In Hindustan Times: Atul Kochhar is the symbol of a far more widespread problem – the normalization of prejudice against Muslims. I run into my college friend after a gap of some years. Post the usual small-talk, she wants to know my views on the tolerance/intolerance debate. I tell her I am worried about the […]
The bigot in my drawing room Read More »
It has been reported that these godmen had planned to launch a Narmada Ghotala Yatra on April 1 to highlight a slew of ills from Chouhan’s apparent failure to stop cow slaughter to alleged corruption in the planting of saplings along the Narmada river. By some uncanny coincidence, the Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led Madhya Pradesh government’s
The official government patronage of godmen and sadhus is worrying Read More »
At the heart of this controversy lies not so much the right of a woman to choose her religion and spouse, but society’s attitude to women. We should be grateful for small mercies. On International Women’s Day, a day when hashtags were declaring ‘Time’s Up’ and ‘My Body is Mine’, our highest court reaffirmed a
The lamentable humiliations of Hadiya Read More »
A new generation of anti-status-quoists is unapologetic about its beliefs, unafraid about whom it is taking on and unfettered by the hackneyed script. No careers were brought down. No global hashtags were created. No roars reverberated throughout the world. And yet, women in India continued chipping away at that edifice called patriarchy. In a year
A year of assertion when notice has been served on patriarchy Read More »
Just picking up a musical instrument is an act of courage for Zohra, Afghanistan’s first all-woman orchestra. When the call came, she was home at Kunar for her holidays. Negin Khapalwak had just got admission into the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, the only music school in her country. But there was a problem. The
Afghan ensemble Zohra is a reflection of the transformative power of music Read More »
The price of speaking up is simply too high. We have a law, but most companies remain mindful of hierarchies that make it easy for powerful men to prey on subordinate women. When it comes to the crunch, who’s more dispensable, the boss or the one who reports to him? Did you know he…? Oh,
No naming names: India’s Harvey Weinstein moment is passing by in deafening silence Read More »
Hillary Clinton concedes that her new book titled ‘What Happened’ isn’t a comprehensive account of the elections, admitting that, “I couldn’t get the job done, and I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life.” I was on a flight out of Delhi when the results started coming in. But I wasn’t
What Happened: Hillary Rodham Clinton comes to the sisterhood party a little too late Read More »
Among the dozen women extraordinary women awarded for transforming India is an amputee mountaineer, an acid attack survivor, an educator and India’s first blade runner. Before she left her village to catch a flight to Delhi, Sunita Kamble’s grandmother had some advice for her: Don’t talk to strangers, follow instructions and, above all, don’t wave
Women achievers open paths to achieve what was perceived as impossible Read More »
In the 70th year of our Independence, a new generation of women, unwilling to be victims, is speaking up and saying ‘enough’. The Chandigarh stalking has received more than usual attention, some of it because one of the two men accused, Vikas Barala, is the son of the state’s BJP chief. But much of it
Whether it’s Varnika Kundu or Gurmehar Kaur, the fightback from women has begun Read More »
Governments, like citizens, need to be brave. If one woman in a wheelchair can speak up then surely countries must step up. A nation’s progress is not merely measured in terms of GDP but also in terms of inclusion and acceptance. She has five tattoos and, under her baseball cap, hair coloured ash blue. Born
Paralympian Goh shows the way for queer athletes to be themselves Read More »
Like Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela represented the best version of who we are as human beings: People who could be imprisoned but never diminished. People who never allowed themselves to become caricatures of how they were viewed by their oppressors. People who retained dignity despite systemic attempts to belittle them. Fired with idealism and passion,
Leaders like Mandela represent the best version of who we are as human beings Read More »
The price of annoying the establishment is steep, as Khan knows, it’s perhaps easier to compromise — a simple answer to the question of why we don’t have our Meryl Streep. A sure way of knowing when a superstar is about to release a film is by seeing how accessible he becomes. Voila, suddenly, there
Shah Rukh Khan, don’t blame the media if we don’t have an Indian Meryl Streep Read More »