meIn Baingwadi, a small village nestled deep in Uttarakhand’s Pauri district, silence begins long before the houses appear. “Here, only empty houses and hanging padlocks welcome you,” says Pratap Singh, 85, a retired sub-inspector of the Indo-Tibetan border police who lives alone. Of his two brothers, one settled in Pauri village and the other in Dehradun. His three daughters and one son all live out of state. “There is no one left.” He said quietly. “People only come back when there is a wedding or ceremony that must be held here.” Village pradhan Manvendra Rawat says that out of the 392 registered voters in the village, 125 live elsewhere. “Even the MGNREGA public works are incomplete. There is no one left to carry them out,” says Rawat.