Unreported World, as brief as it is and shown before the watershed as it is – and therefore often a rather sanitised version of the reportage – takes us to places that the world otherwise largely ignores and/or knew nothing about, and this was the case for me in last night’s programme which was presented by reporter Aidan Hartley. I have a little more to say about the scheduling at the end of this article, but for now, on to my review of it…

As I said, I had absolutely no idea about the coalmines in India, but as this documentary revealed, they play a huge part in the economy of some of the poorest of all India’s communities, and those featured last night were particularly wretched.

Villages, that would be more aptly called shanty towns, were precariously balanced upon a literally burning foundation of coalmines, the seams of which spewed forth noxious fumes and gases and where the heat on the surface – due to uncontained and uncontrollable fires beneath – could set light to paper on contact, as Aidan demonstrated… Read more & comment »