'A five-year-old Dalit child allegedly died of hunger in Jharkhand’s Latehar district on May 16. Her father, a brick-kiln worker, said he had not been earned any wages during the lockdown. Video testimonies released by activists who visited the child’s home in Hesatu village, show family members, neighbours and community health workers attributing Nimani’s death to hunger. “She died of hunger,” the child’s mother, Kamlawati, can be heard saying in one of the videos. “She had not eaten for four-five days. What can we eat when there is nothing to eat?”...'
'A 40-year-old Jharkhand man heading home, mostly on foot from Nagpur, collapsed near Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh on Sunday and died a few hours later in a local hospital on Monday morning. “The deceased Ravi Munda (40) was a labourer from Saraikela in Jharkhand, who was working in some private company in Nagpur. His body has been handed over to his brother and cremation will be done in Bilaspur on Wednesday with the help of police,” said IG Bilaspur zone, Dipanshu Kabra...'
'Pregnant and bleeding, a woman who came to a Jamshedpur hospital was allegedly asked to clean up her blood, accused of spreading the coronavirus, and turned away-events which culminated in the loss of her child. The Jharkhand Police has taken cognizance of the incident and the Jamshedpur SSP has been asked to inquire into the matter...'
'In an unusual bail condition, the Jharkhand high court granted bail to a former Bhartiya Janata Party member of parliament and five others and asked them to deposit an amount of Rs 35,000 each into the PM-CARES fund. The order, uploaded on LiveLaw, states that the accused would have to download the Aarogya Setu app after getting released, along with contributing the bail deposit to the PM-CARES fund...'
'It's been three days since Chandrawati Devi, 32, had anything to eat. Her family of eight in Jharkhand's Garwa district has been starving ever since the lockdown. She is now afraid that if left unattended, they might die out of hunger. "I can't even go out to beg because of the lockdown. We've used up everything we had to feed the children," she says. Resident of Korkoma village, Chandrawati used to work as a daily-wage labourer in a nearby brick kiln.
'A youth was beaten to death and two others were injured on Tuesday after rumours about Muslim men intentionally spitting to spread the coronavirus led to clashes in Jharkhand’s Gumla district...'
'Areas which should have been wildlife sanctuaries, teeming with animals and birds, now lie hollowed out and turned into opencast iron ore mines in Jharkhand. This has happened at the hands of the state government. In an elaborate plan it has clandestinely wiped three wildlife sanctuaries off its records in iron ore-rich West Singbhum district. These are Sasangda- buru in Saranda forest division, Bamiaburu in Kolhan forest division and Songra or Tebo in Porahat division. The plan has been so meticulously executed that one has to sift through records of the past 55 years to unmask it...'
'Almost 90% of the ration cards that the Jharkhand government declared invalid between 2016 and 2018 belonged to real households, a study by the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab revealed on Thursday. Almost 56% of these deleted ration cards were not linked with Aadhaar. The study comes at a time when the Jharkhand government is reportedly preparing for another round of mass deletion of ration cards. According to some estimates, 23 deaths due to starvation and non-availability of subsidised food grains were reported in Jharkhand between 2015 and 2019.
'Dhanbad Police of Jharkhand has registered a case against more than 3,000 people on Tuesday under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including the law against sedition (124 A) for their involvement in a protest against the the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act and National Register of Citizens... Notably, no violence and obstruction was reported during the protest. In fact, there is no mention of the same in the complaint. While there is a mention of inflammatory slogans, it does not go into what those slogans were.
'In its first decision, the Hemant Soren government in Jharkhand on Sunday dropped all cases filed against supporters of the Pathalgadi movement in 2017 and 2018, The Indian Express reported. The Pathalgadi movement started in 2017, when stone monoliths engraved with provisions of the Indian Constitution began to be installed in the villages of Khunti. The engravings highlighted the special autonomy granted to Adivasi areas under the Fifth Schedule of the Indian Constitution.
