National laws aimed at redressing colonial imbalances reserve retail sectors, like that of brickmaking, for locals. But companies with outside investment, particularly from China, routinely flout the ...

KHUNTI, JHARKHAND — Most days, Mahavir Das Goswami rides an old black motorbike through narrow roads that snake through Khunti district. He tries to visit four or five villages. One pleasant June ...

LUBERO, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO — Construction is booming in Kirumba, where more than 30 buildings are under construction, and brick houses are springing up like mushrooms. The boom is in stark ...

MUMBAI, INDIA — Hindi is the most widely spoken language in India, with most of its speakers concentrated in the northern regions. But this year, states in southern and western India have consistently ...

HARARE, ZIMBABWE — Zimbabwe’s tobacco sector was once on the brink of collapse. Now, it’s booming again. Last year alone, it earned the country close to US$1 billion in revenue. But though the crop is ...

KYIV, UKRAINE — In April 2024, the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine voted to retain Judge Pavlo Kovalenko. This was in spite of a recommendation from the Public Integrity Council, ...

DHAKA, BANGLADESH — The house in the Geneva Camp where Md. Emon, now 18, was born is barely big enough to hold a bed. His family of seven lives there. In some cases, rooms like this host up to three ...

KAMPALA, UGANDA — Uganda’s ruling party, the National Resistance Movement, is attempting to block potential political candidates from running as independents. In April, it introduced a requirement for ...

HARARE, ZIMBABWE — In 2023, Peter, a truck driver, was approaching a border checkpoint between Zimbabwe and Mozambique. He had little reason to question what was in his truck’s sealed container — he’d ...

KATHMANDU, NEPAL — In 2024, Netra, a 21-year-old from a village in eastern Nepal, entered what he thought was a technology center in a remote area of Myanmar. Instead, what he found horrified him. The ...

HARARE, ZIMBABWE — Blessing Mucharambei’s uncle was just having lunch when he stood up, then collapsed. “[He] started bleeding from the nose,” she says, “and died on the spot.” As far as his family ...

NIRJULI, INDIA — The mood inside Nirjuli Town Baptist Church one evening in late March was somber. Around 170 people, mostly young congregants from local churches, had gathered to rally against the ...