Chhavi Sachdev

For the growing number of working women in Dhaka, commuting to work can be a challenge. The traffic is terrible and cars and taxis are expensive. Public transport is not only inconvenient, it is sometimes unsafe - many women face unwanted sexual attention on buses.
After his wife was harassed by a taxi driver, one young entrepreneur set up a motorbike ride-share service with a difference. Not only are the customers all women, the drivers are too.
Reporter Chhavi Sachdev meets some brave women finding new ways to navigate Bangladeshi traffic and society.

(Photo Credit: BBC)

[BBC Health Check] starts at 13'30

Indian authorities are enacting rules to limit the weight of children’s school bags after a campaign highlighting the dangers of heavy school bags. Children have developed of back pain, skeletal and nerve damage because of the weight of the textbooks they have been expected to carry. Chhavi Sachdev talks to overburdened children, parents, doctors and school teachers.

Image: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/school-bag-schoolbag-backpack-4308691/

Waste, trash, garbage – whatever you call it, unwanted materials have become a major presence in many of our lives and our environment. Every year it is estimated that humans around the world produce 2 billion metric tonnes of waste. Listener Clare from Devon in the UK wants to start tackling this herself. She would like to know if she can not just sort but process all her own recycling at home.

Presenter Marnie Chesterton attempts to find out by asking the professionals. She heads out to an industrial-scale recycling plant to see if any of their gear could work in our homes, hears from repor

In this 30 minute show about milk, I contributed a segment from India talking to people about their milk consumption - we are one of the highest producers AND consumers of dairy in the world, here in India.

Engineer Anand Malligavad is a lake enthusiast trying to bring India’s dried up lakes back to life. His plan is to regenerate 45 lakes in the Bangalore area by 2025.

He has been making progress, as he tells Outlook’s Chhavi Sachdev as they took a lakeside walk. The story starts at about 35 minutes in.

[Podcast] According to the World Health Organisation more than 120 million couples globally want contraceptives but do not have access to them or do not like the existing options. There is clearly a need for something different, but new forms of contraception are slow to come to the market. For several decades, there have been attempts to develop a contraceptive vaccine which works very differently from long-lasting hormonal injections. A 92 year-old scientist in India is currently leading the way. Chhavi Sachdev reports form the city of Delhi.

Did you know that each neighbourhood in the skinny island city of Mumbai boasts a government-appointed area for vegetable and fruit sellers? If it is cupcake moulds, antique gewgaws, wedding bangles and all sorts of Indian trinkets that you’re looking for, other markets will come to the rescue.
Probably as a result of the expensive real estate, in addition to restaurants, pubs and clubs, the majority of ground floors across local buildings are leased out to stores. What follows is that findin...

[Podcast] When Mumbai's Ekinath Khedekar started to go blind at the age of seven, he knew he wouldn't let his disability hamper his sense of adventure — even cycling up the Himalayas to the highest mountain pass in the world.

*** Ladakh is high on most people's bucket list. A few months ago, I met someone who meant to do it on a cycle. But what made him even more extraordinary is that he's blind.

Discover gleaming lakes, beautiful palaces and colourful bazaars in the historical city of Udaipur
Udaipur is often called the ‘Venice of the East’ and while this may be a slight exaggeration, the numerous lakes and bridges certainly lend it a unique charm. Seemingly frozen in time, this historical city still has a palace with a royal family in residence. No wonder it was the backdrop for James Bond’s adventures in ‘Octopussy’ (screenings of which happen daily around the old city). There’s pl...

[Podcast] Volunteers around the world regularly get together to fix other people’s broken stuff free of charge. Reporter Nick Holland visits an event called a Repair Café in the Netherlands and links up with Chhavi Sachdev who meets a team running a similar workshop in India (Bangalore) He asks what difference this 'make do and mend’ movement can make to our disposable culture.

Photo: Bangalore Repair Cafe/Chhavi Sachdev

Photo 2 Caption: Repairing a radio with a soldering iron/BBC

Explore this vibrant city with our guide to the best things to do, see, eat and drink in Pune

Pune is used to living in the shadow of Mumbai, which is located only three hours away by car. But thanks to its massive student population and the influx of expats who’ve returned to the cooler, less polluted, and less crowded town, Pune is an exciting place to explore. History and culture abound, of course, but exciting restaurants and pubs make it even more vibrant. Here’s our list of things you c...

At 102-years-old, Man Kaur is India’s oldest competitive runner. In fact, she’s a world record holder. But for the first ninety years of her life, Man didn’t run at all. Outlook’s Chhavi Sachdev has been to meet her and to talk about her late-flowering passion.

Photo: Gurdev Singh

[Podcast] India and Pakistan have fought four wars and threatened each other with nuclear weapons for decades. Like most neighbors, they have differences — primarily in religion — but they do overlap in some areas, such as language, dress and, of course, food.

The cuisines that unite these two countries are being celebrated by one woman who has made it her mission to serve what she calls "bordered menus."

Ragini Kashyap, 30, hosts pop-up dinners around the world in an effort to showcase the underlying similarities between cultures that are separated by conflict.

Gujarat chooses to grow maize and wheat, despite being drought-prone, which leaves these crops failing and farmers hungry. But one woman’s secret mission to plant hardy millet has turned fortunes around.
PANCHIYASAAL, Gujarat – When Navali Nayak sowed her millet in 2007, she did it in secret. She held the seeds in a fold of cloth at the waist of her saree and dropped them intermittently into the furrows her husband, Magan, was ploughing, just a few feet ahead of her. He believed she was plant...

Leena Kejriwal's art installations are hiding in plain sight across India. In small towns and big cities, stark black silhouettes of little girls are spray-painted on buildings, railway station walls, the boundaries of schools and in crowded markets.

They tell the story of how every eight minutes, according to national crime statistics, a girl in India goes missing into the sex trade, into domestic slavery, into organ trafficking or by sex selection even before birth.

Read more: Brave Indian ...