Karnataka: Videos/Mapping India
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To investigate if your 9-5 corporate job has labour laws for your safety and well-being, Newsreel Asia producer Jyoti Jangra travels to India’s Silicon Valley—Bengaluru—to find out a quiet crisis unfolding inside corporate cubicles: the crumbling mental health and legal protections of India’s white-collar workforce. This video traces how India’s outdated labour laws—written for factory floors, not tech corridors—have failed to keep pace with a changing workforce. It raises urgent questions: Who benefits from longer hours? Why is unionising still taboo for white-collar workers? And can India truly claim progress if its workforce is quietly burning out? Karnataka, with Bengaluru at its centre, has become the heart of India’s white-collar economy. The state is home to over 16,000 startups and nearly 40% of the country’s IT workforce. Young professionals from across India migrate here in search of opportunity, career growth, and financial stability. But behind the façade of high-rises and tech parks lies a growing unease—marked by mental health concerns, job insecurity, and weakening labour protections.
Hanumanthi was in labour for the third time at a small government health facility in Karnataka’s Raichur district when she began to bleed heavily. The centre lacked the equipment to manage the emergency. Her family was told to rush her to a larger hospital. But how does a woman in the middle of childbirth survive a long road journey? Why was the local facility unprepared? Her family is left with questions—questions shared by many across rural Karnataka.
How two Muslim minority women sisters faced unfair treatment by Karnataka Police. Behind Bengaluru's giant tech offices lies a darker truth of the crimes against minorities of the state. The two Muslim women, both single mothers, now fight for survival every day. What began as a dispute with their landlady turned into a cascade of abuse, threats, and systemic neglect. Their journey — from reporting chemical attacks and violent assaults to being ignored by the very institutions sworn to protect them — reveals not just personal trauma, but a persistent crisis: the failure of India’s democracy to safeguard its minorities.
Their case is not an exception but a pattern. Karnataka’s conviction rate under the IPC in 2022 stood at 23.9%, well below the national average. Between 2020 and 2023, the state dropped 385 criminal prosecutions, including 182 tied to hate speech, cow vigilantism, and communal violence.
Their story asks a difficult question: in a democracy that promises equal justice, why are minorities still forced to beg for protection?