them to resist reckless development in the fragile, young mountains of Sikkim.
Neeta Oraon lives in Nazira, a small town in Assam’s Sibsagar district. At 27, she has already spent more than a decade working in a tea garden. Her dream of becoming a nurse gave way early to the demands of poverty, debt, and family survival. She now works long hours under the sun, earning 250 rupees a day while caring for her ailing mother. Like Neeta, thousands of women in Assam’s tea gardens remain trapped in cycles of generational hardship and unseen labour.
Narsisus was addicted for 27 years and survived multiple suicide attempts. Today, he runs a modest community rehab centre. With no frills, only a few beds, basic meals and peer support, it offers a fragile but vital lifeline for those who walk through its doors. His journey, from the darkest moments to helping others avoid the same brink, unfolds in a state battling one of India’s deadliest mental health crises: Sikkim.
What do India’s persecuted communities go through behind closed doors?
What happens when you sit across a dinner table and truly listen?
Over the course of 9 powerful episodes, The Dinner Table, a docu-series by Newsreel Asia, brings together stories from communities who have long been silenced, sidelined, or targeted — simply for their identity, faith, or beliefs.
As the host, I travelled across different states, cooked meals with families from Muslim, Kashmiri Pandit, Dalit, Christian tribal, Sikh, Tibetan, indigenous tribal, Kuki-Zo, and Chin communities — and sat down with them to share a meal. What unfolded was not just food on the plate, but raw, unscripted conversations around violence, displacement, discrimination, and the deep pain their communities carry.
Newsreel Asia Specials
DOCUSERIES
In 2006, just 12 days after her wedding, 23-year-old Pragya Prasun was travelling on a train when a man threw acid on her, leaving her with 47% burn injuries. What followed was a long and painful recovery, and a determination to create a support group for acid attack survivors.
Today, she is not just a survivor — she is a fierce activist, working to support and empower other acid attack survivors through her initiative ‘Atijeevan Foundation,’ an organisation that works with acid attack survivors across India, helping them access surgeries, legal aid, mental health support, and financial independence.
In this episode of Stories of Resilience, Host and Producer Mariya Rajan meets Pragya to trace her journey from being an acid attack survivor to an activist. We explore how she rebuilt her identity, challenged social norms, and became a beacon of hope for other survivors.
Sikkim, despite being rich in rivers, is facing a severe water crisis. In South Sikkim, where rainfall has dropped sharply, villagers like Durga have stepped in to fill the gaps left by failing systems. Once a farmer, he now works as an unpaid “barefoot engineer,” keeping water flowing when infrastructure cannot. This is the untold story of survival in the hills.
Gujarat stands as India’s foremost salt-producing state, contributing 85% to the nation's total salt output. Within Gujarat, 31% of this production originates from the Agariya community living within the Little Rann of Kutch. Despite being the primary contributors to the salt industry, the Agariya people find themselves receiving the smallest share of profits. Furthermore, they grapple with the adverse effects of climate change, directly impacting their livelihoods. In this narrative, Bhopa and Gunand, two Agariya salt farmers, shed light on the disparity in earnings within the salt farming sector.
Bhupat Bhai Sekhaliya, a diligent and hardworking rickshaw driver from Gujarat, belongs to the Dalit community. Despite his unwavering dedication, the respect he deserves eludes him, particularly from individuals of "upper" castes in his vicinity. Many daily activities, deemed "normal" for any resident, remain inaccessible to him. Defiance can lead to physical assault. However, Bhupat's story is not an isolated incident. In Gujarat, the spectre of violence against Dalits looms large, with an average of four cases reported daily. The past seven years have seen a staggering total of over 9,000 documented instances of such violence.
If you are living in Delhi, you might lose 12 years of your life because of air pollution. Jyoti Lavakare Pande, an author and a journalist from Delhi, writes an open letter to highlight the intensity of pollution in Delhi. She reflects on her mother's vibrant and resilient life, filled with smiles and melodies. Her mother, Kamale Pande, a classical vocalist, was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, struggling for every breath in Delhi's pollution. She pens down her mother’s journey to raise awareness about the invisible killer looming in Delhi’s air.
To mark four years since its founding on World Press Freedom Day, Newsreel Asia hosted an online discussion with frontline journalists who have reported from some of India’s most volatile conflict zones. The conversation took place just days before the latest escalation of hostilities between India and Pakistan, which saw the use of missiles, drones and artillery fire along the Line of Control.
This video is from the third episode of our online event series, “Newsreel Asia Conversations,” which gives you a chance to interact with filmmakers who explore social, economic and political themes in their works. It all came together from our team's interactions with these creative minds at the 2024 Dharamshala International Film Festival. In this episode, we featured screenwriter, lyricist and filmmaker Shashwat Dwivedi, and our conversation centred on “Revisiting Childhood,” based on his latest film “Bobby Beauty Parlour.”
A video has emerged in which Maharashtra’s Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar is purportedly heard ordering a senior police officer to stop taking action against illegal soil excavation. Pawar’s party has attempted to explain the exchange, but the incident contradicts the constitutional framework that separates political authority from administrative functioning.