Trolley Times

What it is: Trolley Times is a newsletter that began in December 2020 at the farmers' protest on Delhi's borders. Newslaundry described it on 19 December 2020 as a four-page biweekly, three pages in Punjabi and one in Hindi, carrying reports, opinion, cartoons and poems from protesters, union leaders and experts on the farm laws. Surmeet Maavi, one of its founders, told The Tribune that it aimed to bridge the communication gap between the protesters and their leaders and to explain the issue to the rest of the country, because mainstream media was not carrying the true news of the movement. A team member told IJNet that its aim was "news by the protests, for the protesters".

How it began and who ran it: The sources differ on who counts as a founder. Newslaundry credits the scriptwriter Surmeet Maavi and the documentary photographer Gurdeep Singh Dhaliwal. IJNet adds the physiotherapist Ajaypal Natt. The Tribune, reporting a Majha House online discussion on 5 January 2021, names Maavi, Navkiran Natt, Dhaliwal and Jassi Sangha as its founders. Newslaundry reported about 2,000 copies in the first run. By April 2021 IJNet reported about 5,000 copies an edition, handed out at the Singhu, Tikri, Ghazipur and Shahjahanpur sites by a team of about ten volunteers, with money to run for six more months through a nonprofit the team had set up. Contributors included academics, economists and farmers at the protest, and a regular column covered decisions of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha.

Key moments

• December 2020: the first issue appears.
• 26 January 2021: after protesting farmers entered Delhi and violence broke out, the team printed 7,000 copies (IJNet).
• April 2021: IJNet counts almost 20 editions.
• 19 November and 11 December 2021: Prime Minister Modi announced the repeal of the three farm laws, and the farmers ended the agitation. Hyperallergic reports that more than 670 protesters had died by then and that the government told Parliament it had "no record" of the deaths.
• 2024: Gurvinder Singh's documentary Trolley Times, named after the newspaper, had its international premiere in the Harbour section of the International Film Festival Rotterdam, running 151 minutes. Hyperallergic says it ends by intercutting a wheat harvest with the newsletter being printed.

Where it stands: The newsletter's own site asks readers for support and lists print editions numbered 15 to 22, all dated 2021. The sources opened give no later account of whether it still appears.