The women India’s biggest river project forgot

In the village, Gyan Rani’s daughter-in-law Pooja Gond meets a visitor at the door of her home and offers a cup of sweet black tea.Pooja is 21 years old, slight and soft-spoken, with a swelling on the right side of her face from a bee sting the night before. She speaks in a quiet, flat voice, the kind that comes not from shyness alone but from a deeper exhaustion, the exhaustion of someone who has already lost too much to spend energy on expression.She was one year into her marriage when her husband Parshuram died. He was a daily wage labourer. He developed severe abdominal swelling. The family sought treatment from a local doctor, but Parshuram's condition worsened. No formal diagnosis or post-mortem was ever carried out. Their one-year-old son later died after what the family believes was typhoid fever, although there was no formal medical confirmation.Pooja has not received a single rupee in compensation. Neither has her sister-in-law, who has voted but whom officials describe as underage. Pooja herself does not receive a widow's pension. Officials tell her she is too young for that too.The compensation built two small rooms. That is all the family has to show for the home they ...