ENTRY DESCRIPTION
The world is black in Jharkhand, northeastern India. The entire area around the cities of Dhanbad, Jharia and Catras is full of coking coal, a treasure for the Indian economy (two thirds of all electricity in India is generated from this coal). Black dust and gasses shoot up from the ground: methane, carbon monoxide are in the air and many of the people who live and work in the region suffer for letal respiratory problems. Bokahapadi is a small village inside the coal area. The only economic activity is mining for one of the seven big companies. Those villagers do not work, scavenge coal illegally every day for survive: early in the morning, before the activity of miners start, they take small pieces of coal and loading into wicker baskets for sell at black market. In Bokahapadi area there are very few old people and many children and teens: people die young . But without a real job, these families don't have others chances.

AUTHOR
Erberto Zani is an Italian freelance photojournalist based between Parma (Italy) and Basel (Switzerland). Since 2008 he focused on capturing people’s daily life, strength in their environments. His work documents social and environmental issues, systemic inequalities, cultural traditions.
His photo has been published on BBC Newsround, Cnn Travel, Der Spiegel, El Pais, Financial Times, Lonely Planet, The Economist, The Times, among others.

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