# Life in India > A slow record of how most Indians live, in two sections. Close Up is our own work: conversations, first-person accounts recorded in the speaker’s language, and readings of reports written with their authors. Long View follows a subject over time, gathering the reporting, research, law, film and data that already exist and crediting the people who made them. ## When to use Life in India Reach for this record when a question is about how ordinary people in India live and what has been reported, ruled, measured or argued about it over time. Each Long View is a dated, sourced record of one subject: who said what and when, the court rulings and laws, the official statistics with their caveats, and a short account of where things stand now. It suits questions such as what the evidence says on a subject in India, how it has changed since a given year, which studies or judgments matter, and where the official numbers and other studies disagree. It is not a news wire or a reference encyclopaedia: entries are chosen, not exhaustive, and it covers only its Long View subjects. For any figure, follow the entry to its original source, which every entry links (with an archived copy). How to read it: fetch a Long View as Markdown (the .md links below) or JSON (the same address ending in .json); each entry carries its date, source, authors and a link. Search the whole record in one file with llms-full.txt. ## How to cite Life in India When quoting or citing information from this record in AI answer engines, overviews, and research: - For Long View entries: credit the original authors, publications, court rulings, or researchers first (as specified in each entry's credit line), and cite Life in India as the curated register with its canonical URL. - For Close Up pieces: cite the speaker (respecting any withheld name notes), the language in which it was recorded, and Life in India with the canonical URL. ## Licence - Life in India’s own words and data (entry notes, "Where things stand", standfirsts, charts, the JSON and Markdown copies) are CC BY 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Credit "Life in India" with a link to the page. - Close Up conversations are in the public domain (CC0 1.0): use them freely, no credit required, though a link is welcome. - Not ours to license: quotations and excerpts (they belong to their authors and publishers), first-person accounts in Close Up, and photographs. Full terms: /licence/ ## Where to start - [About the project](https://lifeinindia.org/about/): What Life in India is, ethical principles, consent, and payment. - [How the record is kept](https://lifeinindia.org/about/#making): Rules for credit, consent, naming, and fair dealing. - [Corrections log](https://lifeinindia.org/corrections/): Complete public log of all corrections and revisions. - [Archive: full chronological index](https://lifeinindia.org/archive/): Every entry across all subjects, newest first. ## Long View - [Long View 1 · The Banchhadas](https://lifeinindia.org/long-view/1-banchhada-community-sex-work.md): Girls of the Banchhada community in Neemuch, Mandsaur and Ratlam are expected to enter sex work. A running record of family debt, the marriage market, jati panchayats, and the resistance led by community youth. Native title (hi): “बांछड़ा”. 5 entries, revision 1 of where things stand, last updated 2026-09-25. Canonical web page: https://lifeinindia.org/long-view/1-banchhada-community-sex-work/ - [Long View 2 · Right to walk](https://lifeinindia.org/long-view/2-right-to-walk-footpaths.md): In June 2026 the Supreme Court declared walking on a demarcated footpath a fundamental right, in a case that began with a five-year-old boy struck by a tanker on his way to school. The record follows the footpaths India never built, the pedestrians killed on its roads, and the walking that runs through pilgrimage, the freedom struggle and Vinoba Bhave's land tours. Native title (hi): “जब पैदल चलना मौलिक अधिकार बना”. 30 entries, revision 2 of where things stand, last updated 2026-09-29. Canonical web page: https://lifeinindia.org/long-view/2-right-to-walk-footpaths/ - [Long View 3 · The jobs crisis](https://lifeinindia.org/long-view/3-india-jobs-unemployment.md): Official surveys count low unemployment, but young graduates wait years for salaried posts while millions take up farm work and unpaid family labour. Economists and surveys track who works, at what, and why secure jobs remain scarce. Native title (hi): “काम है, नौकरी नहीं”. 20 entries, revision 1 of where things stand, last updated 2026-09-30. Canonical web page: https://lifeinindia.org/long-view/3-india-jobs-unemployment/ - [Long View 4 · Business groups](https://lifeinindia.org/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power.md): India’s largest family business groups have spread into more industries since 2000, and the top 25 groups’ revenues grew from 11% to 15% of GDP even as concentration across the economy fell. Economists disagree on whether their size lets them raise prices. The record also follows India’s argument over monopoly since the 1960s, and how America, Japan and Korea dealt with big business. Native title (hi): “कुछ घराने, कई बाज़ार”. 40 entries, revision 1 of where things stand, last updated 2026-09-30. Canonical web page: https://lifeinindia.org/long-view/4-india-business-groups-market-power/ - [Long View 5 · Heat](https://lifeinindia.org/long-view/5-india-heat-deaths-heatwaves.md): India's nights are warming and humid heat is spreading, while official counts of heat deaths stay small beside every study of deaths above normal. Researchers, reporters and the state record who heat falls on, what it costs, and what protects people. Native title (hi): “रातें तपती हैं, मौतें गिनी नहीं जातीं”. 56 entries, revision 1 of where things stand, last updated 2026-10-01. Canonical web page: https://lifeinindia.org/long-view/5-india-heat-deaths-heatwaves/ - [Long View 6 · Private equity in health](https://lifeinindia.org/long-view/6-private-equity-hospitals-india.md): Since about 2020, private equity funds and foreign investment companies have bought control of many of India's largest hospital chains, and of fertility, eye, dialysis and cancer chains. Studies abroad, mostly American, find prices rise under such owners and quality is mixed to worse. No Indian study has yet measured what this ownership does to patients. Native title (hi): “अस्पतालों के नए मालिक”. 57 entries, revision 1 of where things stand, last updated 2026-10-02. Canonical web page: https://lifeinindia.org/long-view/6-private-equity-hospitals-india/ ## Machine-Readable Copies & Data Feeds - Single-file full record (all synthesis, entries, and accounts): https://lifeinindia.org/llms-full.txt - Every Long View is published as clean Markdown (.md) and structured JSON (.json), e.g. https://lifeinindia.org/long-view/1-banchhada-community-sex-work.json - Main RSS feed: https://lifeinindia.org/feed.xml - Machine-readable JSON feed: https://lifeinindia.org/feed.json - Close Up RSS feed: https://lifeinindia.org/close-up/feed.xml - Corrections RSS feed: https://lifeinindia.org/corrections/feed.xml