Dakshana Bascaramurty
@DakGlobe
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Food culture reporter @globeandmail & author of This Is Not the End of Me @McClellandBooks dbascaramurtyATglobeandmailDOTcom Haven't tweeted in years
Joined July 2009
THREAD: Here's the result of many months of reporting by me, @udaysrana and @nehabhatt70 stretching from Brampton to rural Punjab on the huge machine that brings tens of thousands of international students from India to Canada each year.
theglobeandmail.com
From rural Punjab to suburban Brampton, Ont., a booming industry brings in thousands of Indians each year – but while recruiters and schools profit, many students flounder due to lack of supports
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Everything sucks so here is a small diversion I wrote that has nothing to do with omicron (feat. pics and video by @DBCalabrese and @meltait)
theglobeandmail.com
The co-owner of Doctor Piano hasn’t been able to see since he was a child – but when Nova Scotians need a heavy instrument moved, he can picture the best path to do it
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Great #L6P piece by @UdaySRana about a grassroots labour movement led by newcomers, a group that "are often taken advantage of and suffer mistreatment at the workplace because they are not yet permanent residents or citizens"
A group of young Punjabi immigrant workers in #Brampton are banding together & holding their employers to account. I write about this group. In Brampton, young newcomer workers stand up for their rights: ‘there is strength in numbers’ /via @globeandmail
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THREAD: In the cover story for the weekend edition of @globeandmail, @DakGlobe @UdaySRana and I worked our way into the heart of a crisis that emerged in Brampton, with roots in Punjab.
theglobeandmail.com
From rural Punjab to suburban Brampton, Ont., a booming industry brings in thousands of Indians each year – but while recruiters and schools profit, many students flounder due to lack of supports
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If you don't have the time to sit down with the article, I was on The Decibel, the Globe's daily news podcast, to talk about it. You can listen to my interview (and one with a student who travelled from rural Punjab to Brampton) here:
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We wanted to write about exploitation in the recruitment process of these students, what a boon they are not just to schools but to the economy as a whole, their struggles here, and the misleading image projected back to India of life in Canada.
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Sometimes their struggles can have the most extreme outcomes. We learned that Lotus Funeral Home & Cremation Centre handles an average of four or five international student deaths each month — most are suspected suicides or overdoses.
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But they were vulnerable long before COVID-19 hit and with the exception of a brief pandemic-related dip, they've been coming in greater numbers every year. Some schools grew their share of international students by more than 40 per cent from 2013 to 2020.
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They were the people working the temp jobs in warehouses, restaurants and factories. Many of them who got sick with COVID-19 spread the virus to their roommates in the cramped rental housing they shared. The lockdowns and Indian flight ban brought on serious depression.
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This spring, when @globeandmail started its deep dive into how north Brampton's #L6P neighbourhood was experiencing the pandemic, international students kept coming up in our stories.
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Most come on student visas not to study, but because it's a pathway to citizenship. The feds knows that, and so do colleges and universities. But instead of prosperity, many students encounter financial hardship, a tough labour market, unsafe housing and mental distress.
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An election #longread from L6P on how meaningless the label of "immigrant voter" has become: https://t.co/NOetqeCw1j
theglobeandmail.com
Among the South Asian diasporas of this Ontario city, the real issue of the 2021 election is not how fast Canada can bring in newcomers, but whether they’ll have the supports they need to integrate
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The latest L6P dispatch from @rajikauraujla and @ZosiaBielski on how some Punjabi women in Brampton found big and small ways during the pandemic to challenge traditional gender roles and cultural expectations: https://t.co/VlebWu2No3
theglobeandmail.com
South Asian community leaders say the pandemic gave couples the chance to have tough conversations about the long-standing inequities arising from patriarchal views
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A damning piece by @kellygrant1 & @simransingxh about how chronic underfunding at a hospital serving one of the fastest growing and most racialized cities led to a crisis when COVID-19 hit. More stories from our L6P series here: https://t.co/3MD8t5uKck
https://t.co/c09GtKKluB
theglobeandmail.com
When it comes to explaining why Brampton and its neighbouring communities have the fewest hospital beds per capita of any Ontario region, a city councillor for northeast Brampton says the reason is...
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Latest from L6P: @SinghhGundeep on how COVID-19 entered the Brampton home he shares with five roommates and infected them all. While recovering in isolation from each other, they learned the devastating impact COVID-19 had on their families in India. https://t.co/z14xZizVt0
theglobeandmail.com
Brampton journalist Gundeep Singh on how COVID-19 overtook his life here and overseas
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The Globe's new L6P project -- a long-term deep dive into one of the neighbourhoods most impacted by COVID-19 -- has taken over the homepage: https://t.co/GgpP4dq753. Love to see the first pieces translated in Punjabi, Hindi, Gujarati and Urdu.
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Special thanks to our L6P crew whose work you'll get to know in the months ahead: @AhmarSKhan, @CamillaBains, Raji Aujla, @iPreetBrar, @mariyah_salhia, @MariamNouser, Gundeep Singh, Vrunda Bhatt, and Simran Singh. Stay tuned...
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Graphics by @hichenwang and Murat Yukselir. Jaw-dropping design and development by @daniwebb_. Editing by @NicoleMacIntyre, @dawncalleja and Carol Toller. Visuals team leadership by @mattfrehner. @NicoleMacIntyre, our genius COVID-19 editor, leads our team.
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Reporting on this intro piece by yours truly and Vrunda Bhatt with reporting assistance from Gundeep Singh and @hichenwang. Photos by @2manycameras and Baljit Singh w/editing by @solanacain and video editing by @tmo_video (cont) https://t.co/lHmXthPfWW
theglobeandmail.com
To understand how one city continued moving throughout the pandemic when much of the country went still, we spoke to a taxi driver, a warehouse worker and other members of the community who live in...
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