Safina Nabi

In the middle of a concrete tower block, Jain has carved out a subtle revolution. Her apartment challenges the assumption that eco-friendly living belongs only to villages or luxury retreats. Instead, it shows how practices passed down the centuries can find urgent new expression in the most unlikely places: A middle-class high-rise on the edge of Delhi.
Jain’s inspiration came from Van Bhoj, a mud-house in Faridabad that was built in the 1990s on the site of a former stone quarry using tradi...

The morning sun had barely risen over the Pir Panjal mountain range in the Lower Himalayas, but the air already carried an unnatural weight. To its north-east, near the Indian-administered region of Jammu and Kashmir’s largest city, Srinagar, lies Astanmarg, a higher altitude pasture whose cooler air once drew local communities to bring their livestock grazing during the warmer months.
But in mid-May 2025, the temperature was unusually high in the early mornings. Seventy-year-old Rahim Poswal...

The Indian government’s global ambitions are undermined by regional uprisings from Bangladesh to Nepal.
DIBYANGSHU SARKAR / AFP)
NEW DELHI—Back-to-back student-led uprisings in Bangladesh and Nepal have toppled governments there, signaling a generational shift in South Asian politics. From Colombo to Dhaka to Kathmandu, Generation Z is emerging as a disruptive force, challenging corruption, dynastic elites, and stagnant economies.
The scale and speed of these social movements have surprised e...

Just 10 minutes before Kalgi, a village in Uri, was hit by a shell after tensions escalated between India and Pakistan during Operation Sindoor, Zahida Bano had managed to escape her family home with her 16-day-old baby. Her home is just 10 km east of the Line of Control and it was 2 am.
Along with her family of 32, Zahida sought refuge in a bunker they had built in their backyard. Measuring 10×8 feet, it was the only bunker in the village. It took them more than a year and their life’s savin...

The next generation of Kashmiri leaders is entering politics without fluency in the local language.
SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP via Getty Images
It was a sunny mid-morning in South Kashmir, the kind of heat that slows everything down. Beneath the wide shade of a chinar tree, a group of young boys had gathered, their laughter ringing out as they huddled over a mobile phone. An elderly man walking past shook his head and muttered, “Today’s generation, always laughing at themselves.” Still clutching his ...

When he was growing up, Bikash Das heard whispers from time to time about girls vanishing from his Indian town, Basirhat. After a while, people stopped asking what had happened to them.
“It became something you didn’t talk about,” Mr. Das says.
It wasn’t until two decades ago, when he went away to college and began volunteering with a local nonprofit in Kolkata, that he started to connect the dots behind the disappearances. He learned that many girls who go missing in his flood-prone region a...

A warming planet is creating a new pipeline for exploitation – human trafficking – turning natural calamities into human tragedies.

Politics
Undocumented Bangladeshi climate migrants in India lack legal protections and face rising anti-immigrant rhetoric and crackdowns, all amplified by the ruling BJP government and Hindu nationalists
A 22-YEAR-OLD from Satkhira district in southwest Bangladesh, bordering the Indian state of West Bengal, shared the story of how she and her family had ended up in India some two years ago. Back in Bangladesh, she recalled, they lived on just BDT 200 a day – just over USD 2 at the time – the...

On a quiet June morning in Dudran, a remote village in the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir, the stillness is broken only by the rustle of the breeze, the gurgle of mountain streams, and the lively chirping of birds. Amid this calm, Mohammad Aamir walks steadily, balancing a deaag, a large metal vessel, brimming with fresh milk. He is headed toward the village’s traditional cooling cave, locally known as a dodh daaer or dodh khot, a centuries-old, stone-lined chamber fed by icy ...

Touqeer Ashraf and his younger brother, Tasaduq, are using a smartphone to make a short video of almond trees. They capture the smallest details, including the contrast between the blossoms’ white and light-pink petals, and how the branches dance in the gentle breeze.
Touqeer Ashraf narrates the segment in fluent Kashmiri, noting the significance of almond orchards for the Indian-administered Kashmir Valley, the stages of growth for almond trees, and the nutritional and economical value of al...

How a company in Kanpur is giving India’s flower waste a second life.

Dispatch
Bangladeshi climate refugees are streaming into India—and revealing the strained future of global migration.
By Safina Nabi, an independent multimedia Journalist from South Asia based in Kashmir, and Kanika Gupta, an independent journalist and documentary filmmaker based in Delhi, India, with over seven years of experience.

I
t was a sweltering summer day in Haryana in northern India, yet the scorching heat did not deter 13-year-old Nandini Jaglan and her 10-year-old sister Yachika from marching with determined steps toward their school.
Both clutched charts and placards, but these weren’t meant for a show-and-tell session. Rather, the sisters were on a mission to promote vital changes within their school, chief among them installing informative posters in girls’ washrooms about menstrual health – covering what ...

This story highlights the relentless work of four women from South Asia. These are women who have faced intimidation, character assassination, and countless obstacles, yet refuse to be silenced – Safina Nabi reports
South Asia: From Afghanistan to Iran, Pakistan to Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, South Asia has teetered on the edge—grappling with war, economic crises, and the rise of authoritarian regimes. Yet, amid this turbulence, one constant has emerged the unwavering strength of women. Across...